Trip to Kizito Baptist Church
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.

This is the first thing I saw when I woke up and walked out of my room the other morning. I have no idea how he got up there.

So goes another month.........

Let me first start off by saying that I typed out a prayer letter/update not long ago and sent it out to everyone. A few days went by and I was actually a little sad because only 2 people had responded to it. But as it turns out, the internet was to blame. A couple of days ago I got an email stating that my prayer letter was not sent to nearly everyone on my list. All of the addresses that failed to deliver were hotmail addresses…so if you have a hotmail account, sorry.


Last month we took Stephanie's brother to see the falls and to go on a game drive. We were very disappointed near the end because we had not seen the elephants. As we are driving out we look out our window and see these guys. Talk about feeling a little intimidated!!


Me and Steph



Linus and Chikulu. Aren't our kitties cute!



A boy from Shantumbu.


This week I began many new ministries. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I will be teaching CBS in a new area. It is just a few kilometers past State Lodge Baptist Church (where I taught last time). Viniya is helping me again by translating. To get to our location, I have to drive through a farm, and in one stretch of the drive I have to drive through a herd of cows. When I went on Monday I was laughing hysterically at the situation. I was creeping on along and honking my horn to get the cows to move. It was a wonderful time to have a camera handy (and wouldn’t you know I did not have one). Actually the place I am teaching is behind Veniya’s home in a building that used to be a chicken house but has been converted into a church. On Tuesdays I am teaching a religious education class to six 8th graders at a new school in town. I am hoping this little stint will answer a question of mine, “Do I want to be a teacher when I get back?” And on Thursdays I am teaching a Bible club at Lusaka International Community School (LICS). I went there today and had a great time! Helen Neely is helping me. The kids at that school are too adorable! I am excited to see what the Lord will do there. Today was our first day and we only had 4 signed up to attend. When the children were leaving for their activities, there were 3 of the cutest boys (about 1st grade) left standing quietly in a line looking lost and scared to death. They had signed up to play board games but board games got cancelled due to little interest. So the man in charge of activities told the boys to come to Bible club (I think it is only because we were standing right there…but we’ll take ‘em however we can get ‘em!). Lucky us! So our attendance ended up being 7 children.


Bible club @ LICS. We were coloring our pictures of creation.


A couple of weeks ago I had my wallet stolen along with my passport and bank card. I have to admit that I was a little upset with the situation. I was pick-pocketed (and I think I know exactly when it happened). We were at a craft market that we go to on the last Saturday of the month. It is a good thing Stephanie was there with all her smarts. I could not really think straight or focus. So she took me to a police station to file a report. Surprisingly, the whole police ordeal was relatively painless. Praise the Lord!



Last month Steph and I helped with a volunteer group who came through to work in orphanages. This is a picture of the big event we would throw for the kids at the end of the week. It was like a field day. The children seemed to really enjoy themselves. There were about 5 orphanges on this Friday.


At the beginning of the month we said goodbye to our friend and fellow journeyman, Tommy Knighten. His term was up and he was headed back to his home of Shreveport, La. He even went to Tech. Too bad we had to go to Africa to meet each other. We all miss ole Tommy, but we probably do not miss him as much as Stephanie. You see, Stephanie and Tommy are what you call “getting’ hitched”. Yep, that’s right, friends, Stephanie and Tommy are engaged and will be getting married in May 2004. Stephanie will finish her term here on October 9, and go back home to Richmond, Va. I’ll be sad when Steph leaves but I will also be happy for her as she returns home and prepares for the future.


This was early in the morning. I was helping Tommy cook breakfast for Stephanie.


This is the lion that lives in our backyard. He is somewhat domestic, he only scratches and doesn't bite. Okay, so maybe he lives at the zoo and not in our yard.

For all of you who are familiar with The Commission magazine, the August 2003 edition features Zambia. Now I did not make the cut for the article, but Stephanie’s ankles did! They appear in the corner of a picture. The article focuses on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, specifically Zambia. If you are unable to obtain of copy of it for yourself, you can read it online at www.tconline.com (although I am not sure if it is up yet).


Me and Stephanie eating lunch during our most recent trip out to Shantumbu. We are sharing nshima and rape (like collard greens). Actually Steph is pulling the weight of the team and taking up my slack. The last time we came to Shantumbu I got incredibly sick...so i could not bring myself to eat here again, at least not without having flashbacks of that miserable night spent hanging over the toilet. So i was just taking my nshima and rolling it around and pretending.

The Baptist Mission of Zambia now has a website (thanks to mastermind Tommy Knighten). So you can get to know our different teams and check out everything that is going on in the different areas of Zambia. My team is the Greater Lusaka Area Team (GLAT). The address is www.bmoz.org . The site is brand new so there might not be much information up yet but keep checking it!



Sleeping beauties. Sweet baby Linus! He is definitely a cuddler.

update coming soon...

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!