This month that I spent in Zambia has been my favorite month by far. I don’t even know how to express what an amazing ministry we were working with. The ministry was called Love’s Door, It is located in the middle of a village. We didn’t have wifi this whole month unless we went into town and even then the wifi was pretty bad. It was so refreshing to get away from social media and the internet. We were living such a simple life. We tented along the edge of the Zambezi river and all of our bathrooms and showers were outside. Because of where we were, our team was able to invest so much into all of the villagers, Love’s door staff, and each other. Waking up along the Zambezi was so beautiful. We would casually seeing hippos and crocodiles frequently and being able to admire God’s beautiful creation was so amazing. This month was also different for me because I was on an all girls team. The team I was with was so incredible and every one has such positive attitudes. This really carried over into what made ministry great.
On the Love’s door property, there was a children’s home and every one on our team was assigned to a child to tutor. We got to sit with them and read, do math, or practice writing. At first I had one little girl named Loveness. She was 11 years old and she loved to read. She was so smart and funny. I loved getting to know her and tutor her. Later on I got another little girl named Melody. She was 4 but had a birthday while we were there and turned 5. She was so goofy and we would work on her colors, letters and numbers. All of the children in the children’s home were sponsored and we got to help the children write letters to their sponsor as well. We got to know all of the children from the home and hang out with them and love on them everyday. We became so close and saying goodbye was so so hard.
Every Saturday was a tutoring day for many children from the surrounding villages and the children from the home. The Love’s door staff all had a tutoring group of about 3 or 4 kids and we were all partnered with a group and help to co lead it. There were two separate time slots and in between there was a Sunday school type program from different aged children. The older girls, the older boys and all of the young kids were split up and one person would teach a bible story and then we would play games and pray together. All of the kids being tutored were also sponsored. The children who go to the program benefit so much from it and are able to keep up with their schooling so well.
Our hosts for the month were actually American and they were a young couple from Michigan. Before them, there was a couple living there that has started Love’s door. They have set up an amazing ministry that ministers to so many people out in the villages and actually helps them. Some days we would also go out into the surrounding villages and just hang out with people and talk to them. It was so fun to get to know the villagers. Another thing we were able to do was help mud peoples homes. The homes in Zambia are mostly made of branches and mud and hay. They build a structure from sticks and then fill it in with mud and smooth it all down with mud. We were able to do both kinds of mudding. We smoothed down the walls in the library that Love’s door was making and that took a couple of days. We did the whole inside and outside of the building. Then we were able to go into the villages and help people. This was where we fill in the stick structure with mud to build the base of the building. It was always so much fun and we would usually have a mud fight or two before the end of the day. Some of us were also able to help by painting. We painted the walls and ceiling in a building on the Love’s door property. Ministry this month was so cool because it was just living with people and getting to know them and just giving people your time. I would trade a comfy bed and indoor bathrooms for a month like this in a heartbeat. We all learned so much about ourselves and about the culture we got to experience in Zambia.
Even though we slept on sleeping pads the whole month, had to wash our laundry by hand, went to the bathroom outside, were constantly swarmed by flying termites and survived a HUGE storm that ruined people’s tents and soaked our stuff, this month still trumps the rest!
