as told by stephanie
We started off at 7:11 on Saturday, September 27th. (Well, we were supposed to start off then, Ashley was moving a little slow, and Womba had to dry some things, so it was more like 7:30) We met James and Cindy Strange, and Ivy Lukosu at the Strange's house. We had two trucks filled up with sleeping bags, tents, food, soccer balls, a little bit of everything. Two hours later, and a few stops (one for last minute cokes and last stop at a flushing toilet) we arrived at Kizito Baptist Church in Kabwe, north of Lusaka. We greeted everyone, and went into the church for some words of welcome. Now this church building is probably not what you are imagining. It was mud walls up to about waist high. Then there was a 2 foot gap to the roof. The roof was sharply slanted and made of thatch. All the beams to hold the roof up were trees and branches. The benches were knee high hardened mud mounds. It was actually a very cool and enjoyable church building.
On our way to Kizito Baptist church in Kabwe.
On our way to Kizito in Kabwe…..off the beaten path.
A group of girls sitting outside the church.
After the welcomes, Ashley, Womba, and I went outside to teach the children. We got a reed mat and found the one tree in the area with a few leaves, and set the mat up under that. The tree provided shade to about two people :o) Ashley then told the story of Adam and Eve, and the first sin. Womba translated. After some questions and discussion, we got the balls out of the car, and let the kids play. Definitely the highlight for them. We even taught them two songs in English, Jesus Loves Me, and Making Melody. Then we sat back down for another story that I taught this time. I was going to teach about Jesus feeding the 5000, but I started talking about Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, and decided to tell them about Abraham and his son Isaac, whom God asked him to sacrifice. And then God provided a substitute sacrifice, a lamb. Turns out James was teaching on just that same story, the faith of Abraham, that evening! I didn't even know that ahead of time, God was definitely guiding us all this weekend.
Stephanie teaching the children about Abraham and Isaac while Womba translates.
Here you can see one of the ladies preparing cabbage for our meal.
Then it was time for lunch. Nshima, cabbage, and the absolute toughest chicken you have ever eaten. I couldn't even get the meat to come off the bone. You just had to suck on it. That is what we call, bush chicken. After lunch it was my turn to teach the youth and adults on True Love Waits. There were about 6 old men there. And I am talking OLD. Like they were missing teeth. It was a bit initmidating teaching True Love Waits to such a mixed crowd. The reason I also taught it to the adults was so that the leaders of the church would know what kinds of things we should be talking about, and teaching our youth. The True Love Waits message can also applied to married couples, in that they remain faithful to their husband or wife. The teaching went well, and I believe was well received. Ivy translated for me, since Womba was even more intimidated by the old people than I was.
Bubbles!!!
After that teaching we had a bit of time to set up our tents. The three ring circus as we were fondly calling it :o) All the kids were lined up watching us. Making comments like, "Three houses from a bag!" We finally got all three set up, and Ashley, Womba, and I hung out in our tent for a little bit of time away from 50 eyes staring at us. Then we had dinner. Nshima, cabbage, chicken, and fried dried fish. Well, the nshima and cabbage was real good ;o)
James and Cindy Strange putting up one of the tents.
Ivy, Cindy’s interpreter, supervising the tent set-up.
See, I helped set the tents up too!
Steph playing a game of chiato with the kids.
Here I am playing a favorite game of the kids. It consists of me chasing them while trying to tickle them. I think they could play this for hours if I were willing.
After dinner we had another teaching session that James led. The teaching was quite interesting, but literally 3/4 of the church fell asleep! Dead asleep. Even the acting pastor of the church who was sitting up front fell asleep. We finished up a little after nine, took a girl's trip to the squatty-potty, and headed to our tents. Well, we spent a little time looking at all the stars. It is just so amazing that there are so many, when you can only see so few some places. In the tents I snuck a Twix bar and got ready for bed. And at that time, the singing began. They built a huge fire, and the old men gathered grass to sleep around the fire. The church choir sang and sang and sang. How long did they sing, you may ask? They sang until 3 am! That's right, all those people who were so sleepy in church, stayed up until 3 in the morning, singing. I fell asleep sometime in there, sooner than most of our crew I believe. Even worse than the 3 am quiet time, was the 5 am wake up call. Yep, all those old men got up at 5 am and started talking (loudly to each other, I think they must be losing their hearing) and laughing. There were about 3 feet from our tent. It was quite cool that night, and Womba gets up at 5 am and opens the window in our tent. "Womba, what in the world are you doing!?" asks Ashley. Womba said she was making sure she didn't oversleep! Hahaha, not really a good reason. I think Womba was still asleep cause that was the most ridiculous thing when there is all that noise outside the tent.
Womba taking care of her “mwana’s”. During the trip I seemed to have been given the name mwana (baby) or mwanawanga (my baby). Womba calls me this often and Ivy started to pick up on it as well.
Womba fixed me up all nice with a head wrap made from Stephanie’s chitenge. Although, she was tying it just a bit too tight! How do I look?
Anyway, we finally just bite the bullet and get up. All of us except Ashley that is. I guess she decided if she just stayed in her sleeping bag, somehow she would fall back asleep despite all the noise and commotion. We had tea and cookies. Got the balls out so the kids could play, took down the tents, packed up the cars. Even got the bubbles out to play with till those ran out. Finally at 9, we began sunday school. Sunday school is really more like the first preaching, since it is just everyone together. Ivy taught sunday school, and part of the way through people started nodding off again. Now Ivy doesn't take this nonsense. She was speaking in Bemba, but for 10 minutes she 'taught them a lesson'. And that lesson is don't stay up till 3 am when you have church the next day. It is rude, stupid, you can't think straight, and you will miss the whole point of the weekend. It was kinda funny, and I couldn't even understand a word she said! Then James preached. We finished church around 11. Then had lunch. Nshima, beans, chicken. We went to the cars, and Ashley was going to start up the truck to get the air running, but the truck wouldn't start! Luckily, the connections to the battery were just loose, so it didn't take too much work to fix those.
It took us 2 hours to make it back home.
