clinic pics

This first team has been using the medical clinic building to do a small clinic for the locals.





This is Betty Jo helping Rozenne with patients. The building doesn't have power or water yet, but that is one thing Paul plans to finish up when he gets here.



This is Rozenee with one of the national pastors who was helping her interpret the first day.

HERE WE GO!!!

The first group of American summer teams arrived on Tuesday. It was quite a day as the red bus was still being worked on so we had to use the white truck and our vehicle to pick up the team. The flights arrived at different times and there were some pastors who came in on the bus, and a few things to get done during the day…so it was a little crazy. Lewis and his family arrived around 4 pm; Brian arrived with the rest of the team around 5:30. We all ate supper and the team pretty much just tried getting settled in for the night.
Wednesday morning all the craziness and running in different directions began! The students and the three men from the US began work in the woodshop on beds and picnic tables. I think all the Americans had actual beds in their cabins by the time the day was over. They will work on a few more tomorrow I believe, and Kris will take a little time to work in the solar house so he can’t see if he can get the lights back on.
Two of the ladies (both 79 years old!) sat up a medical clinic in the clinic building. No electricity or water in their yet, but it worked out just fine. Rozeene is a nurse and brought some supplies. As you can imagine, the line was long! They are also passing out hygiene kits and sharing the Gospel with them.
Jennifer and Suzanne went down to Kaziemba Basic School, where the headmaster called the students back from break for a type of VBS for lack of what else to call it. They will be there for five more mornings and brought school kits for all the children. We didn’t think they started until Thursday; so needless to say, we were late getting them there (or on African time??). Brian or I will have to drive them the five kilometers down there each morning and pick them up (we’ll probably end up with a backseat full of kids too!).
Lewis and Henry went into town for supplies, more lumber and to pick up the red bus. It is mechanically repaired, but there are a few welding things that need to be done. They will also be bringing out some more national pastors. They are arriving from Malawi, one from Cameroon, Nigeria; some are here already from Congo and Mozambique. They are going to be finishing some training with a pastor from Florida using the BTCP materials for a few days. I understand some of them graduate on Saturday.
For the most part I haven’t felt it has been too crazy. Each morning we start school in the hopes of being done before noon. Some days we get sooo close…then I have to drive or run something somewhere, but it’s okay. My new washing machine is coming in VERY HANDY!!! We eat lunch and dinner with the teams, so not much for cooking and before bed we make sure the house is all picked up so we can get up and get going right away in the morning.
Brian was helping find things in the shop most of yesterday and getting that set up. He got replacement parts for the John Deere tractor so was trying to put that together. There was one “o” ring they couldn’t get, but we had the old one to use. Of course, that broke as he was trying to put it on. Argh! He jb-kwik-welded it; hopefully that will work; otherwise it is order a new one and wait for three weeks for it to arrive.
Lucy asked me to speak some at the Zambia Baptist Women’s Conference as she is the main speaker-has 6 or more hours to cover. I started looking at the theme verses yesterday- Revelation 3:11 and 1 Peter 5:10. If I remember the theme is “A Year of Dramatic Increase and Taking Back What Satan has Stolen from Us.” Should be interesting…I will see where it goes! I keep teasing Lucy because she hasn’t had time to start much preparing yet either!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Just found out our house “passed inspection” and we have a renter moving in on May 1st!! YEAH!!!!

BABYPROOF!

So how exactly do you baby proof in Africa? Henry is CRAWLING NOW!!! He is also trying to pull himself up to stand. Could be an interesting summer! We may have to put the cattle panels around the veranda!

LADIES DAY

This is the new look-for about a month or so, however long the extensions stay looking nice. They are longer than I was planning-I thought the gal would ask me how long I wanted, she didn’t. I also was thinking of a different braid, but this is what Lucy thought I meant. I told her it had to be something so the big white patches on my head didn’t stick out! I went with Chestnut, the same color as my hair now. I didn’t want to do anything too different this first time. They have a maroon that everyone here seems to like, and a reddish-orange. Everywhere at the Chongwe market told me how nice it looks and everyone at the school likes it. The teacher from the basic school at Kaziemba told me it was much more attractive than what I had before! They don’t mince words here-you have to get used to it! The hair cost me about $4 and the fishtail plaiting took 3 hours and cost me about $7! It would cost hundreds in the US!
The idea was to be ladies day, visit and get to know Christine and Lucy some. I didn’t realize what type of shop the salon would be. Basically it was a room not much bigger than my bathroom in the US. There was no real space to discuss and tell stories. People were walking by and coming in and out, checking the white lady getting the fishtail.
The gal who owned the shop wasn’t doing my hair-someone else was. But I got to see the gal set some hair. Christine had hers washed and set, looked very nice. A couple of other people just had theirs washed and dried. So she washes it outside over two bowls. Then she starts combing and drying. Now these gals had the ‘fro hair for lack of knowing what else to call it. Just very high and straight out. While she is drying, I can see the water spray off as she combs. Soon though, it starts to look smoky, like she is steaming it. Then she stops, puts petroleum jelly all over their hair and starts to dry again. Now the blue smoke starts to float! I could also smell the burnt hair. Many had it done, so that just must be what they do, what they use. I wonder what she put in Christine’s hair before she put the rollers in and dried it-I think that was a ton of jelly too!
After we were done there, we walked to the tailor’s so I could get measured. Lucy and Christine both have this really cute dress and I decided I wanted one too! The materials and tailoring will cost me about $10. I hope the colors look good on me too! I’ll post it when I get it back.
I then took them out for a pop and lunch. We headed back to Kazimeba and were home around 3 pm.
Oh yes, I must mention that I drove ALL BY MYSELF! I got stopped by road traffic and they wanted to see my license, but no problems today. It is still very weird driving on the opposite side of the road!

praise team

I am now part of the praise team-which in all truth is almost the whole church on any given Sunday! It is the students, Lucy, Christine, Mildred and I and Faith when she is here. Last Friday was my first time at practice. I gave Lucy a file with some praise chorus from the states. Most of these are older songs, songs I sang when I was in at bible camp in high school! Since I gave the book, I get to teach the songs of course as most of them don’t know it. Basically I have to tell them the words, and then sing them the tune. They caught on to the songs pretty quick. Even after one or two times, we have about an 8 part choir. It is just SOOO cool to here and be a part of. They also like to “move a little” so if there are actions, we do those too. Otherwise we do a lot of the step-shuffle. We also have a “kickline” with 3 shuffles and a kick! Thank God I was blessed with rhythm. Many of the songs are in Bembe or Nyanji so it takes a bit for me to sing them. Most of the songs just repeat over and over again so I can start to get. If I don’t know all the words I can sustain notes until we get to the end of the phrase and hit that.
My problem is my own inhibition I guess. I can do a little groove, but I feel so self-conscious I have a hard time letting myself do it. That is one thing I love about the Zambian people-they just say it, do it, its so matter of fact.

the washing machine

Yes, we have a washing machine. I have it hooked up down in the office. It is the only place that we have that runs 220 50hz. So when we run the genset to pump water Kel brings down clothes. It usually takes about 1 ½ hrs to fill the tank and right now we are pumping 2 times a day so it should not be a problem to stay caught up. Mariah is not happy that we got the machine though. She said she likes to wash clothes by hand. She truly is our African daughter.