Me and Stephanie at the Victoria Falls Hotel.

Our meeting in Zimbabwe was a lot of fun! Even though I had to sit in an uncomfortable chair for long periods of time during slightly unexciting meetings it was great to be there. Many issues were addressed and many good times were had by all. During one night we had a “hee-haw” night. In the beginning I was not very enthusiastic about this event. Which was a little odd because in the states I loved theme nights were you get to dress up, I’d go all out for them. But I did enjoy myself nonetheless. For hee-haw night some had asked the journeymen to prepare two songs to sing for the group. So we put our heads together and came up with a rewrite of a Bare Naked Ladies song. The original song was “If I had a million dollars.” We changed it to “If I had a million Kwacha.” (Kwacha is the currency in Zambia, for anyone who cares, the exchange rate is 5,000 kwacha to 1 US dollar) The song seemed to be a big hit. Tommy played it on his guitar and we all sang, I must say it was a lot of fun.



the view from the patio where we had tea at the Vic Falls hotel

One afternoon during our meeting, all of the ladies went for high tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel. I cannot even begin to describe to you how amazing this place was. I took pictures but they do not do justice. The hotel itself is very old, although I cannot recall how old (sorry). It sits on top of a cliff directly above the Zambezi river, and in the background you can see the bridge that crosses the river and joins Zambia and Zimbabwe. Also you can see the mist of the Victoria Falls rising up in the air. The whole atmosphere of the hotel had me imagining being in Africa in the early 1900’s, it had a great historical feel to it.

The ladies having tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel.



Dancers at the Boma.

Also while in Zimbabwe I went to supper with some friends in the mission, the Lewis family and fellow journeymen, Carrie and Jill. We ate at a place called the Boma. The Boma is a place where you can sample all kinds of different game meat and also get to see some traditional african dancing. The meats I tried were kudu, ostrich, beef sirloin (not exactly game meat), and my favorite of all…warthog, mmmmmm! I think that most everyone would enjoy warthog as well. They may be ugly little critters, but they sure are tasty

my plate at The Boma. beef sirloin, ostrich kabob, warthog, and kudu stew!!! yea, for carnivores!

warthogs wandering around downtown in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

One day during the meeting the journeymen lucked out and got to skip a portion of the meeting! We got to take the kids (and teenagers) to an elephant farm. While we were there we got to pet and feed many elephants, including a baby elephant that is just 5 or 6 months old.

me and Peyton Davis petting the baby elephant.

Tyler and Grace petting one of the many older elephants


Hannah Rodger's and Peyton taking a break from the elephants.



Chris, Carrie, Stephanie, and Paige on the Zambia/Zimbabwe bridge waiting for our friends to buji jump.

On Sunday morning before our worship service we were privileged to witness the baptism of Nathan Dickard. Nathan was baptized by his father, Stan.




Me, Steph, and Jill


all the journeymen in Zambia (can you tell the sun is really bright and in our eyes). L-R bottom: me, tommy, stephanie, carrie, jill. L-R standing: alan, david, mallory, chris

while shopping downtown in Victoria Falls, i stumbled upon these very alive crocodiles.


mallory, tommy, and kevin rodgers getting ready to bunji jump from the vic falls bridge....111 meters (333 feet), second highest bunji in the world (or so i was told). you jump off the bridge and dangle above the zambezi river, seemed kinda scary looking down from the bridge!

hey, in case you get bored or want to know more about me or any of the other journeymen in Zambia, go to this link....

http://bmz.mysitespacepro.com/site.php?id=j-men

this website was created by Sean, one of the missionary's kids. Sean is great! he is 13 and can bake some mean desserts!

Right now the last thing I need to be doing is updating my website. I say this because I should be packing for my trip to Zimbabwe since we are leaving at 6am tomorrow. But since I have finally worked out most of the kinks with my website I feel compelled to update in case the site decides to get a little crazy again. So I will take the past month or so and break it down and make it a little more reader-friendly. Here we go (and in no particular order)…..

West Nile Virus

A little over a month ago my brother was put in the hospital for nearly a week. He had apparently contracted the west nile virus and was in pretty bad shape. But thankfully the doctors caught it quickly and were able to treat him accordingly. He is now more or less back to 100%. I talked to him a couple of days ago and he said he is fine as ever. I must say that I find it ironic that I am the one in Africa with thousands of illnesses waiting around every corner and he is the one who comes down with a super-serious sickness while living in the US.

Chronological Bible Storying @ State Lodge

Since April I have been teaching at a rural church named State Lodge Baptist. It takes about 20 minutes to get there and is very similar to a bush church. The building itself is made up of nothing more than 4 cement walls. The pews are also made of cement and are connect to the walls and floor. So you can imagine how much fun it is to sit on a backless cement block that is less than a foot wide crammed shoulder to shoulder with other people for over two hours (lucky me got this experience yesterday when I went to church there). Good thing it is not summertime here in Zambia!
A little over two weeks ago I completed my series of stories with the children at State Lodge. It was a bit sad because I have really enjoyed being out there with them. The kids there are too precious and always full of smiles. During my time at State Lodge I have become friends with my translator, Veniya. She is a very quiet, mild-mannered gal. She is so kind and really does have a heart for the Lord’s work. Veniya lives several miles away from the church and would walk an hour and a half one way to help me teach the children. In late August/ early September I will start CBS at another location. This time I will be going past State Lodge out near Veniya’s house. She again will help me by translating for me. Veniya is very excited about us teaching out there because there are many children there and they have been taught very little in regards to the Bible stories we will be telling.


Some of the adults at State Lodge (Veniya is on the left).



Bethany Place Volunteers

Towards the end of June, Stephanie had a volunteer team come over from her home church in America. There were 12 total. They were split up into 3 teams of 4. One team was an evangelism team that stayed in a certain area of town and basically walked around meeting the people. Another team was a True Love Waits team. They went into the schools with Stephanie and taught the youth the importance of staying sexually pure. In case you did not know, HIV/AIDS is a huge problem in Africa. TLW is a program that is helping to decrease the number of those infected with HIV by teaching youth what God has said to us in the Bible. The other team was the deaf ministry team. I got to help with this team the most. These guys would go to the deaf school here in Lusaka and interact with and teach the students. Everyone on the team had some knowledge of sign language. Unfortunately, the most I knew was how to finger spell.

Holly and Naomi (members of the BP team) playing with the kids at State Lodge.

Every evening there was a revival-type service held at a church here. On different nights different students from the deaf school were able to attend. I thought the services were very cool because the message was being told in three different languages at the same time….Nyanja, English, and Sign. During the ten days that the team was here, we were able to see 132 people come to Christ! I think that is amazing! I guess it goes to show you that Zambia truly is a harvest field!

Victoria Falls

While the Bethany Place team was here we took them down to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls. Now for those of you who don’t know, Vic Falls is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. Vic Falls is also called Mosi-o-tunya , which means “the smoke that thunders.” I do not have any pictures of me actually standing near the falls because it would have destroyed my camera. This time of year there is so much water and mist that it feels as if it is raining. We almost rented some rainjacket-poncho things but decided against it…we wanted the full experience! We got super-soaked! The sight of the falls is so breathtaking and unbelievable. The whole time I was there I could not help thinking about what must have gone through David Livingstone (first non-african to see mosi-o-tunya) mind when he first came upon the awesome sight. Our God is truly one of beauty that is for sure!

the Zambezi River.

Oh, also while in vic falls we went on a game drive. That was a lot of fun! We saw so many animals just freely roaming around. Although there were no elephants around to be seen…they must have been off hiding somewhere. But I must say that we got to see the rhinos and that was cool.





Johannesburg, South Africa

On July 3rd I flew down to Johannesburg with my supervisor, Cindy. She needed to go down for medical reasons and asked if I wanted to tag along. So of course I jumped at the chance. It was nice trip and I really enjoyed getting away! I think the thing I liked about it the most was that I did not stand out down there. I was able to blend in and no one really gave me a second look…..except for maybe a waiter at a coffee shop but that is a funny story for another time.
While in Jo’burg me and Cindy got a reputation for our movie-watching ability. My fearless and wise supervisor was clever enough to look up the movie schedules at the different malls and print out for our convenience. Now when some people heard of this they laughed at us, but it did not phase us at all. I will confess though that we scheduled our daily activities around the “movie of the day”. Now yes, we do have a movie theater in Lusaka, but it is not anything like in the states or South Africa. Ours has one screen and you just never know what will be showing. And it usually takes us at least 3 months to get the “new releases”…..we just got the new matrix last week.
Being in Jo’burg was a little weird. I kinda had a bit of culture shock. It was almost like being in America again, except that we were driving on the other side of the road. But I thoroughly enjoyed being there. I ate McDonald’s to my heart’s content and drank all the vanilla coke and slush puppies that my bladder could hold. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures from SA because I would forget to bring my camera along. Although we did take 3 while in the airport on the way home.
While in Jo’burg I was able to meet up with some friends I met while in Virginia at training. It was very nice to see them and to catch up on their life and ministry in Jo’burg.

Mallory’s Birthday


awaiting the arrival of mallory.

A couple of weeks ago Mallory’s mom sent me and Stephanie some items for a birthday party for Mallory. She sent a cake pan, two cake mixes, two icings, birthday candles, balloons, a banner, confetti, and party favors! She really did think of everything. So we organized a little surprise party for him.

the birthday boy


This past week

This week has been a relaxing one. Since I have finished up CBS, I have little to do. This week I got to hang out with fun gal, Paige. Paige is 15 and her parents work in the office here. She came over 3 or 4 days in a row and we were semi-bums together. One day me, Paige, and Stephanie went to House of Moses. That was great as usual. There are some itty-bitty babies there now. And I think you would all like to know that one day me, Paige, and Mallory played Risk and yours truly succeeded in global domination.
And, I also succeeded in totally procrastinating and not cleaning my room, yippee!!

Zimbabwe

In about 8 hours I will be in a car on my way down to Zimbabwe. Our mission in Zambia will be having our Annual Missionary Training Meeting. This is a week-long meeting where we all meet together and discuss the vision and direction the Lord has given us. It will be a great time of fellowship with all of our other missionaries and seeing what the Lord is doing in other parts of Zambia. There are 97 (including children) of us who will be traveling to Zimbabwe, so if you could please pray for safe travel during the week, it would be most appreciated.


Well looks like I have rambled on enough and I should probably retire now and go pack for this week. You might like to know that some things never change and I still wait till the last minute to do everything!

woo hoo, looks like the problem with posting pictures is fixed!

The mighty Zambezi River. This is the view we were able to take in while dinning at a favorite restaurant in Livingstone when we went down to see the falls.



me and stephanie at a game park in front of the zambezi river.

let me state again, i am having major issues with this website. i am unable to post pictures for some reason and it is pretty much an act of God that i am able to get the text to post. maybe it is doing this because of something i did. i would not put it past me. if i do recall correctly i remember i was playing around with the whole thing a couple of weeks ago so i might have done something i wasn't supposed to do. oh well, we will cross our fingers and hope the problem fixes itself.
but anyway, i wanted to let let you know i will be gone for a week or so. on tuesday we are leaving for zimbabwe. all of the people in our mission are going down there for our week-long Annual Missionary Training Meeting. i am not too sure what to expect although from what i hear we will be taking care of some business issues (boring) and discussing strategy for zambia (semi-interesting i hope). all i know is that i am looking forward to hanging out with all the journeymen in our group. that should be a lot of fun....there are 9 of us. we will be staying on the zimbabwe side of victoria falls. i am excited about that. i will now be able to see the rest of the falls. i went to victoria falls (zambia side) a few weeks ago with a volunteer team. the falls were absolutely amazing! there was so much water and mist that it felt like it was raining! it truly was an awesome experience. there really are no words for me to descibe it to you.
so if you think about me in the next few days, could you please pray for safe travel to, from, and through zimbabwe....feel free to pray this for all of our missionaries traveling.
the day we get back from zimbabwe me and stephanie will be meeting up with a group here on a volunteer mission trip doing ministry in 5 different orphanages throughout Lusaka. the group is from texas and is associated with Pine Cove Camps. we are excited that they have asked us to join them but at the same time we know we are going to be super-busy and will be exhausted. the team will be here until august 9.....so if i do not update the website for another month, you now know why.

I should be ashamed........but I'm not

Where has the time gone? How can it be that I have let more than a month pass by without updating the website. It has been so long that I am sure many people do not even bother checking it anymore. In the past two months or so I have gone from not-so-busy to super busy. A couple of volunteer teams from the states have come through to help in the work in Zambia and I have had the pleasure of assisting them in any way possible. Just last week I was on a mini-vacation in Johannesburg, South Africa. While I was there, I got to meet up with two very dear friends of mine that I have not seen since leaving the states 81/2 months ago...Ronald McDonald and Col. Sanders! Man, did I ever have a good time catching up with those guys. I have also just recently finished up chronological Bible storying at State Lodge. Oh yeah, last time I wrote I mentioned my brother being sick with the West Nile Virus. Well, he is now pretty much recovered. Praise the Lord. I cannot tell you how hard it was being on a different continent while that was going on, but the Lord was faithful and unfailing (like always).
I have so much to share with you. But, it will have to wait for now. Someday in the near future I will sit down and write out all if my adventures if the past 6 weeks. Unfortunately, right now I am unable to keep my eyes open and focused on the computer screen. We were up bright and early this morning (5:45am) for an airport run. New personnel arrived this morning and most people were at the airport to greet them. The Neely’s are a family of five and they will be living and working here in Lusaka. The Smith’s, however, will be living and working in Mongu (6 hrs west of Lusaka). If it crosses your mind, please pray for these families as they adjust to a new life far from the states.
Now it is time for bed. Hopefully I will find the time tomorrow to adequately update the website.

p.s. i am actually having a bit of trouble getting new information and pictures posted, so bear with me.

I think we can add "- Finding out my brother has the West Nile Virus" to the list I posted yesterday. (more info on my brother in the future.)

What have I done in the past two weeks? Glad you asked.
-I met with Paula Kilpatrick about organizing and putting together Friend’s of Jesus club materials.
-Went to a cave with some friends and saw lots of bats. The bats even pooped on us a bit. I know that is gross but it was fun.
-Went to lunch with many ladies in the mission to celebrate Suzy Rodger’s birthday.
-Assisted with a volunteer team from America who came here to do a True Love Waits campaign.
-Ate supper and hung out with the Thompson’s the past two Saturdays. We even played dominoes!
-Taught the children at a Sunday night international Bible study held at the mission.
-I found out that my favorite baby at the House of Moses, Cecilia, is no longer there. Sad times.
-Taught the kiddies out at State Lodge. We are a little more than halfway through our stories. Today’s story was about Jesus and Nicodemus.
-I bought some really neat souvenir type things at a craft market. Two of my favorite purchases were a hand-made shirt from Zimbabwe and a wall hanging that has giraffes painted on it.
-I was told by one of the volunteers that came that sometimes my accent sounded British. I think what he was hearing was my Zambian accent coming out.
-Last week I purchased plane tickets for a vacation to Johannesburg, South Africa. I will be flying down July 3 with my supervisor and we will stay for a week. I can’t wait for July 3!
-Ate Mexican food at the Dickard’s…yummy!
-I was able to talk with many close friends and family on the phone
-I had a sense of “I live in Africa” awe come over me. I like it when that happens because it makes me really excited about being here and working here.


I am not sure if you can tell what this is. It is a picture of Chris exploring a hole in the cave. They were hoping it would lead to another part of the cave...it didn't.

All I can really say is good times are being had here in Zambia. Today was a double holiday for us Americans here. Not only was it our Memorial Day but it was African Freedom day. So to celebrate this momentous occasion we had a braai at the mission this afternoon. A braai is a South African thing that is basically a BBQ cookout. After we ate, many of us played Mexican train with dominoes….I didn’t win.
Then tonight we went to some friends (James and LeeAnn) house for another South African treat. We had a potgie, which is like a stew that is served over rice. James and LeeAnn had me and Stephanie and another family, the Howard’s, over for supper as a thank you. LeeAnn just had their second child this past Thursday. On the Wednesday before, LeeAnn called me and Stephanie and said she was going into labor and asked if Daniel, their 3 yr old son, could stay with us for a few hours and maybe even spend the night while she and her husband went to the hospital. We were more than happy to have a slumber party with Daniel. That little guy is such a cutie (and a wee bit naughty) he has this South African accent that sounds British and big blue eyes that could melt your heart.

Here is Daniel, as cute as can be. Notice Chikulu in the background. Daniel covered him up with his blankets and teddy bears.

It sure is a hard life having to hold babies!
Me, Jason Luke, Tabitha Howard, Daniel

Daniel had a fantastic time at our house. When his dad came to pick him up Daniel refused to go with him and insisted on staying with us. So his dad left and came back a couple of hours later. Even the second time around he refused to leave. But dad won out that time and finally got Daniel to leave, but only after promising that Daniel could go to “aunt” Lindy’s (Lindy Howard) later that day. Tonight before we ate supper James sincerely thanked us all for our help last week and LeeAnn got a little teary-eyed while telling us how we (me, steph, and the Howard’s) have become like family to them, especially to Daniel. It was really sweet. Anyway….after many hours of labor last week, she finally gave birth to an 8 pound baby boy named Jason Luke.

Steph and Jason Luke

Daniel and his mom, LeeAnn. Me and Daniel.

Adventures in babysitting….

Tonight me and Stephanie babysat for the Connard’s who are in town for a few days. We only kept their youngest, Benjamin. He is such a good baby; he is always so content and rarely fusses. The poor thing is sick right now and when he breathes he wheezes. Well we were in the living room watching him play with a broom and sweep shoes around the coffee table. All of a sudden we look at him just in time to see him whack his face on the corner of the coffee table….we should have seen it coming. I go to pick him up hoping he is not going to start screaming. When I pick him up I see a little bit of blood starting to trickle out from under his eyebrow. In a matter of seconds a little blood turns into more blood. In a passing moment of panic I head out the door with Benjamin in my arms to Dorothy’s house next door (Dorothy and her husband have lived here for 30 years and raised two kids here, surely they will know what to do). As soon as I stepped off the porch I thought, “No, We don’t need help. We can do this (it is ONLY blood, after all). I mean I am a family and child studies major. I even took a class on stuff like this for crying out loud!” So I followed Stephanie into the bathroom where she was getting tissue to clean him up. The whole time Benjamin is struggling to cry and breath at the same time. It was so sad. In the middle of playing nurse to Benjamin, the power goes out. Doesn’t that just figure! Finally we got the little guy all cleaned up and he stopped crying. When we told Mark and Stacy (his parents) what happened they just laughed, he is a tough African bush baby, after all.

Carrie (journeyman in Kasama), Stephanie, and Benjamin in the office.

Culture Crisis…

On Monday, Esnot, our house worker came to clean our house. Esnot’s friend, Loveness, also comes and cleans Chris’s and Mallory’s flat next door. Well, lunchtime rolls around and Esnot asks me if me or Stephanie will be “taking nshima”. I tell her Steph has already left and I decline her offer (I knew what they were cooking and wanted no part of it). Esnot comes back and informs me it is too late because Loveness already prepared some for me. So I graciously smile and nod my head. Kapenta was for lunch…I very much dislike kapenta. Kapenta are small sardine-like fish (that stink to high heaven when being cooked). And the ones that Loveness was preparing were dried, so that meant they would be nice and bendy…almost crunchy. Yippee! So I confess to Esnot that I do not like kapenta and she tells Loveness. So as to not totally insult Loveness and to be rude I offered to take a few bites instead of having a whole plateful. As I sat rolling my nshima in my hand and chewing my kapenta and hoping to keep it down, Philippians 4:13 kept running through my mind, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” When I was finished Loveness was very pleased that I tried her kapenta and told me that one day I will become Zambian and will like it. I’m not so sure about that.


Kapenta!!! Loveness (left) and Esnot (right) enjoying their meal.

SLACKER! I know that is what I am, sorry. It has been way too long since I have put an update on here. But I guess if you know me then my slacker quality doesn’t surprise you. So let’s see, what have I been up to in the last 10 days or so.
Quite honestly, nothing new has been going on. About the only thing I can think of is Mother Theresa orphanage. I would include pictures for you to see but we are not permitted to take pictures there. This orphanage is quite a bit different than the House of Moses. There are many more children at Mother Theresa and some of them are very sick. When you enter the room where the young babies and toddlers are, you are hit with such a repulsive and foul odor. The first time we went I literally started to gag and had to exit the room and was unable to go back in to play with the small kids that day. We have figured out that the best day to go visit is on Friday because on Thursdays they do a thorough cleaning that helps reduce the stench. When we went this past Friday there was a baby that was hooked up to an IV. A lot of the children here have HIV/AIDS or their parents died from it. The baby that was hooked up looked so sick. He (or she) was very thin and cried constantly. I tried to console him by rubbing his belly or holding his hand and talking to him but none of it worked. All I could do was pray for him and ask the Lord to comfort him. I think it is impossible for me to leave that particular orphanage and not cry about it at some point. I don’t know what gets to me most…the pain that some of them have to endure alone, the thought of them dying there, or the fact that those babies and children are innocent and are not there through some fault of their own. I know our God is sovereign and that is what comforts me. Over the last 3 weeks there has been a certain verse that God has been throwing at me from many different directions. It is Romans 8:28 and I think it applies to my orphanage visits. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Praise God that He knows so much more than I do!
But don’t get all depressed about the Mother Theresa orphanage, not everything about the visit is sad. The toddlers are a lot of fun. They really enjoy it when we sing to them. We have sung everything from “twinkle, twinkle little star” to “what a mighty God we serve”. Also, every song we sing we put to a fast clap…the kids really like this and clap away with us.
Mother’s day weekend was a pretty eventful one. That Saturday there was a triathlon held and many people in our mission competed. Stephanie, Mallory, and a new friend named Annette competed in the team category. Stephanie swam, Mallory biked, and Annette ran. I am very proud to say that their team won and brought home the gold medal and trophy. Also, James Strange (our treasurer), David Kizziah (journeyman 9 hours north), and Chris McIlravy (journeyman that just arrived) competed in the team event. James biked, David ran, and Chris swam. They came in second and did very well. And Alan competed in the individual race. He not only won the competition but he set a new record time.

first row: James and Cindy Strange (Cindy is my supervisor), me, Annette
middle row: Mallory, Alan, Chris, David
back row: Tommy, Stephanie

So today is May 18. Two things come to mind about today. The first being that it is my half birthday, I am now officially 23 and a half. The other being that one year ago today I graduated from college. CRAZY! How can that be? A year has already passed? I have been a semi-grown up for a year now. I can’t help but wonder what I will be thinking one year from today. Will I be as excited to be here as I am now? Will I be making plans for my homecoming back to the states? Who knows, I guess time will tell.

Seated (left to right): Mallory, Nathan, Alan, Stan, Tommy
Standing (l-r): David, Jill, Stephanie, Sean


Tonight we (all the journeymen) went to the Dickard house for Nathan Dickard’s birthday. Nathan turned 10 years old today. So to celebrate the occasion we were invited over to eat the meal of Nathan’s choosing, “noodley stuff” as he called it. It was a great meal (like every meal at the Dickard house) that was topped off with a most excellent chocolate cake which was baked by Sean, one of Nathan’s older brothers. Sean is somewhat famous around here for his baking skills.

Sean putting candles in Nathan’s yummy birthday cake.



Nathan blowing out his candles.

Unfortunately, Nancy (Nathan’s mom) could not be here to celebrate with us. She left Sunday morning headed to the states for a few weeks. But I know she would be pleased with how the birthday supper went. Tonight was also fun because we had two out-of-town journeymen joining us…..David and Jill, who both live in Kasama (9 hours north). It is always nice to see those guys when they come in to Lusaka.

Stephanie and Jill.

Bright and early in the morning, 5:15am to be exact, we will be headed to the airport. A new journeyman, Chris, will be arriving. He will live here in Lusaka and work with Mallory heading up mountain bike survey kind of work. So you can pray for Chris and the adjustments he will need to make to his life in Africa.


This is me and Stephanie being really funny and showing off our creativity! We talked Mallory into making mother’s day cards with us and he left his on our table when he was finished. Well we decided to turn it into a sign for Chris when he arrives to his new house. Earlier in the week Mallory forbade us to make tooty-fruity girl signs to put up to welcome Chris. So tonight we did a little doctoring to Mallory’s card to his mother. Along with a few minor adjustments, we added glitter, and hearts, and the color pink, and changed “mom” to “Chris”. So now when Chris goes to open his door, he will see a cute little poster from his roomate Mallory welcoming him home that says “love, Mallory.” I hope he likes it because I know me and Stephanie sure do!

Today could be described as “a lesson in Zambian culture.” We learned that weddings here are ALL DAY affairs. Me and Stephanie attended the wedding of one of Stephanie’s closest national friends, Kasonde. Kasonde is a really great gal. Her aunt, Elizabeth, operates an orphanage from her home. I have mentioned it before. It is called the Tasche House. So all the kids (about 15) from the orphanage got to come and be apart of the festivities, which was fun for me and Stephanie because we got to play with them the whole time.


Aunt Elizabeth.


The Tasche kids waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Now let me explain to you about Zambian time….time doesn’t exist. The ceremony was to begin at 11am (which it didn’t). A good rule of thumb around here is to add an hour or hour and a half to the time. If something is to begin at 2pm then you would be safe to not show up until 3pm or a little later. Needless to say, we showed up at the ceremony around 11am like any good American would…..and we sat there until 12pm when the bride and groom finally showed for their wedding. We knew they had arrived because we could hear all the ladies in the back making their African trilling noise (it is a rather hard noise to explain). So finally we were all set to begin!

The groom, Chola, watching his bride come down the aisle! Kasonde being “respectful” as she walks down the aisle.

Most wedding ceremonies in this country are similar to the ones in the states. Only here they DANCE through the whole thing, not walk. So it begins by the bridesmaids dancing a choreographed routine down the aisle to their assigned spots. Meanwhile the groomsmen are standing in a line swaying back and forth to the music being played. When it is time for the bride to make her way down she must walk very slowly and keep her head down while not smiling. This is supposed to be a sign of respect. But you almost want to feel sorry for her because she looks like she is sad or in pain.
Another difference in the weddings is here there is something called a matron. This is an older married woman who helps and counsels the bride prior to the wedding. She tells the bride how to act not only on the wedding day but also in married life. The matron is a part of the ceremony as well. She is always the leader when it is time to make an entrance


Mr. And Mrs. Chola Chama. The lady in red is the matron.


Me and two of the bridesmaids, Bwalya (left) and Frieda (right).

After the whole wedding vows and ring exchange and kissing, it is time for the preaching to begin. The pastor today wasn’t so bad, he only spoke for about 15 minutes. When the preaching is over then the wedding party dances out. This time the bridesmaids and groomsmen dance together. It really is a lot of fun!

The wedding party dancing into the reception.






If you look closely you can see the groom dancing around the bride. He seems to be pretty excited!


Now it is time for the reception, which was scheduled to begin at 3pm. And again, we did not apply the one hour rule and ended up waiting. The wedding party arrived to the reception at 4:45pm. Again, the whole wedding party dances in doing a choreographed dance, also known as “steps”. It is all very entertaining to watch. The reception went well and they served all the cokes you could drink! We both had 3 apiece!


Me and Emily (one of the Tasche kids) trying to pass the time.


Me and the girls sitting at our table. Me and Stephanie.