And once again my gift of procrastination rears it's ugly head. I currently have about 6 must-do items on my to-do list for the day. Instead of getting busy and completing those tasks, here I am posting unimportant information for people to read. I got this email forward from Melissa Knobloch (known as "snobs" from here on out). It is about "knowing your friends." Why do I always feel compelled to fill these things out? I think I do one once a year. Instead of forwarding this on to others like the instructions say, I am just going to post it here for your reading pleasure. Love ya, Snobs!

 

1. What time do you get up? 
8:00am

2. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who wouldit be?  
Julia Roberts, I think she and I could be really good friends. But if she is busy I'd opt for Nelson Mandela.
 
3. Gold or silver?
Silver

4. What was the last film you saw at the movies? 

SpiderMan 2

5. What is your favorite TV show? 
Alias...we get the show taped in the US and imported to us

6. What did you have for breakfast?  
toast and eggs

7. Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with?
I cannot say for fear that they could be reading this. 

 
8. What/who inspires you? 
Not to sound all super holy, but I'd say the book of Romans. 
 
9. What is your middle name? 
Brookes

10. Beach, City or Country?
 this fair skinned, red headed girl is gonna have to say the country, preferably the mountains
 
11. Favorite ice cream?
 new york stawberry cheesecake by the dreamery or ben and jerry's cherry garcia.....mmmmmm, i can have that again in 42 days!

12. Butter, plain or salted popcorn?
 butter
 
13. Favorite color? 
blue
 
14. What kind of car do you drive? 
thanks to Lottie Moon, I am currently driving a really nice dark green toyota corolla
 
15. Favorite sandwich? 
grilled cheese made with velveeta chesse
 
16. Favorite Sunday or daily comic strip? 
i like that blondie & of course the peanuts
 
17. What is in your CD player?
a mixed cd that a great friend gave me! she even titled the cd "bush boogie"

 18. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation,where would you go? 
New Zealand, but can i bring a friend?
 
19. What color is your bathroom?
  grey stone tile, both floor and walls

 
20. Favorite brand of clothing?
for the past two years it has been anything that volunteers leave here when they go back to the states.
 
 21. Where would you retire to?
somewhere in the south. I want to be the lady who sits in a rocking chair on a big wrap around porch, wearing big funny hats, who has lots of cats and gives cookies out to all the neighborhood children who plays in my yard.
 
 23. What did you do for last birthday? 
I taught a class, hung out with Paige, and the ladies here took me out to tea.
 
24. Where were you born? 
Vicksburg, Mississippi

25. Favorite sport to watch? 
american football, but i have come to find out that the other sport known as football has lots of very attractive players
 
26. What fabric detergent do you use?
Omo....doubt anyone has heard of it

27. Coke or Pepsi?
coke

28.  Are you a morning person or a night owl? 
night owl

29. What is your shoe size? 
anything from an 8 to a 9

30. Do you have any pets?
why yes I do and in 5 weeks they could be yours!! any takers?

Last night I had the mother of all sleepovers. Three lovely young ladies spent the night with me.  Me, Meredith Davis (8 yrs), Peyton Davis (5 yrs), and Rebekah Neely (8 yrs) played dress up and did all kinds of girly things to our hearts content. When the girls left my house today, their faces were stained pink from all the blush and lipstick they kept applying over the past 24 hours. During our girl fest we were also able to squeeze in a couple of movies, The Cat in the Hat, and The Lion King 1½.  Sorry I don’t have pictures for this. I was busy popping popcorn, applying eye shadow, and telling the girls to not squeal so loudly. This whole experience made me admire my parents even more!
 
On Monday we are headed down to Zimbabwe for our annual mission meeting. It is crazy how fast the time is flying! July is already more than half over. How in the world did that happen? While in Zimbabwe I will be attending meetings and struggling to stay awake during them. I will also try to muster up the courage to bungee jump. I never even gave it a second thought last year; there was no way I was going to do it. Although I think this year if someone twisted my arm hard enough I could be easily swayed.
 
I am currently working on a power point presentation about my two years in Zambia. I have yet to choose a song to play in the background, there are too many to choose from. Anyone have any suggestions? If so, please send all suggestions to ahoward@zamnet.zm.  My next dilemma with the power point is God has done more work IN me these past years than through me. How do you present that in a nice and tidy 4 minute presentation? Recently I have been looking through old pictures of mine. As I look at these pictures all I can think about is how different I am now….but praise God for the difference! What a shame it would be if I went home the same way I came. But just to ease your minds, I am indeed still as silly and laughy (is that a word?) and klutzy as ever. 

 *A side note-  My wonderful friends Tommy and Stephanie Knighten sent me a package, yippee!! And in the package was a huge plastic bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I mean, wow, how great! I really do enjoy Jelly Belly jelly beans. But let’s get serious for a minute….is there really anything more disgusting than the buttered popcorn flavored Jelly Belly?? In the immortal words of my dear friend Amy Wilson, “C’mon, get real!”

For several weeks now I have been pretty busy helping out with volunteer teams that come from the states for a couple of weeks for a mission trip. Many teams have already come and gone. Not only are we in winter here in Zambia but we are also in what the missionaries call "volunteer season". Yes, it has been tiring at times but I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
This past week I have been helping out the Neely's with a team that came from their home church in the states, First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina. They held a medical clinic in two villages. Besides rashes and other fungal ailments I'd say the most common problem they saw was women who were experiencing back pain. It really isn't much of a wonder considering that the women here are the ones who do all the hard labor. A typical village scene is a woman who has a baby on her back while carrying water with one arm, using her free hand to hold the hand of another child who is able to walk, all while balancing firewood on her head. I mean these women are seriously strong (and have super buff arms!). The sad thing is these people don't have the access to medicines such as Tylenol. And even if they did, there is no way they could afford it. For 16 tablets of panadol (Tylenol here) it costs $9! And $9 is about 4 days of work for the people out there. See where I am going with this?? So think about how privileged you are the next time you pop a couple of pain relievers for a head ache.
Tomorrow (Monday) we are gonna be going to House of Moses with the nurses on the team. That should be a lot of fun, hopefully I will have a lot of pictures of that.
Today we took the team out to a bush church. I think that was my last Zambian bush church experience. I was looking at the calendar and every other Sunday is going to be busy doing other things. The bright side is that the church we went to was a good one to end on. I had a great time there and was actually able to worship and not feel like I was on display for all to stare at.

After church we took the team to a really good Indian restaurant in town. As I was sitting there eating I could not help but think of some of my friends from Tech, Regin, Benjamin, and Suv. They are from India and were kind enough to invite me over to their house a couple of times to eat. Man, those are good memories! I wonder if they ever read this website? In case they do, thanks guys for your hospitality!
Actually today I strolled down memory lane for quite a while. I could not help but think about many of my friends from college. Just this week I have heard from many friends out of the blue. Every letter, email, package, picture, or even instant message I received from these folks made me giddy! It made me excited to see them again and to catch up on what is happening in their lives. Speaking of friends....am I going to have any in Ruston? I believe most people have moved from the promised land and gone to seek adventures elsewhere. That is a bummer for me. Everyone else is off being a grown up. Actually, now that I think about it, I will have one friend in town. She will be returning back to Ruston from a distant land about the same time I will.

Well this is starting to turn into a ramble.
And just so you know, I have been sitting here writing this while listening to Billy Joel...good times for sure!

*I hope to have some pictures of the Neely team up soon.

And then there were…….


And then there were four. Alan left last week for the States leaving me, Jill, David, and Mallory in Zambia.




Then a few days later Jill and David left leaving me and Mal……And then there were two.

Well, today Chris came back to Zambia!!!!!!! Yes, that is right, the new poster boy for journeymen at the IMB, who would most likely grace the cover of The Commission magazine if it were still in print, is back in Zambia!!!!
And then there were three!!!

Chris is back….and it is great! It was never even a thought in anyone’s head that he would come back to Zambia. The guy got sent home in February to have stinking heart surgery. Everyone is pretty amazed at all the circumstances that GOD has orchestrated. It has been very surreal to see him again, but very awesome nonetheless.

Funny story (but maybe also a “you had to be there” story.)……

Tonight we (me, Mal, and Chris) went to the movies to see Spider Man 2 (which I liked very much). So as we are walking into our row of seats we encounter something slippery on the floor and tell each other to be careful not to slip. So our three seats (you are assigned seats at the movies here) are the ones that the slippery stuff is in front of. We sit down and Chris immediately says, “Man, something stinks. It smells like throw up.” So we all start taking in big sniffs to see if we concur with him. Well, we definitely concurred. Then Mal says, “ Oh my gosh, I think it is that slippery stuff.” (I am dying out laughing hysterically at this point and am unable to get a word out.) So Chris goes in for a closer look at the unknown substance and was able to verify that the mystery stuff was indeed puke. By this time we are all in unbelief and laughing uncontrollably. Now the theater was VERY warm b/c they did not have any a/c or air circulating and also the whole cinema was packed out…..which only made the stench stronger b/c of the heat . At this point the trigger to my gag reflex was getting very sensitive and I was afraid I was gonna spew myself, but luckily I did not. Chris did wind up telling an usher and eventually he came to clean it up. Unfortunately there is no Lysol in Zambia.
So the moral of the story: Even vomit can be funny.