It’s hard to find a place to start. What can I tell you about Zambia? What words can I use to try and show you? How does one try to even begin to write out emotions that cannot be put into words?
It is like trying to describe the color blue to someone who is blind.
I will do my best, but just know that so much is lost through this simple blog, and I encourage each one of you to use your God-given imagination and try to picture a place full of heat and sweat and red dirt where hell and heaven collide.
We landed in Johannesburg, South Africa sometime at the beginning of September. I apologize ahead of time for my indifference towards dates and times. It really has started to all run together. From there, my team embarked on a long and tedious 45 hour bus ride to Livingstone, Zambia. Two days, two boarder crossings and two swollen feet later, I crawled into my tent and fell asleep under the Zambian sky for the first time.
My team was set up to work with a mission organization called Overland Missions.
Please take a minute (no really it is a pretty short explanation) to read about what exactly they do at the website: http://www.overlandmissions.com/article/our-story/
Overland Mission’s base is nestled on top of one of the most beautiful mountains, or gorges, that I have ever seen. It is literally right next to Victoria Falls, one of the most renowned tourist destinations in the world. The food was amazing, the people were amazing, and despite one tarantula incident I had in the shower one evening, the base was a completely relaxing place to rest and reenergize with my team in between what they called “expeditions”.
Now here was the hard part. Expedition life meant that we were placed in complete isolation, in the middle of the African bush, with very little water and a couple translators thrown in to help. At first, I was terrified. I knew that the sun, the distance, and the dirt would cause problems. We were about to live in the bush. THE BUSH.
But you know what? God broke down every single fear. OH IT WAS HOT. There was no toilet other than a hole you had to dig in the ground. Water was scarce, and had to be fetched from a well about a mile away. The villages were spread apart, and sometimes we would walk for hours until we found one. But, I can remember sitting around the fire one night next to my teammate Ben and one of our translators named Fred who would turn out to be one of my best friends. We were eating our spaghetti, and drinking our tea, listening to Bon Iver, under a blanket of the most beautiful stars I had ever seen, under constellations I had never seen, and under the light of the perfectly clear Milky Way. It occurred to me that I was exactly where I needed to be. I was exactly with the people I needed to be with, and I was happy. Guys, I was so happy.
The rest of the month was spent in the bush. We danced (WE DANCED), we sang, we laughed, we learned to pray and to speak life and blessing over people, and we learned to put others ahead of ourselves. We would wake up with the sun, and not stop or rest until the sun went back down. We lived, served, and loved outside in the sun, in the rain, in the cold, for the entire month. We learned to kill our own desires in order to serve selflessly. I spoke to men and women daily with authority and presence that was only from God. I learned songs and dances from little children that could out-dance any one, anytime. I saw wells drilled and people drink fresh water for the first time in their life. I saw God move in a very tangible way.
The bush life molded me into a woman that I am proud of. One night, I was reading Pslam 103 and came across a passage I have no doubt read before, yet before that moment, had overlooked the greatness of the words-
V13: “For the Lord knows our frame-He remembers we are dust”
God knew the moment he breathed life into me that I was fragile, that I could crumble. But God also makes beautiful things out of dust. He made man. He made me! And it took a lot of African dust to make me realize that.
It was very hard to leave Zambia behind. It was extremely hard to leave new friends behind. In a way, I also left family behind. But what I took with me was worth that price. I have gained hope for the future. I have gained overwhelming love for a nation that is so alive, and so hungry for the gospel. I also gained permanently stained white clothing.
I know that God is real, and all I need to do to be reminded of that fact is look into the face of a little girl as she dances barefoot in the red dirt, or up into the African sky at sunset, or hear a teenage boy lift up a beautiful song to the Lord thanking Him for his very breath.
This just scratches the surface ya’ll, but I hope I have given you a glimpse of what I have been doing this past month. I love you all, thank you for your prayers. Every single one was felt.
