Kamwamba!
Well I made it to Namwianga Mission yesterday. It is so surreal finally being here and
actually living here. To get here we had
an 8.5 hr trip from Memphis to Amsterdam, an hour and a half layover, a 9.5 hr
trip from Amsterdam to Lusaka, Zambia, then had to get our visas, then dealt
with everyone getting there bags (only one was not transferred from plane to
plane), then went through customs, then had about a 20 min ride to the hotel we
stayed at for the night (got in somewhere around 1 a.m. Zambia time), woke up
at around 7 for breakfast and then left at 8 with a small group to take care of
a few things in Lusaka while we were there, then hit the road for about a 6 hr
drive to Kalomo (stopping at a place called Tooter’s for lunch, which had fried
chicken and fries), from Kalomo it was only about 7Km to our houses on the
Namwianga Mission. The trip was long and
incredibly tiring, but well worth it to get to this beautiful place. God definitely blessed us with our smooth
trip.
The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will
give you rest.”
-Exodus 33:14
Our House: I am in
the Small Mann House. It literally is a
small house. We have a small kitchen area/ living room, a small bathroom, and
two small rooms with bunk beds in both. Electricity
has been pretty good since we have been here, only turning off once today for
about 30 min. We got all moved in
yesterday when we got here.
All of the Zambians I have met are extremely excited and
thankful that we are here. Zach Rhoel,
one of the guys in my house, got up early this morning and ended up talking
with a Zambian named Jonathon. They got
to know each other a bit and Jonathon asked to have a bible study with him
tonight. So he came over to the house
and we invited him in and all got to meet him.
The bible study just ended a little while ago.
Today, the main thing we did was go to the Haven, the small
children’s orphanage, to tour it, get assigned specific babies, and eventually
play with the kids. It was eye opening
to see all of these beautiful, precious orphans. There are over 75 of them spread out over 3 separate
buildings in which they are separated by age, condition, etc. Each one of these children has either lost
both of their parents or has lost their mother and thus lost their food supply
and their father cannot feed them because formula is so expensive and poverty
is so great here. I can’t help but feel
love for these children. I don’t have a
specific child assigned to me, but I went to Haven 2 which houses the toddlers
today and played with kids there. I met
a little girl named Ella, age 3, who just loved to be held. Ella and I just chilled together for the time
we were there and she started to cry when I had to put her down to head back to
unload a container that has some of our stuff inside.
Tomorrow our plans are to have a complete tour of the
majority of the mission and then head into Kalomo. It is really difficult to explain everything
here and we only have a certain amount of internet we are allowed to use during
the semester so pictures will be few and far between unfortunately.
Leza Mulekeke (God Bless You)
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be
afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is
my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.
- Isaiah 12:2
