This past week was a great one! Everyone in the mission met together for our annual prayer retreat. The retreat and break came at just the perfect time for many. Our mission has gone through many struggles and hardships (burglaries, surgeries, family problems, etc) in the last couple of months and many people had been left feeling defeated. We ventured about an hour outside of Lusaka to Ibis gardens for the retreat. We spent most of our time worshiping, praying, giving testimonies, and saying goodbye to many who will be leaving soon. There were not many dry eyes the whole weekend. We praise God for His faithfulness and unfailing mercies. He met us at Ibis gardens and left us feeling refreshed!


At the retreat, we had a baptism for one of our mk's, Tyler Strange. Tyler is being baptized by his dad, James.

At Ibis gardens there were little houses that we stayed in. Most houses could sleep about 7 people. I was very excited to see that I got paired with the Davis family to share a house with. If you recall, the Davis family (Shawna, Darren, Micah, Meredith, and Peyton) is who I stayed with back in October when I went to the western province for a month. Peyton (4yrs old) and I shared a room this weekend…it was great!!! She would wake up so happy and would immediately want me to play with her and brush the hair on her my little pony.

Sunday night I babysat the Davis kids while their parents went to see The Passion. Thanks to Alan we went bowling for free! It was a lot of fun to take the kids bowling and see them get so excited.


Micah Davis waiting his turn to bowl.



Peyton Davis being a cutie pie.


Everytime after Peyton bowled she would do a twirl...this is her in mid-twirl.

Not to sound like a total girl, but...........


The past two days I have gone bowling with Mallory and Alan (Alan "works" at the alley and uses his connections to get us in free). And in these 2 days I have managed to break off 3 of my very lovely fingernails while bowling. The damage that was done was enough to make the boys cringe and feel sorry for me.
I know this bit of info is not very exciting and probably isn't website-worthy....thanks for reading/caring.

Helen and Rebekah

Thursday I spent the night at the Neely’s house. Helen and I are putting together health care lessons teaching end of life care (she is a nurse). We were gonna make it an all-nighter and work on our lessons. But for some reason we didn’t accomplish all that we had intended on. Maybe it was her cute daughter Rebekah who kept showing me her Barbie doll’s hairstyle, or maybe it was the discussion we were carrying on about theology….who knows.

Friday was a girls night out. Me, Jesse, Heather, and Michelle went out and ate at a nice restaurant, Le Triumph Dolphin. The owner of the restaurant is from the island of Mauritius, so the food is Mauritian (kinda like a creole taste, man is it good!). Apparently the day we chose to go was also the independence day for Mauritius so there was a live band there performing....very nice!


Tonight I got to see one of the cutest little girls in Africa, Peyton Davis.

I think she was wanting us to make silly faces.


Tomorrow will be a fun day. I will start the day off at 8am by letting in Esnot, my house worker. Then I will head over to a Bible study I am doing with all the ladies in the mission. We are doing The Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore (which I highly recommend). After Bible study I will return home to a clean house thanks to Esnot (yipee!) and wait for Micah and Peyton Davis to come over. They are gonna come over and play for a couple of hours. Later in the afternoon me and some friends are gonna go get henna put in our hair. I have done henna once before and loved it so i am excited about doing it again. Then, to cap the night off I am going to the Dickard's for supper (praise the Lord!). We will be having a journeyman supper in honor of Carrie Eargle. Carrie is a j-man here whose term is ending and she leaves headed for the states on Tuesday.

PRIDE CHECK......


humbling moment of the day: this came while i was teaching Bible club kids at LICS. i was standing facing the kids who were sitting at their tables. i started walking backwards towards the blackboard. as i was walking i backed into a box of books that were on the floor....and of course i fell into this box. luckily the only thing i hurt was my ego. the kids did not laugh at all, they were surprised and shocked i think. i quickly got myself together and used this incident as a teachable moment. our lesson last week was about making fun of others. there is nothing like reinforcing a lesson.


tonight i went over to the strange's and we watched a video sent from the states. the video is of american idol and my big fat obnoxious fiance. man, we laughed our heads off! we are curently in the middle of the auditions on american idol. first of all, american idol....do people in america not have good friends or self respect? it really makes you think what goes through some folks mind.
my big fat obnoxious fiance....man that show is hilarious! that guy who is playing the part of the fiance is stinking hilarious. i can't wait to see how it ends.

Good times and good friends!



left to right: me, jesse, mallory, david, carrie, jill, alan


The Kasama crew (david, jill, carrie) came in this weekend. Carrie finishes her term next week and returns back to the states. David and Jill came down with Carrie so they could get in some last minute journeyman bonding time in Lusaka. I have said it before and I will say it again...i really like it when those guys come in to town.
If you think about it, you can pray for Carrie these next few months as she readjusts to life in america after she has been away for 2 years. I am not sure if you are able to grasp what a difficult time that could possibly be for her....i know i am not looking forward to reverse culture shock when i return in september.

This weekend I came upon this photo of me and some friends from college. It made me miss a lot of my friends from back home. Good memories for sure! I hope you enjoy this pic too.

Do you notice that i am so white i am glowing??!! maybe it is just the light from my halo.

Mallory, Amy, Alan, Jesse, Heather, Me, Michelle
Heather, Michelle, and Jesse are here in Zambia working with Navigators and Amy is a friend I met in Va in 2002 during orientation.

This week me and some non-louisiana friends celebrated Mardi Gras. I know we were a little late in our festivities but this was the time that best fit into our schedule. In Zambia, you have to create your own fun and we use any excuse to throw a party. To celebrate Mardi Gras we cooked a pot of gumbo (that is right, i made gumbo!!), wore mardi gras beads, and dyed the meringue of our banana pudding mardi gras colors. It was a lot of fun to just be with other American friends and relax and fellowship. By the way, explaining mardi gras to zambians was quite a task. I basically just had to tell them that it is a celebration of sin. They laughed at us silly americans (or should i say louisianaians).


Heather, Jesse, Michelle


Yesterday was a nice day. In the afternoon, Heather and I went and watched Underworld. That is one of those "you only watch it b/c you are in Zambia and there isn't much else going on" kind of movies. These days I will go and watch most anything at the theater b/c they just started selling slush puppies!!! "mmmm, slush puppies (to be said like homer simpson)." After the movie Heather and I went to the grocery store and bought some things for us to prepare supper with. We came back to my house, cooked supper, and sat and talked till about 10pm. It was really nice to just sit back and talk.

This week was my daddy's birthday!!! woo hoo!! But unfortunately I was unable to call him. My daddy is by far the cutest daddy out there and if you don't believe me here is a picture for proof!

The birthday boy

Also, this week started the countdown for my remaining 6 months left in Zambia. That is a super crazy thought to think about. Six months is gonna be here before we know it!!! Does it really seem like I have been gone this long? And now, on to the million dollar question..what in the world am I gonna do when I get home??? You can start emailing your suggestions to me now at ahoward@zamnet.zm. I will take all the suggestions for my future into considration and let you know what I think about them. (for all two of you that actually read this website)

Honestly......

The number one reason today why "this country blows" (owen wilson, shanghai nights) ....my cat possibly has tumors and has to be put down. sad times in zambia for sure.
i wish the vet would have used a little more tact when she told me this information. there was no sugar-coating it at all.....so needless to say i starting crying right there in front of her.
liza the vet....she's a straight shooter for sure.


chikulu....truly the greatest. (chikulu means "the greatest" in nyanja (or is it bemba??))