The guys at the school loaded the trucks to head down to Grace Baptist Church around 9:45 am on Sunday. Along the way they picked up a few people and the women sang the entire way. Most of the families at the bible school attend this church. He thought the plan was that once the school gets up and going, the church will move closer to Kaziemba. It is a 25 minute drive, or a 40 minute walk through the bush (they walked home after church). The day starts with Sunday School first, which is generally somewhere around 20 minutes long. The kids do their class outside. When they all gather together, one man and one woman must share something they learned that day during the question and answer time about the teaching. This is followed by some singing, even sometimes dancing. On Sunday one older woman got up from the back, danced up to the front, and back down the isle. There are no instruments; it’s just the tribe African trills and singing. The very interesting thing to Brian was that they did NOT call this worship. It was after this singing and dancing that the worship began. They sang one worship chorus, and then began praying out loud altogether in the most passionate, fervent way. They did this for about 10 minutes; Brian said he just shook inside. After this time, they sang the chorus again to close worship. It was NOT the singing that was the worship, it was the prayers!
Henry introduced Brian to the church as the missionary from the states that was coming to farm with them. Henry had warned Brian on Saturday that “tomorrow we greet you, next week you preach.” So Brian asked for some prayer for that! He has some idea of what he will share about. The kids on Sunday were learning about living a life as a living sacrifice and that your faith without works is dead-they threw the kids right into James! He may tie into that and preach about all that we do being UNTO the Lord, not just for or to, but UNTO, and that this includes stewardship of your land, time, money, and work too. He’s got no time constraints and didn’t even have to ask to share!
What’s also funny is during our last conversation when he was telling me about the morning devotions with the workers, I asked him if he as ready to share. Devos start at 7 am, so I said they’d probably ask you at 6:55! Sure enough, that next morning he was running a little late. He gets there and Daniel says they’ve been waiting for him. Why? Well, he was sharing the Word that morning! Brian said he didn’t know that! Oh, no one told you Daniel asked? Nope Brian said. So someone else shared-like our mission guy says, “always carry a sermon around in your Bible!”.
After church they walked back, had peanut butter sandwiches and tea and everyone went off to rest for the Sabbath. Brian was going to do a little work, but instead headed up Mt. Kaziemba and stayed up there until dark.
Now, least you think he really is roughing it too much, let me tell you about his room. He has electricity; a light, a plug-in and a ceiling fan. He even found a kettle to keep coals in at night to keep the cabin a little warm (he says it gets pretty chilling at night-somewhere around 40 degrees). And, Sunday nights are also movie nights. Paul and another guy went into Lusaka one day and got a suitcase full of snacks, and every Sunday they watch a movie on the little 8 inch DVD player they brought and eat snacks. This week they watched an old John Wayne movie.
Yes, Brian did eat goat, but they gave the intestine to some of the Zambian pastors as a treat. The guys at the school said that this is definitely the best time of the year for them. They get three squares a day, and often eat meat. When there aren’t teams there, they maybe get meat once a week. These pastors coming in from around Africa will eat the better for their one week at the school then all the rest of the year.
Brian said he is now sleeping a good 5-6 hours a night. He doesn’t go to bed until 11 pm and is usually up around 4 or 5 am. It’s a good straight sleep, just not very long. He still feels the spiritual realm all around; not that necessarily oppressing him, it is just there. He has even woken up to find himself weeping.
One thing he is really learning and beginning to understand is the culture, which is a praise. There are little things that he’s catching onto. Like when someone asks you for something (a shovel, tool, whatever), you DO NOT hand it to them. You set it somewhere. If you hand it to them, then will not give it back, it is seen as a sign that you are giving it to them. But, if you set it somewhere, they will return it to that same spot.
Last year they did a free medical clinic. There were some of the same people there everyday, because they were giving things free. Something else that we here in the West have a hard time dealing with is this giving things free. If something is given to them free, they just don’t value it. Brian sees so much waste in some of the materials that they have lying around. They didn’t pay for it, it was given to them, and so they don’t take care of it. I remember reading a gal’s blog who was a missionary with the Southern Baptists in Zambia. They didn’t give things to anyone for free, including Bibles. Now that is a bit controversial, but Brian can now see both sides of it. This gal would have the villagers memorizing some Scripture or something to “earn” the bible. Once they earned it, it has value, and they cherish it. Of course not everyone is like that, but overall the culture is like that. Just to keep going on the Bible part, other people have no problem giving out the bibles, even if it ends up being sold somewhere-at least someone is getting a bible somewhere.
Please continue praying for Paul and whether he is being called to the bible school as well. Brian says it almost seems as if he (or someone-satan) is trying to talk him out of it.
Kevin was able to get Brian a quote on all the door frames and window frames for the house-4,000,000 kwacha, about $1175 US?. Not sure-the exchange rate was 3400 kwacha to the dollar last week. That quote is without the 16% value added tax, which I think the guy waved since Brian will be doing more business with him. We sent over some of the funds you, our supporters, sent for us. Brian keeps track of all the workers that work for him and for how long. Also any materials he orders for himself, that he takes from the various piles, etc. Someone else is also keeping track, but Brian doing it adds in a little more accountability.
Monday night he did have the start of a headache, apparently they had hit it pretty hard that day. The backhoe was still not fixed, so he and about four other villagers started digging the footings by hand. (On Monday Zambia celebrated African Freedom Day, so everything was closed, that’s why the backhoe couldn’t get fixed.) He was hoping to have the footings dug by the end of today, and be able to get ready to pour tomorrow. He is hoping to have the walls up in three weeks; he is shooting for two, but it depends a lot on material availability. The first load of 1500 hundred blocks arrived Monday night at 9 pm-was suppose to be there Saturday, then first thing Monday… Brian also had about 6 national pastors helping clear the lot across from the house where he needed it so trucks could get in. Understandably this week is about training and socializing for the pastors too, so only so much work actually got done. He was trying to explain to me how this works-they dig for a one foot footing, then they put the block on top. They lay block to grade where floor is, then pour flour. Somewhere in there they do the sewer lines, but didn’t remember when; and really, it’s all greek to me anyway! The septic will be in the “park” wherever that ends up being-I don’t know!
Brian has also being using more of our training from MTI. There is one gentleman in particular that has a very different conflict style than Brian so he has learning more and more each day how to deal with him, but it’s uncomfortable. It’s neat that he recognizes the training and is using (remember he wasn’t too thrilled to go in the first place!).
During his “down time” he has been reading through E.M Bounds “Complete Works on Prayer”. He’s really taking his time and trying to soak it all in-some of it you need to read through three or four times!
Well, I think that is it. I am at my mom’s house typing this while the open house is going on. In my “dream” state I thought I’d get this typed and two other notes Brian left, and edit some old posts…not gonna happen. We’re going to drive out to the farm here in a little bit so I can pick some rhubarb for dessert tonight.
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