i'll be home for christmas (if the barge gets here in time...)

Hi, friends and family! Weeeee’re baaaaack!! :)

Bryan and I made it back into onto US soil this week, tired out after about an hour of sleep on the plane but well and excited to be back at home for the holidays. It was so wonderful to see IAH airport covered in tinsel, wreaths, and garlands. We certainly got to enjoy a bit of Christmas cheer in Peru over the past couple of weeks, but you can only feel so festive when it’s 90 degrees and raining cats, dogs, and mosquitoes outside every day! So now we’re back, rested up, and ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus in just hours’ time!

Before I go on, I promised pictures from Huaraz, Mancos (near Huascaran, the tallest mountain in Peru and in all the world’s tropics), and Machu Picchu – and these are just so beautiful that I have to show you them first!

 Mancos, Peru from our hostel window

ta-daaaaa!

we bought bread from this precious woman every morning

in the Black Mountains - a local woman walking to town in traditional garb

rockin out to Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack with John on a hike

Huascaran!

a family's farm on the way up the mountain

phew. made it! (well, we didn't actually get to the snow line...but hey, we tried!)



 Llanganuco Lakes 

Machu Picchu with my love

John and some llamas above the ruins

More photos of our time in Iquitos, Nauta, and the jungle, of course, are on their way. Just blame the fact that I’m still on Peruvian time. ;)

Since I last posted, Bryan and I traveled to Iquitos again to get ready to go on “Viaje Navidad,” the annual Christmas Trip where we gifted dolls, play pistols, little wind-up cars, and baby toys to thousands of kids in about twenty-five towns in the Amazon. In Iquitos, we met up with Pastor Jorge, his daughter Grace, and a few church members and friends from the jungle who would help us with preparing the gifts, cooking, and working the motors. Finally, we were on our way! A barge ride and a couple of days later, the group of us was traveling from tiny river town to tinier river town in Jorge’s “mini-barge,” singing with the kids, distributing gifts, and being fed with literally hundreds of manguas (think mangos, only smaller), oranges, passion fruit, mamays (“rose apples”), and avocadoes. Fortunately, I also got to meet many of Bryan’s friends that he hadn’t gotten to catch up with yet (including Richard, the panaderia guy, and his huge family again), paint not one but two churches, and go to over 20 villages.

Two weeks later, Bryan and I left on a barge to get back Nauta a couple of days before the rest of the gang to make sure that we would catch our flight back to the States in time. Good thing we did, too, because Jorge and company actually ended up waiting two extra days for the-barge-that-wouldn’t-come. They only just got back into Iquitos a couple of hours before we drove to the airport! (A bit of a close call, yes?) When we got back, Jorge reminded us of a time when he had waited two whole weeks in the jungle for a barge to pass by…oh, Peru. What are we to do with you? So in the few hours that we were in Nauta, we got to see Chris and the progress she’d already made on her “get-away haven” for jungle missionaries. She already had a wall inside her house half-way up and under construction (YAY!), and she expected to get electricity with a Peruvian month. A couple of days later, we were all packed up and on a night-flight back to the States!

Now, this is the part where I might be tempted to say something like, “I had an amazing time, learned a lot, wouldn’t change a moment of it, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat.” But although I did have a wonderful time and definitely want to go back to Peru someday soon, I’d be lying through my teeth if I left it at that. To be completely honest, immersion was hard. Even though I stayed in Zambia for four months rather than the two we spent in Peru, I wasn’t “immersed” in the African culture at all, really. I could speak English to nearly everyone I met, I taught in English, I lived in the compound with the other South African missionaries and American interns, and we had incredible facilities that worked nearly all of the time. I had a microwave, refrigerator, and grocery store just around the corner, for goodness’ sakes. Please don’t understand me: the amenities we had really did help the long-term missionaries to be productive and (frankly) to endure, and their daily work was intimately connected with widows, orphans, AIDS/HIV patients, malnourished children, and people struggling to survive deep in the African bush. Many would argue that the conveniences on the base were necessary, critical – but even so, we lived in a Western haven with people who spoke English fluently, were used to the American culture, and understood the concept of “personal space.”

In Peru, we didn’t have that bubble. Every morning, it was punctured. “Personal space” does not exist in Peru. It’s not part of the culture. Your skin isn’t even your own. A couple of the women we traveled with on the Christmas trip picked through my hair for lice – not because they thought I had it, but because it’s a demonstration of affection and friendship. The teenagers and kids followed me everywhere. I walked twenty paces away to get a picture of the river, they followed. I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, my roommate followed. I went to the river to bathe, 5 or 6 little ones grabbed their bars of soap and followed. I walked down a sidewalk and in about two minutes’ time, ten or twenty kids followed. I couldn’t communicate effectively (man, am I glad that Bryan’s fluent – jungle Spanish is rough), I was tired of eating rice and carbs all the time (we actually had more meat on our trip than was normal, but my American metabolism screamed for more protein and fiber), and I felt helpless to even cook or do the dishes. Everything smelled like dirty Amazon water, including freshly-washed clothes (we washed them in the river, obviously), the chickens started at 3:30 am every morning and didn’t quit till the afternoon, and the mosquitoes…oh, the mosquitoes. I never have to see a blood-sucking bug again. I just wanted to hide in my mosquito net all the time, away from the people I couldn’t talk to, away from the food I didn’t want to eat, away from the insects I couldn’t shake.

And the worst part? I was certain that I was the most intolerant, spoiled girl who ever walked the earth - and I felt so guilty for it. I was disgusted with myself that I was so annoyed, so done with jungle life, so anxious to get back on that barge and head back to the city of Iquitos. I was finally (and for the first time) going through cultural immersion, and I haaaaated that I hated it. 

However, with a little bit of time, space, and a whole lot of perspective, I’m starting to be able to look back at our trip with renewed appreciation. I obviously still need a few more months to process, but already I can see how God’s going to use my time in Peru to shape me into the servant I want to become. Even while we were still there, in the midst of my intolerance, I began to appreciate the incredible hardiness, faithfulness, and steadfastness of the Peruvian people. I came to understand in my heart what I had already known in my mind: this was the majority world (i.e. “third world”), and the culture and privileges that I was used to in the States, from personal space to opportunity, were in fact not “normal” at all. Protein, timeliness, and clean water are luxuries that most of the world can’t enjoy. Even a seemingly little thing like understanding English puts us far ahead of the curve for getting jobs, making a decent income, and breaking out of confining societal systems.

Most of all, though, my experience in Peru taught me the living definition of grace. As Paul Tillich puts it,

"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life...It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for hte name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; no not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.' If that happens to us, we experience grace."

Mix that with a little bit of John Piper:

"'God is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.' (Acts 17:25) A God who cannot be served is a God who can only be enjoyed. The great sin of hte world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so as to increase his glory, but that we have failed to delight in God so as to reflect his glory. For God's glory is most reflected in us when we are most delighted in him."

It was (and still is) a hard lesson, but my sole object in life is to accept grace and delight in God, allowing him to lavish grace on and delight in me. I learned nothing else over the last two months, understanding just that was worth the struggle.

So what now? Well, now (as hard as it is to hit “pause” on wedding coordinating, gift-buying, and life-planning), it’s time to stop and celebrate Christ! I hope you all have an amazing Christmas Eve and an even better Christmas with friends, family, and loved ones. Thank you, as always, for your thoughts and prayers, and I look forward to talking with yall soon!

Con mucho amor,

Stephanie :)

mosquitos and bedbugs and fleas, oh my!

¡Hola y un gran abrazo de peru, amigos and familia!

Over the past four weeks, we´ve had a wonderful time in Peru. Machu Picchu was beautiful and certainly lived up to its reputation. (Pictures soon to come!) After staying in hostels in Ollantaytambo and Cuzco (the towns closest to Machu Picchu), spending a night at the Lima airport (not as sketchy as it sounds, I promise - we weren´t the only ones rollin out the sleeping bags in dimly-lit corners), and staying with Bryan´s good friend Pastor Jorge in Iquitos, Bryan and I went to Nauta to spend a week or so with Chris, a missionary who lives there. A few days before, John, Bryan´s younger brother, got incredibly sick off of ceviche (a traditional Peruvian dish of fish ¨cooked¨ in acidic fruit juice) and actually ended up flying home that week. He´s at home and doing well now, so I´d just ask for prayers for his continuous health over these next few weeks as his body reacclimates itself to American food!

When we first got to Chris´ house in Nauta, we were shocked to find that we had some unexpected housemates: two kittens in Chris´ store closet completely tangled in what looked like fishing net. They were covered in fleas, newly born (maybe two days old), and bloody from trying to free themselves from the mess of strings and knots. We were able to free them and clean them up a little bit, but despite a few days of flea shampoo treatment, force-feeding canned milk through a floppy straw (try finding anything close to an eye dropper in Nauta), and covering them in lots of blankets so they could keep warm, they both died. It seems like such a small thing to get upset about - aren´t there starving children in Africa or something with which to occupy my mind? - but it was absolutely horrible. Add on to that the fact that Chris´ house now has fleas, and I´m sure you understand that that week for me was a doosey.

Thankfully, the rest of our time spent in Nauta with Chris was fantastic, and her unflagging optimism and can-do attitude definitely cheered me up. She´s now living in a newly constructed (soon to be) two-story house that she´s working to get ready for use as a pastors´ retreat center. Her vision is that the house might be a welcome haven for Peruvian pastors who are now missionaries planting churches in the Amazon jungle. Although Nauta isn´t a thriving montropolis, it at least has motocarros (think Central Park´s horse-drawn carriages in NYC...only your horse is a motorcycle and instead of ten thousand taxis littering the streets, you have motocarros), a decent marketplace, restaurants, a place to get cool drinks, etc - a perfect get-away for the men to relax, reenergize, read, and recooperate before they head back out to their churches along the River.

Right now, Chris´ place doesn´t have electricity; there´s no divide among the kitchen, living area, or bedroom; the only way to get to the partially finished upstairs is with a ladder; and her bathroom is blocked off with black plastic trash bags. All that´s quickly changing, though: the city agreed to wire electricity to her street today, and her sons and other work groups from the States will soon visit to help finish nailing in the upstairs floor boards, put in walls, redo her draining system so she can have two functioning toilets and showers, and bring in computers and books for the pastors. We´re so excited for all her hard work finally paying off! While with Chris, we got to meet her neighbors and friends (many of them under the age of ten and always wanting come in to play), start putting in the floor boards for her second floor, help organize the downstairs, hang out with the kids, have coffee and tea with the moms on her street, and dream with her about the materials she´d like to have available for the pastors while they stay there. Her dedication to this project and to the people of Peru was truly an amazing thing to witness!

In the middle of our stay with Chris, Bryan and I caught a barge to San Pedro, a tiny village (42 adults) upriver of Nauta, to visit one of Bryan´s good friends Richard. He and Bryan had lived and worked together in the jungle almost four years ago, so it was wonderful that we had the opportunity to see him, meet his new fifteen-year-old wife (and they got married two years ago...!!!), visit with his family, and check out his new panaderia (bread shop)! While staying in San Pedro, we got to learn how Richard makes bread (and even help out a bit), travel in his peke-peke (think small motor canoe) to sell his buns, sweetbreads, and crackers to clients along the river near his village, visit more of Bryan´s friends in a nearby town, and hang out with Richard´s brothers (i.e. play soccer - this is Peru!). I found out that Spanish in the jungle is MUCH more difficult to understand than it is in Iquitos or even Nauta. While I´d prided myself in comprehending at least 75% of what was said in Iquitos and almost all of Bryan´s side of conversations, I had trouble understanding the people of San Pedro at all. I´d ask them to repeat what they said, please, and repeat again, and slower, and please use different or smaller words...nothin. I survived on pointing to things, saying ¨Lo siento, no comprendo¨ (¨I´m sorry, I don´t understand¨), and gesticulating in crude sign language. Oh, cultural immersion.

Bryan and I are now back in Iquitos staying with Pastor Jorge and his family for a few days before we head out on that Viaje de Navidad I mentioned in my last posting. As it turns out, not only will we travel to over 20 villages to deliver toys and Christmas cheer to little ones, but we´ll also get to paint a church that has been through some serious difficulties over the past few years. Hopefully we can bring a little bit of hope to all!
Finally, as per my usual, here are a few more itemized learnings for your enjoyment.

You know you´re in Peru when...(cont´d)
(15) 9pm is late and you get up when the first obnoxious rooster crows - 5am.
(16) Should you be blessed with a shower, it´ll likely be what the locals call a ¨widowmaker,¨ appropriately named for its electrical box less than a foot away from the showerhead. Gracious.
(17) You consider a bathroom top-notch if it has any one of the following: toilet paper, toilet seat, no entry fee, handicap accessibility, warm water, any water, soap, any way to dry your hands, doors to its stalls, a way to flush the toilet.
(18) Pigs, rather than dogs, are on leashes.

And you know you´re in Iquitos when...
(19) You stow away on a barge for five hours before you learn that it´s not heading out that day. Try again tomorrow.
(20) There are more motocarros on the road than taxis in NYC. Really.
(21) A family of four on a motorcycle isn´t an uncommon occurence.
(22) You get bedbugs from hostels.
(23) You get fleas from gatos.
(24) The number of ants per square meter easily outnumber the number of people in the entire city.
(25) Uncovered manholes in the middle of the road are expected and as common as speedbumps (and much more detrimental to your car!).
(26) Jugo (juice) is as critical to survival as water. (Actually, considering the state of water in Peru, I´d venture to say it´s more so.)
(27) Mayonize on rice, french fries, eggs, toast, and fish isn´t at all uncommon.
(28) You truly appreciate the luxury of a non-dirt-floor.
(29) The ceviche sounds good only in theory...
(30) You begin to think in broken Spanish.

Lastly, you know you´re in the Amazon jungle when...
(31) There are three public, co-ed bathrooms for about two hundred people on a three-day barge trip. Glorious.
(32) You drink oatmeal (¨Quack-er¨ as it´s pronounced here) for breakfast.
(33) You keep a monkey as a pet, but dogs are pests.
(34) Bathtime is social hour.
(35) The two jars of peanut butter you brought for emergency-purposes-only is starting to look a bit scant.
(36) You get so many mosquito bites from the jungle that you look like you have a bad case of chicken pox.
(37) Your Thanksgiving is your first day in the jungle - so you celebrate with rice, pasta, eggs, and fresh homemade bread, and more rice!
(38) You are attacked by giant moths when you preach.
(39) You mow the lawn with a machete.
Thank you again for your prayers and support, and please enjoy this wonderful Christmas season!

Con mi amor,
Stephanie

wait you´re...engaged?!?! AND you´re in peru?

Hi all!

So this isn´t at all news to most of the people reading this, but guess what...I´M ENGAGED! Yaaaayyy! My fiance is a wonderful guy named Bryan Carey, mi amor y madala waka. To catch yall up to speed, he and I have been dating for just over a year now and in Houston a couple of weeks ago, he asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. Of course, I said YES! and we´re planning to get hitched in early August after he works for a while and I (hopefully) am able to go on a couple more medium-term international mission trips.

I would include ¨here¨ a picture of the gorgeous ring he gave me, but alas, I´m in an internet cafe in Huaraz, Peru (!) and to be frank, the connection´s not that super. Bryan, John (his younger brother), Denise (a good friend), and I have been in Peru for about a week and will stay just until Christmas, vacationing at first (we´re just about to get on a night bus to go to Cuzco to spend a day at Machu Picchu) and then spending the majority of our time in Iquitos and Nauta working alongside missionaries and villagers in the jungle. We´re having a wonderful time so far (hiking up Huascaran, seeing the Black Mountains, going to glacier lakes, seeing the ¨thermal baths¨ on my birthday...details to come when the pay-as-you-go internet clock isn´t ticking!), but I think I speak for all four of us when I say that we´re very much ready to get to the latter phase of our trip! Soon we´ll meet Chris, a long-term missionary in Nauta who we´ll stay with for about two weeks, and then Jorge, a Peruvian who will likely take us for a three-week trip into the jungle to distribute toys and pre-Christmas cheer to village kids. I´m not sure when I´ll get a chance to post again, so please keep Bryan, John, Denise, Chris, Jorge, the people we´ll be working with, and me in your thoughts and prayers!

So we may not be deep within the Amazon just yet, but we´ve definitely had some ¨You know you´re in Peru when...¨ experiences. Here´s just a few for your enjoyment. :)

You know you´re in Peru when...
(1) 18 kids cram around 4 computers in the only internet cafe in Mancos, jammin out to hard rock (in English, which they don´t understand a word of) and playing video games. Just like the States, eh?
(2) Bed bugs become a real problem.
(3) The ¨thermal baths¨ that everyone tells you about are not, in fact, outdoor hot springs as you expected, but sulphur-smelling bathtub-fuls of water. Atta way to celebrate your birthday! ;)
(4) Puppies are sold on the side of the road for 5 soleis (about $1.70).
(5) Hamburgers have two layers of french fries in them.
(6) Ice cream with Gladys is a daily event.
(7) Stumbling across a new restaurant for dinner is a marvelous occasion for celebrating with, yet, more ice cream.
(8) Apples come in 1-inch diameter varieties.
(9) You make friends with the two town drunks and end up trading shirts with them right there on the street.
(10) Altitude sickness gets the best of you.
(11) Getting sunburn requires only half the time it would have taken in the States and is about twice as bad (oh yeah...we are closer to the equator and at a much higher altitude than when we were in Texas, aren´t we?).
(12) Every morning you forget that the tallest mountain in Peru is right outside your window. It shocked me how beautiful it was every time.
(13) You reach 14,000 feet in elevation and you´re just barely halfway up Huascaran (22,266 feet)!
(14) You can cram 7 fully-grown adults in a rundown taxi from Musho to Mancos, no problem.

More updates to come! Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers for us - I miss yall so much! Many blessings and much love!

Stephanie :)

so, uh…what am I going to do about it?

A few weeks ago, I asked, what am I going to do about all the brokenness and messed-up-ness in the world? Well, it’s a big question, and I’m quite sure it’ll take the rest of my life to answer (do let me know if you’ve got it figured out!). However, the book of Ephesians and a little time back in the States have helped me begin to wade through the many facets of this monstrous charge we’re all faced with: to go and be disciples of Christ.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “We are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.”

But what does that mean? If we know that there’s so many “good things” to be done in the United States and throughout the world, where do we even start? Isn’t working with orphans in the Sudan more immediate, important to God than leading a weekly Bible study? People are sick, starving, dying without hearing about Jesus…isn’t that enough to get us all on international mission trips? How could we buy $2.50 Diet Cokes at restaurants when $2.50 is enough to feed and house a kid in Zambia for 2 weeks? Or, on the other hand, God gave us the privilege and the ability to work in the States for a reason – isn’t it more financially savvy for us to work in the US full-time and give most of what we make to the poor? Isn’t it wasteful to pay your way to go to Africa, South America, and wherever else when the money you spent on tickets could drill 3 or 4 water wells for people who’ve never lived with clean water? Back and forth, back and forth, the debate goes on.

The main problem we’ve got here is that we’ve labeled the “missionaries” “goers” and those on “the home front” “senders.” What a gross convolution of our mutual call to serve the world as the united body of Christ. “Missionaries” are anyone, anywhere (whether it’s as a salesman or a stay-at-home mom), living out the kingdom in a world that’s broken. “The home front,” on the other hand, is wherever two are gathered, from the Sudan to Chicago.

So instead of bickering with myself over what kind of “doing good” is better or more worthwhile or more necessary, I took a step back and did what I do best: I made a list. I’ve got to remember to:

(1) Recognize what’s from God and what’s not. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been difficult to transition from Mongu, where kids wear the same shirt to school every day of the week because it’s the only one they have, to the United States, where people buy clothes so often and impulsively they have a nickname for it: “shopping spree.” But money and resources are not bad things! They’re actually God-given, God blessing us so that we can bless others. God doesn’t like poverty and he doesn’t want poverty for his children, and the harsh discrepancy between the world’s richest rich and its poorest poor is repulsive, especially to God. Our responsibility as Christ-followers is to share – share our resources, share our time, share ourselves. The obsession over wealth, and not wealth itself, is the sickness we fight against.

(2) Decide to live counter-culturally. I’ve found this harder to do in the States than it was in Mongu. Outside of my normal context and culture I stuck out like a sore thumb anyway, so living “counter-culturally” for Christ wasn’t as hard as it sounds. Here, subtle messages on body image, money, materialism, and always wanting more bombard me wherever I go, whatever I do, whether it’s driving down the freeway looking at bulletin boards or dodging poop-up advertisements while checking my email. I have to decide to live for Jesus, wherever I am.

(3) Understand that God is God and I am not. Funny how easily I’m prone to do this. I have a responsibility as a part of Jesus’ body to make God’s kingdom down here a reality and live like it, but it’s neither in my power nor is it my responsibility to act like God in trying to fix the world. I can do all things through God, but it’s him who does his redemptive work through me.

(4) Act on what God wants me to do, and support the things that God wants others to do. We’re all called to do different things, whether it’s witnessing to the coworker sitting one cubicle over by asking him to do lunch or shipping off to the Middle East to promote reconciliation and peace in the name of Jesus. Jesus’ body couldn’t function if everyone tried to be his right-hand thumb or we all wanted to be his forehead. Unity in the Church means supporting each other in whatever ways we can while living out our call to the fullest.

(5) Make my life’s mission to love on people. :)

The engineer in me would love to tell you, “yes, that’s my final answer with 99.8% accuracy so I’m going to put a box around it and call it a day.” But, as I said before, this whole “what am I going to do about it” question is going to take some chewing on, so bear with me as I continue to learn about Jesus, his Way, and his Church – i.e., us!

culture shock, part one of...

I've only been back in the States for a week and a half (has it really been just that long?), but as early as Day 2 of being back, I started to wonder when (or whether) reverse culture shock would hit me. Really, I had wondered why it hadn't already when Bryan and I arrived in South Africa, which is just about as Western as any city in the US. But "finally," about a week ago when I was at Hokie Grill at Virginia Tech with Bryan and Chris, I all of a sudden felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck...

Nothing's the same.
No one's clothes have holes in them.
Everyone smells like they've had a shower within the last 48 hours.
The floors and windows and tables and people and plates and clothes and faces and books and feet and finger nails and...everything's all so remarkably clean.

Beyond internalizing how extremely clean my toes were, what really hit me was that things just are. There are many worlds on this earth; we call places like Zambia the "third" and places like the US the "first." They've always been there, the poor will always be with us, and neither the poignancy of my conviction nor the number of tears I cry are ever going to change the fact that the dichotomy in this world doesn't make a bit of sense. No super-hero tendencies of mine to "change the world" or "make a difference" are going to be revolutionary; and although there is certainly power in words spoken with grace and in love, what I say about what I see is less important than what I choose to do about it.

After about a week of digesting that little bit, I think God prepared me to go to Africa and to deal with the brokenness, the dirtiness, the painful slowness, everything that many people think are the "hard" parts of living and experiencing the culture in a third world country. Really, culture shock when I arrived in Africa didn't happen drastically or suddenly. Every so often I'd get a jolt of, "whoa, this is reality" - but when I saw orphans, it was okay, because I was there with them. I saw depravity, but that was okay too, because I knew it was there under the surface all along. I saw malnourished kids and negligent parents and dying dogs, but it was okay, because I could see it in front of my face, I wasn't hidden from it, I wasn't hiding from it: it was real. It was in front of me in its entirety - no walls, no masks, no curtains to hide behind. It was okay because, even if I couldn't do anything about it, I was in some very small way, simply by physically being there, a part of it. I didn't have an "off" button or a remote to switch the channel. The same eighty kids with the same stained and torn clothes that they had on today would be at the school, simply waiting for me to play with and hug them, tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. They live a five minutes' walk from where I was sleeping. So even though we lived in the lap of luxury on base - we basked in running water, electricity, microwaves, fridges, washing machines, and plenty of food - I couldn't possibly escape reality. It was literally right outside our front door.

So now? Well, now I'm not there. There's not a strong enough word to describe how devastatingly different two places can be. Back on an American college campus (Virginia Tech a week ago, now at UNC and Duke), it seems like the TV is stuck permanently on "off" mode, and I've lost the ability to switch it back on again.

I'm wondering, though, if I'm bystepping some of the initial "normal" stages of culture shock (hostility, initial period of coping, and finally acceptance and reintegration - from what I'm told). I guess I got the "hostility" stage out of my system last summer, when I was in Houston hanging out with homeless men and women at Church Under the Bridge. I was upset at myself and my family for living in such relative excess and unnecessary luxury when there were people who didn't even have blankets who were sleeping under bridges five minutes down the road. I seemed to skip that stage of culture shock this time, though. I certainly know that people aren't bad simply because they have money to buy food, they're able to wear clean, un-tattered clothing, and they have laptops and iPods and cell phones (I have all of these as well!). I know, too, that God wants us to give generously and, at the same time, to enjoy the gifts he's given us - time, resources, and people all included. It's also, obviously, not like everyone who hasn't gone on a mission trip is oblivious to what's going on in the rest of the world. That's not it at all. I'm simply emotionally and spiritually coming to understand that there is a reality in Mongu that is so dissimilar to the kind of reality that I'm used to here in the States, so drastically different and so remote from the one I grew up in, that I have to wonder how the world can support such different ways of life without imploding from the strain of accommodating them both.

Before this summer, I knew, mentally and in theory, the extreme discrepancy between poor and rich in this world. Now I know it by experience. Now I truly realize the reality of the fact that the homeless in America live like kings and queens compared with the rest of the world - that the statistics are, in fact, painfully true - and that, no matter how much I'd prefer it to be otherwise, they are not an exaggeration.

Although I'd love to say that it doesn't make a difference in your life whether you go experience a third world country in its entirety for yourself or not, I think it does. So now the question remains: what am I going to do about it?

the last few things I learned in africa

Hello, all!

This week's been a perfect time for me to sit down, reflect on the past few weeks, and - of course! - continue and finish up my (very) long list of African take-aways. Hope yall enjoy :)

Learnings from Shungwe:
47. You know the fish is fresh if it throws itself off the plate.
48. All-night parties in the African bush are immeasurably crazier than frat parties, no questions asked.
49. Be prepared to answer questions about the rape of Dinah, whether divorce is biblical, and the end of the world...they might just sneak up on you.
50. Kapinta (the world's tiniest and most odor-ific fish) has one of those smells that you don't just "get used to" over time...even after a 15-hour bus ride.

...and from Livingstone:
51. Make friends with hotel gardeners. One may just turn out to be a gamekeeper who goes by "Dr. Doolittle" - and if you're lucky, he'll lead you to giraffes and zebras.
52. When your camera breaks in a foreign country, just make friends with people who look like they have a good eye for pictures. You'll end up with some pretty amazing shots!
53. An "African tan" means you look Jamaican on your arms, chest, and shins but Irish everywhere else. (Sigh.)54. Giving random plastic trinkets to guys who won't leave you alone is an awesome way to come home with legit African keepsakes.
55. Always be prepared to catch your boyfriend should he almost fall off Victoria Falls.
56. Jumping off a bridge attached to another person is at least twice as complicated as jumping solo.

...and even South Africa:
57. You can make fudge anywhere in the world...3 countries, 5 cities, and counting!
58. You know you've crashed guy's night when you've got 3 kinds of meat on the table, Hangover 2 playing in the background, water and beer as your only sources for hydration, and four guys hanging out by the grill.
59. Close your windows while going greenlaning - the sand'll getcha.
60. Go to Pringle Bay.
61. Baboons are pests on steroids. Incriminating evidence: When you're away for the day in South Africa, it's highly advised that you close and lock all your windows. Why, you ask? Because baboons will toss their babies into windows left ajar, the babies will raid your kitchen and pass the goodies back out to mom and dad, and you'll return to a nicely ransacked house. Beautiful.
62. "Borrowing" a King Protea is only okay if you're with a licensed South African tour guide.
63. It is standard in South Africa to deny women visas to the US (but if you're male, you're good to go). That's why, in South Africa, women outnumber men 8 to 1.
64. South African wine is worth the price of a plane ticket.65. Clothes dryers, shaving cream, and paper towels are highly underrated.
66. "It all comes together with a Castle."
67. Good can, indeed, come from 8-hour layovers in Joburg.


So if you ever go to Africa, make sure to keep those in mind! Love yall so much :)

Stephanie

the long road from shungwe to blacksburg

Hi again, beautiful friends - and hello, America!

I'm back on U.S. soil, alive, well, and not even that jet-lagged - woo hooo! Since I last enjoyed a legitimate internet connection in Mongu, I think I've covered more ground in the past three weeks than I ever have before in my life. Bryan and I started out in Shungwe, middle of nowhere, very very much Africa just days after my last post. A 3-hour roller coaster ride later, we arrived in Mongu (Western Province, Zambia). Quick turn around: just days later, we took an 8-hour overnight bus and another 7-hour day bus to get to Livingstone (Southern Province, Zambia) to see Victoria Falls. Fortunately, we only had to endure a quick and painless flight to travel to the beautiful city of Capetown, South Africa. We sure made up for it a week later though...only after an 8-hour layover and 20 hours in the air did we finally return to the home of the Hokies: lovely Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America. I think I have enough frequent flier miles to last me for a few years/decades!

So to start from the very beginning (a very good place to start)...

Shungwe was quite an interesting little village. Only eight of us traveled out to the floodplains, four from Hope Church and four of us makua interns: Muyunda, Paul, Catherine (Zambian), and Una, and also Bryan, Wes, Catherine (American), and me. Initially, our goal was to stay in Shungwe with enduna (chief) Roberts and use a boat we brought along with us to travel down the Zambezi to visit Liyoyelo. As we soon found out, the enduna had met with some members of the Zambia Project before and was very supportive of the gospel (and of any short-term teams who wanted to visit his village). He actually went with us to Liyoyelo to see the enduna there. Incidentally, that visit turned into a bit of a flop, unfortunately: we waited a total of four hours to meet with Liloyelo's enduna, all to learn that he had chosen to take a nap instead.

 Wes doin his camera thang in the floodplains on the way to Shungwe

Enduna Roberts, on the other hand, was so enthusiastic that we were staying in Shungwe that he insisted we make camp quite literally in his front yard, which just so happened to be right next door to a house that hosted a party that week. But this was no ordinary party. Apparently in Zambian culture, when a village girl "comes of age," the whole town gets together for a three day, full-out, crazy-intense fiesta that would put any college frat party to shame. A lot of compromising things go on that week, including rampant drunkenness, grandmas pulling out dance moves that I've never seen before, family squalls, and some pretty intense brawls. On the third night we were there, the partying started at dusk and went on all night - and we're talking aaaall niiiiight loooong. Because of that, though, the next day actually turned out to be a pretty legitimate test to see how many people were very serious about their committment to what they'd heard about the gospel that week. Three or so guys, plus the enduna, sought us out that next day to ask some amazing questions, from "If Adam and Eve were the first people God created, then who was Cain afraid of after he killed his brother?" to "If there's one God and one Bible, why are there so many denominations?" So although we only had a small core group of people who were interested in hearing what we had to say that week, they showed a genuine interest in learning about the Bible and actually applying it to their lives, immediately. It was awesome.

After we returned to Mongu, Lihana and Lloyd took us to a crocodile farm, where they raise...wait for it...11,000 crocs!

 Bryan, Lihana, Lloyd, and me at the croc farm

We then said our good-byes to all our friends at Hope Church and at Mutoya, hopped onto an overnight bus to Lusaka (man, that was rough...I'm still trying to get the fish smell out of my clothes), took a day bus to Livingstone, and spent three full days enjoying Victoria Falls.

We walked (and swam!) along the lip of the falls (i.e. the water just before it falls down the precipice) with Raphael, a guy who we'd gone to the bush with from Hope Church...

 me clinging to Raphael as we crossed the river above Vic Falls

Bryan and me at one of the pools at the top of the Falls

...jumped 111 meters off a bridge on the "tandem swing"...

  

some bridge, huh?

we made it!

...saw lions, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, snake birds, and hundreds of elephants in Chobe National Park in Botswana...

...got to know and hang out with some awesome backpackers...

...and just plain soaked up God's amazing creativity!

That Sunday, we flew to Capetown to visit the Zambia Project missionaries' sending church, The People's Church (TPC), barely making it in time for their Sunday night service. I know I must have been a little bit biased towards any scenery different than Mongu - paved roads, mountains, and beaches, for starters - but Capetown literally looks like heaven on earth. It was by far the most beautiful place I'd ever seen - and certainly ever visited! If you're ever in Africa, please go...you definitely won't regret it!

 Lucy, a friend from Mongu, took us wine tasting at vineyards just outside of Capetown

 

yep - there are places in the world that look this beautiful!

penguins in South Africa! who'd'a thunk?

view of Capetown from the top of Lion's Head

So now I'm in Virginia! Next stops in the near future are West Virginia, North Carolina, NYC to see the fam (YAY!!!), Florida, and finally home sweet home: Texas. I don't think I'll ever be able to put into words how much I appreciate and truly depended on yall's unflagging support, prayers, and encouragement while I was in Zambia. Many of yall I'll be able to thank and hug in person, and I love that - I can't wait to see you all! - but to all my friends who I can't see just yet, you're constantly in my thoughts and I hope to at least speak with you soon. I can't wait to hear all about what God's doing in all of yall's lives, how school is going, how first jobs are working out, what the UMC is up to, how Houston and Nashville are, everything. Although we're no longer an ocean away, I still miss yall terribly! So for now, "muciale hande" ("stay well")!!!

In His peace,
Stephanie :)

don’t die with your smiles

Well, I have less than two weeks left in Mongu. Although I knew this time would creep up on me, I’m still not prepared for it! Suddenly I shifted from telling people at church, “I still have a few months left yet – no worries, we’ll have plenty of time to hang out and get to know each other!” to hearing myself say, “I just have two Sundays left…” What do I say when friends ask me when I’ll be back to visit them in Africa? How do I respond when they ask me to stay longer? Although Skype and Facebook are (I can’t believe I’m saying this…) lifesavers when it comes to keeping in touch across oceans (literally), I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see my friends and my kids here in Mongu in person again. And that’s been hard to come to terms with.

It’s bizarre, this four-month-medium-term-intern thing. If you come for two weeks, great – you can run on adrenaline, make acquaintances with the locals knowing that they’re impacting you so much more than you could ever impact them, and go home on what we called in middle school a “camp high.” If you stay any longer than eight or nine months, you start to make some roots, dig your heels in, and truly be enveloped by the culture and the people. You find a rhythm (hopefully) that includes regular Sabbaths – you can develop a sense of how much you can take and when you need to hide from the world, and you’re in a place long enough that moderating work with rest is acceptable and, frankly, required. But four months? I’ve just started making friendships built on genuine trust. I finally have “How is your morning, My morning is good” (“Mu tozie chwanie, Mu tozie handi”) and a few other essential siLozi phrases perfected, and I’ve dropped all my direct objects and prepositions like a true Zambian. I just figured out how to walk to church from any elementary and secondary school in Mongu, for crying out loud. And now we leave?

After church this past Sunday, Felix, the owner of the restaurant at Hope Church that I wrote about a few weeks ago, told Bryan and me something that has really helped get me through the spiritual and emotional funk of trying to tear myself mentally away from the kids and friends I’ve made in Mongu. He simply said, “It helps to remember that we’re all family – we’re all connected in Spirit. We never really say goodbye.” Amen to that!

most of us interns at our house :)

Aside from mentally weaning myself away from Mongu and, of course, making plans for seeing Victoria Falls and a few churches in Capetown after we leave, it’s been tough for me to find joy recently. Apart from the consistent destitute poverty and shocking immorality all around us (which is frankly enough to bring anyone to tears), these past few weeks have just seemed extra-hard. Chuma’s (a VOH student’s) mashasha house, which is just outside the compound, burned down last week because her dad came home drunk one night, started beating her mom, and knocked hot charcoal into the walls of their hut. The teachers of VOH have yet to find where she’s now staying. I also just found out that a stray dog I made friends with on the way home from Shoprite got beaten to death just outside Mutoya’s gate. Not nearly as upsetting as just plain annoying, I got my fifth and sixth proposal today from guys who said they’d just “love to marry a makua.” As of this past weekend, Bukolo, a malnourished six-year-old child whose family is now staying at the Save-a-Life Malnourishment Center so she can get enough food at hourly intervals, hadn’t smiled since she’d been admitted to the program a month ago. And we also just found out that Gift, one of the babies on the weekly feeding program at VOH Clinic, died yesterday morning from fever at his home. Baaaah – all so close to home.

But it hasn’t been just an external battle that’s pulled me down recently. (Confession #1 – yet another “duh, Stephanie” moment – here we come.) In all the bustle of trying to find ways that I can be of tangible help here, I think I fell into busyness and into the trap of sharing God’s love so frantically that I forgot to remind myself that fundamentally, first, and foremost, I am loved. That I love because God first loved me. That I can’t possibly love all those around me with my own love – it just ain’t gonna work! – but that it’s God’s love for me which naturally overflows onto everyone I meet. Theoretically and theologically, I understood that concept years ago. Mentally, yes, I know that God loves me as his beloved and I’m simply a conduit of his love. Yet truly believing it in my heart as I do in my head is the difficult part, especially in a place where there’s so much to do and (seemingly) so little time to sit down and reflect on where that love gets its start.

Ethan, Elijah, Bryan and me at Hope Church

Confession #2: In the process of discovering how I’d misplaced my joy, I also realized how results-oriented I am. A couple weeks ago, this guy Enoch and I spent about four hours scrubbing and washing 15 kids’ tables and 60 little plastic chairs, all begrimed and dusty from being in the Village of Hope orphan school tent at the top of the hill for the last couple of months. Our job was to have them clean so they’d be ready to move into the new school building when it was finished. We started out just great with a couple of clean buckets of water, soap, an old sponge, and three or four rags. About an hour in, though, the tank at the top of the hill ran out of water (a more and more frequent occurrence nowadays). We soon found ourselves remarkably dirty, scrubbing dirty tables and dirty chairs with a dirty sponge and dirty rags, working just as hard as before but now essentially just moving dirt around. We rinsed the tables and chairs off and allowed them to dry before we covered them with plastic, but we knew it would only be a matter of minutes before dirt would cover them again, possibly making them even blacker than before since they were all still wet. I just remember thinking, “Why are we doing this…why even bother?”

I’ve felt that way about a lot of things in Mongu while I’ve been here. Things are just harder in so many ways, and I sometimes spend ten times the amount of energy, effort, and time than I budget only to achieve the same, or worse, result than I initially expected. At times I feel like I’m hitting a brick wall when I’m teaching kids who don’t understand my accent or when I’m waiting for construction materials for the school, clinic, and Malnutrition Center so they can finally get up and running. For the first few weeks with Bukolo, she moaned constantly and looked absolutely miserable – she had maybe a 50/50 chance of surviving through the month. There are so many factors against us here – broken communities, families, and homes, and of course, the incredible poverty that affects all parts of life. Where are the results of all our pain and effort? Where’s that quick fix you look and hope for when you know good people are doing good things?

 Bukolo one month ago, body swollen and skin breaking from malnourishment

Bukolo (6 years old), Bukolo's ima (mom), and her two younger brothers, Timothy (2) and Tutu (4), taken a few weeks ago

I think I’d started to feel a little bit like that dirty rag I used to clean those tables and chairs. What was I doing here? What possible good could I, an intern who was going to leave in just a few months, give to a town so broken and in need? Each time I scrubbed, I dunked myself back into dirty water, all to come out ready to scrub again, even blacker and dirtier than before. And the tables and chairs weren’t getting clean.

Again (always…), I realized in my heart that I desperately needed to remember God’s love for me – to dunk myself into a clean bucket of suds, if you will. I need God to recharge me rather than me try to recharge myself. As far as what I’m doing here, my work is not nearly as important as my consciously dedicating it to God. It doesn’t matter that what I do doesn’t yield instant results. This is Africa…microwave solutions just don’t happen here. It’s okay that the kids didn’t understand all of my lessons last term. It’s okay that Bukolo hadn’t responded to my efforts to make her smile and feel welcome at the clinic, her new home. It’s okay that those tables and chairs went right back to being as grimy as before. What matters is that I taught God’s children, I’m loving on Bukolo, and I’m not forgetting that God’s kingdom is on its way – it’s here! When we legitimately believe in our hearts that Jesus has already conquered the world AND God doesn’t judge worthiness based on what we accomplish, then we find that we are his beloved.

Reminds me of a fav C.S. Lewis quote from the Screwtape Letters:

“It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be…Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Yet even while there’s still brokenness here that makes it hard for me to see that I’m not truly forsaken, God does show that his kingdom is already here in huge ways! He built a school for orphans (the first two of four new classrooms for VOH are finally finished – praise God! – and those tables and chairs look beautiful in them!), is finishing up the VOH Clinic, and opened the Malnutrition Centers so it can begin to host feeding programs.

I’ve also learned, though, that even when we don’t see the instant and perfect results that we pray for, God still gives us tiny glimpses of his glory and love along the way to encourage us in our service, energize us to be kingdom people, and so we can experience and appreciate every small success. For me, the most recent series of small joys have been with Bukolo and her brothers at the Save-a-Life Malnutrition Center over the past week. Three days ago, Bukolo didn’t let me get within a foot of her, she was constantly moaning, had poor appetite, glared at everyone, and was lethargic. Now she reaches for me to pick her up, snuggles close to my chest for warmth and safety when we walk down to the showers at the base, giggles as I tickle her all over, plays house with me as I feed her paper food on paper plates with a paper fork, learns patty cake, lets me hold her arms to teach her how to walk again, climbs with me on the jungle gym, eats well, and gives me daily haircuts. It’s miraculous.

One of Bukolo's first smiles since she's been admitted to the Clinic

Tutu, also all smiles!

 Bukolo's appetite has gone way up since she's been here

Bukolo still has a long ways to go, as do the school buildings, the center, and the clinic – but it’s been these small glimpses of joy over the past week that have allowed me to rediscover God’s love working through me. When I hold Bukolo, I feel so much love for her that it’s overwhelming. I’ve never felt so much love surge through me as when she first let me pick her up. There was no way that was all mine – it was God’s love Bukolo her working through me, reminding me along the way that God loves me just as much as he loves her. It’s a giddy, supernatural kind of joy. Outrageous, contagious, out of control – yep, that’s God’s love for us.

 

Bukolo cutting out pictures from old magazines for her collage

 

Tutu trying on his new hat

What pictures should we pretend with now?

So if I’ve learned anything in Africa, it’s technically what I’ve already known: that God’s love is the absolute source for everything, this joy bubbling up inside me is a natural consequence of his love for me, and life is about people, not results. Read out of context, that sentence is just another “duh, Stephanie” moment…but experiencing it daily is life-giving. So I encourage you to remember that God’s love is where everything get its start and to find that joy too.

For the remainder of my time here, I’ll continue hanging out with Bukolo, her brothers Tutu and Timo, and her mom at the Malnutrition Clinic, preparing food every 2 hours, cutting out pictures for collages, drawing each other with crayons, coloring Little Mermaid coloring book pages, and strengthening Bukolo’s legs and arms at the playground. Bryan, Catherine, Wes, four translators, and I plan to head out to the floodplains for the last time this weekend, hopefully for the whole week. We’re traveling by boat to Liloyello, and there’s been quite a bit of friction with Christians coming there in the past…so prayers for softening their hearts and having the Holy Spirit speak through all of us when we’re there, please! On August 30^th, Bryan and I will head out from Mongu for Livingstone, to Capetown soon after, and finally back to the States on September 13^th.

Bryan and me gettin tourist-y

To quote Felix once again (I can never do it enough), “Don’t die with your smiles.” I hope and pray that yall are all doing beautifully and that this summer’s been as wonderful, challenging, and stretching for you as it’s been for me. All my love and in his peace,

Stephanie