nalulau - white, black, or gray?

 

the walk between camp and the site for nalulau's new water well

hi, all!! :) one of the things i’m wrestling with this summer is how to deal with “gray areas” in a third world country. when you listen to your parents or follow a list of rules or read the bible, there are a refreshing number of clear “yes’s” and “no’s,” “do’s” and “don’ts,” “rights” and “wrongs.” mom tells you not to jump off the roof into the pool, so you don’t jump off the roof into the pool. virginia law says the speed limit’s 70 mph, so you go 70 (ish). the bible says don’t steal, so you don’t steal. simple, right? you may really want to jump off that roof, go 88 mph, and “borrow” your sister’s shirt for the day, but at least you know what’s right and you know what’s wrong. even if you choose to ignore your nagging conscience, black is black and white is still white. easy.

but what happens when kids as young as 3 or 4 years old dig through your trash pit in the bush? they’re only looking for discarded, charred, or rotten scraps of food, or empty bottles and cans, or shiny tin foil. do you let them dig for dinner and invaluable containers for their moms and dads to use at home, or do you stop them because they may also find shards of broken glass and sharp tin can lids? what about the dogs, all skin-and-bone, who paw through it alongside the children – are the burnt clumps of rice and bad meat okay for them, or do you chase them away just like you did the kids?

picture village kids entering into your campsite and folding up your fold-out chairs, picking up (and walking away with) pens, pencils, and bibles, and knocking on the door of your tent. do you tell them to stay outside an invisible boundary around your site so the entire village doesn’t come to camp with you, or do you invite them all in to make your camp site their home, too? 

you know that if you give gifts to villagers as you’re sharing Christ, they might wrongly affiliate money, gifts, and rich white people with the name of Jesus. you know, too, that if you gave one sandwich to one hungry teenager one day, you’d have to give away all of your team’s food to all the hungry children in the village until your supply runs dry. so what do you do, then, when you’re making a mound of PB&Js for your 12 other teammates when a group of kids who look like they haven’t eaten in a week are staring at your pile-o-sandwiches as it grows higher, and higher, and higher? 

maybe those are easy questions for some people to answer. of course it’s sad that kids are digging through trash with dogs, but you have to burn your trash each night in case one of the children gets hurt or the dogs have rabies. of course it’s hard to draw and keep firm boundaries, but boundaries can be healthy and necessary for your safety and sanity, especially if you’re going to survive long-term in the mission field. of course you can’t give away gifts and food to the locals because it might contaminate the gospel with prosperity theology – “the godly get rich” – and besides, if you give to one, you’d have to give to all. 

maybe those are the “correct” answers. really, they might be. but i can’t say i’m completely convinced of that. because, show me, where’s the black? where’d that pearly white go? it’s all gray. everything just turns gray.

i come from a very blessed, very wonderful, very privileged background with two godly parents who brought me to church every week, gave me priceless memories, provided me endless opportunities to excel, and allowed me to get a solid college education. i can easily just hop on a plane and head right back home if africa ever gets “too uncomfortable” or “a little much.” if i need money for food, i go to standard chartered in mongu, pray that the atm has enough kwacha in it, and have money in my hands in seconds. if my flip flops wear out, i hop to the market and find another pair for about a dollar. if i get absurdly dirty in the bush, i go into my tent and clean up with sanitation wipes and clean water. if i’m thirsty, i grab my water bottle (and probably a crystal light packet as well). 

i have everything i need and could ever want, all the time. these people have nothing that they need, never mind what they want, even when they’re tiny children. no transportation, no nutritious food, no clothing that wasn’t already falling apart when they first received it, no way to clean their faces so flies wouldn’t swarm their eyes and mouths, no access to safe drinking water to quench their thirst.

 

so what do you do with the gray areas when all of them spawn from the undeniable and irrevocable fact that you have much and they have little? i’m used to having enough food and water; i have a plan B and plan C and plan D to remove myself from danger or discomfort if i need it; i expect time and space that i can call my own; i think of my upbringing and good education as normal gifts instead of incredibly profound miracles. 

i’m starting to see why africa changes people. dealing with those “gray questions” can be easy when you’re looking at them with a clinical eye, objectively and practically. but when i’m right there, when i see with my own eyes how hungry those hungry eyes are, when i see how incredible the disparity between my lifestyle and that of the villagers is, Jesus’ words run through my mind on repeat:

"and if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, i tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward." (matthew 10:42)

"'for i was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; i was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; i was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; i was sick, and you visited me; i was in prison, and you came to me.' then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, and give you something to drink? and when did we see you a stranger, and invite you in, or naked, and clothe you? when did we see you sick or in prison, and come to you?' the King will answer and say to them, 'truly i say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.'" (matthew 25:35-40)

"sell your possessions and give to the poor. provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys." (luke 12:33)

i don’t pretend to have answers to all my questions – i call them “gray” for a reason. but i do know that Christ’s church has an amazing task set out before it here in mongu, out in nalulau, down in south africa, back in the states, and throughout the whole world. ignoring the disparity between rich and poor because it’s too painful to think about, or too geographically distant to care about, or too culturally distant to understand is not okay. we already know that! but for me, avoiding these questions because they’re hard and unclear is also not okay. so please, wrestle through them with me! and above all, pray for peace, unity, comfort, and grace in Christ for the beautiful people of nalulau!!

all my love,

stephanie :)

kande, nangula, nalulau, & mewawa – oh my!

hi to all again! :) 

i can’t believe we’ve already been in africa for over a month – there’s been so much going on that i’ve hardly had a chance to sit down and take it all in! i miss you all so much, and i thank you again as always for all the support and prayers that you’re sending my way. please keep em comin – all of the missionaries working with zambia project and i certainly need them!

for the past couple weeks, life at mutoya (base camp) has certainly been interesting! i have 8 other house mates, we now have sixteen 20-somethings eating out of one (quite small) fridge, and all of the medium-term interns are gearing up for another 120 visitors who will stay at mutoya in just a couple of short weeks. it’s a huge blessing to have so many young people from a similar cultural background to live, love, and laugh with who all have such incredible hearts for missions! we’re scattered all over the place – some of us are down at the orphan school, some working with the ladies to begin making purses at hope art, some doing construction at the malnourishment center and the new site for the orphan school, others out in the bush, one working with marinette to develop the zambia project’s website, a couple developing soccer and youth ministries through hope church, and all of us working with the kids at kids’ church on sundays and with the young adults in cell groups during the week. amazingly though, even though we’re all very different and have a ton going on, we’re all already becoming good friends. i ask your prayers for all the medium-term interns here: kate, katie, catherine, jane, lucy, kiersten, holly, regina, big wes, little wes, big bryan, little brian, lucas, jeron, zach, and tyler. please pray for continued grace for us as we live and work together with the missionaries here at mutoya!

although i’m primarily working at the VOH orphan school in mongu, i’ve been able to go out to the bush quite a little bit over the past few days. two weekends ago, hope church went on an outreach to kande, a small village just outside of mongu, to visit homes in the area and spread the word about Christ and to invite people to visit the church that the zambia project helped plant about a year ago. that was my first time sharing the Word with complete strangers since the team went to mwai kalupe, but i already felt more comfortable receiving outrageous hospitality from people i’d never met, starting up conversations about Christ, and even sharing a bit of the amazing work that God’s done in my life. that sunday, leonard (rock star translator), graeme, and i went to nangula (2-ish hours away, waaaay out in the bush) to visit the church that was just planted the week before. about 80 people (half adults, half kids) came to sing, laugh, and hear leonard preach on romans 8. when we left about 2 hours later, they were still going strong! one woman had walked five hours to get to church that morning, and she’d only just heard the gospel a week ago!! it’s incredible to see enthusiastic faith lived out so vividly – and nangula is just one of the many testaments to God’s active work in people’s lives here in the western province. although i play the tiniest and most insignificant role, i still can’t believe that i’m able to take part in it all.

our first sunset at nalulau

from wednesday to sunday of last week, eight of us medium-termers and 5 translators headed out to share God with people and help construct a well in nalulau, a small village about 2 hours north-east of mongu. the experience was much different than when ron’s team and i went to mwai kalupe. for one, there was a huge lake right next to our camp site, so bathing was actually an option (!!!), though the water wasn’t safe to drink. unlike last time, too, two of our translators were newbies to the bush, and song spoke a different dialect of silozi than the villagers of nalulau. we also didn’t have felix, our five-star soux bush chef – cooking meals was all up to the three ladies (learning to cook on an open fire in the middle of africa – check)! by just the second day, though, i could tell that our time in nalulau would be just as exciting and challenging as our visit to mwai kalupe.

the boys at nalulau's lake

since our team’s main focus was to construct a water well, we only took one day, thursday, to visit villagers at their homes. we still had services for the villagers next to our camp site every night and on sunday morning, but much of our time during the day on friday and saturday was spent helping the village build the ten concrete cylinders needed before we could complete the well. (basically, the ten 1-meter diameter cylinders are stacked one on top of the other below ground to provide support to the well and protection for clean ground water.) we would have loved to finish the entire well and leave nalulau with clean drinking water by the time we left sunday afternoon, but unfortunately, time and resources cut us short. the cylinders took two hours each to dry, cylinders kept cracking because one of the two molds was a tad finicky, and mixing concrete with sand, rocks, and water turned out to be more time-intensive than it sounds. thankfully, though, a team will be going back to finish the well in just a couple of weeks!

isaiah and villagers making concrete cylinders

i couldn’t be of much use (it’s critically important for villages to take part in the construction process as much as possible – it’s their well!), but i was able to help some of the women pound rocks into 1x1 cm bits for the concrete and oversee all of the major steps in preparing a well.

pouding rocks for concrete

 

anyone can help!

 aside from hanging out near the construction site for the well, i tried homemade bush wine (on accident…! won’t make that mistake again), lucas downed a full glass of milk straight from the cow (and regretted it later), and we feasted on sugar cane (picture gnawing on a long bamboo stick), surprisingly sweet green oranges, cassava roots, and sweet potatoes that villagers kept bringing to our camp site as wecome gifts. we shared what we had with the village, too – i showed a group of 4 year olds how to twirl, taught little boys how to play volleyball through a solid language barrier, and shared the glory of taking pictures with an ipod with a few teenage girls. in turn, regina, katie, and i received a semi-interactive lesson in the acceptable expression of zambian female sexuality while bathing from a group of 14- and 15-year old girls one afternoon in the lake. oh, what you learn in africa!

 

sharing the ipod's front camera with the gals

on sunday, leonard, graeme, and i visited nangula again for the village’s second-ever sunday morning church service while the rest of the team in nalulau taught about how much God loves us. that afternoon, we said our good-byes to the people of nalulau and headed back in greme’s truck to mutoya, mongu. since many of the medium-termers will be leaving in just over a month, few of us thought we’d actually see nalulau again – but hopefully, sometime in the next ten-or-so weeks that i still have left in zambia, i’ll be able to visit soon!

in the meantime, we have more than enough to occupy our time back at mutoya and in mongu. the teachers and medium-term interns working at the orphan school (me included) are helping to move the school to a temporary building (i.e. the tent that hope church used as a sanctuary before it relocated into a permanent building in town) to make the training center, its current home, available for use as a bible college for village leaders. i’m also working with a group of interns and young adults at hope church to put together three “kids fun days” – one on july 4^th at hope church in mongu, one on july 5^th at VOH orphan school in mutoya, and the last on the 9^th in mewawa (a 40-or-so-minute drive out of mongu).

thank you again for all of your prayers and support – and more details to come on all that’s gone on here with our Christian family in the western province! i miss you all, and i look forward to talking with and seeing yall soon!

in His peace,

stephanie :)

settling into "normalcy"

Ensha (That’s “hello” in Silozi)!

Now that we’re back from the bush, things seem to easing into a sort of “normal.” When the team first got back to base camp from Mwai Kalupe, we all took a day to rest, repack, and take a boat ride down the Zambezi River. 

Local village along the Zambezi

Bryan and me on the boat

That Monday, the rest of the team from Dwelling Place headed to Capetown where they’re now working with Paul and Marinette’s church for a week or two before going home to the States. Bryan, Brian, Lucas, and I spent most of Tuesday discovering Mongu. We ate legit Zambian fare at Lloyd’s restaurant, shopped the town’s main marketplace (I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how much attention we get here), bought local veggies and sun-dried fish, and attempted to cook like the locals. The fish was an epic fail – but the veggies were pretty amazing!

Street market in Mongu

For the rest of this past week, I’ve been working with Lozi Teachers Stephen, Margaret, Jayson, George, and Patricia at Village of Hope orphan school with about 80 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd graders. I’m learning so much from them and the kids about the Silozi (mostly the Western Province) and Bimba (Northern Provinces) cultures, Zambia’s educational system and curriculum, and Silozi kid songs and dances (these kids aren’t afraid to get down!!). One of the coolest parts of living at base camp, though, is the clash of cultures in all places and all times. This past Saturday, for example, we had 5 ethnicities sitting in one room: Irish, English (UK), South African, Silozi, and American. And that’s normal! Awesome. :)

So it looks like I’ve got a pretty busy summer ahead. I’ll be writing lesson plans at VOH school, teaching at Kids Church, visiting the ladies at Hope Art, discipling girls in cell groups, going to all-night prayer gatherings at Hope Church, helping to host teams at the base, going out to the bush with short-term groups or water well guys whenever I get the chance…this summer will go by in a blink! For now, the long-term missionaries and all the medium interns are preparing base camp to host 110 people from Dubai, Australia, and South Africa in a few weeks. It’s an awesome problem – interest in and concern for the Zambia Project’s mission is growing exponentially – but the logistics with providing for over a hundred visitors in one week are borderline insane. We’re also welcoming 5 new medium-term interns to Mutoya tonight (picture 8 girls, one apartment, one shower). Prayers, please!

Thank yall so much for all your continued support, concern, and interest in what’s going on here in Zambia. I miss yall!!! Details coming soon on how school, Hope Church, and the Zambia Project’s other projects are going. In the meantime, check out my running list of things I didn’t know about Africa until I got here (and learned the hard way):

1.One-day-old fire embers are still hot.

2.Black sand and dust will get into EVERYTHING – even your nose and ears.

3.If you’re over the age of 4, don’t live in the bush, and are breathing, you have a Facebook and a cell phone.

4.Running uphill through foot-deep sand is hard.

5.Planning meals that don’t require electricity to prepare is a must – power is just as sketchy as the internet.

6.In the smack middle of the bush (and, depending who you are, in town too), dreads are taboo. So cut em off.

7.Everyone drinks instant coffee! YEEEEESSSSS!

8.Mcua means money (especially to taxi drivers and phone salesmen).

9.Q-tips, paper towels, and Kleenex are incredible luxuries.

10.When something gets dirty, it stays dirty, no matter how many times you wash it.

11.Leaving your headlamp at base when you know you’ll be back after 6 pm is an epic fail.

12.Americans have really ugly accents.

13.If you think something’s going to take an hour, it’ll take at least 2.

14.30 minutes late is “early” and an hour late is right on time.

15.Traffic laws are very mild suggestions.

16.Counting shooting stars never gets old.

17.You eat shima with your hands just like the locals do, and because you’re white, you still look ridiculous.

18.Ladies sit on the floor, guys get the chairs.

19.Girls, wear whatever you want to on top – just keep from your waist to your knees covered.

20.Guys, learn to make eye contact like never before when a village woman pops a breast out of her shirt to begin breastfeeding mid-conversation.

21.Raid is not an effective bug spray.

22.250 volts of electricity is a lot stronger than the 110 we use in the States.  Also, you shouldn’t electrocute yourself twice in one day. 

23.Soccer is life.

24.It just isn’t a big deal when you find ants in your coffee, on your “biscuit” (cookie), in your hair, down your shirt, between your toes, on your toothbrush, or in a peanut butter jar. Look at them as additional protein.

25.African sunrises will always make you want to burst into The Lion King’s “The Circle of Life” song.

26.Make friends with wall spiders named Bob.

27.Bugs are bigger in Africa.

I think I'll name this one George

 

All my love and in His peace, 

Stephanie :)

P.S. - Maggs, I didn't forget to take pictures! More to come ;) 

 Jet-lagged in Johannesburg, South Africa (check out the lion's hat!)

Loving Lusaka, Zambia with Lucas

we forget that we are so blessed

Hello again!

Internet's been a little sketchy here, so these posts are coming in ebbs and bursts - sorry bout that! TIA - "this is Africa." ;)

So I have to be completely honest. Initially, before and after I’d gone out to the bush, I had huge reservations about this whole evangelism-to-people-we’ve-never-met-before thing. What were we thinking, going into a Lozi town, camping on their soil, burning their trees for firewood, causing a commotion, and basically invading their space without permission? Were we going to just tell them what to believe and simply expect that four days of our time would make the slightest difference in their lives?

Best (and only) way to haul your firewood (and family) across town

 After I went out into the village for the first time, though, it really didn’t feel as awkward or invasive as I thought it would. Whenever we approached a hut, the women and men invited us to sit on their stools under a thatched hanging just outside their house while they sat on a mat or in the dirt (it’s a sign of respect to place yourself lower than your visitors/elders). Then, we just started to talk. We asked if they attended the service last night, if they knew about it, what they thought, if they’d heard of Jesus before. Actually, every house that our group visited that first day had both gone to the service we held the previous night and had accepted Jesus into their lives as their King! So we got to pray for and with them, answer questions they had, and talk more about God’s love and promises. What I eventually realized was (this is a “duh, Stephanie” moment) that we weren’t trying to sell something, impress our culture on another, or convince anyone of anything. We were just telling Truth – and the truth is so strong that when you hear it, accept it, and act on it, there’s no stopping its overwhelming power in your life.

Even so, it was still so strange how open and frank they were with us…welcoming us into their homes, letting us play with their kids, telling us about things they struggled with, laying out all their dirty laundry…that just doesn’t happen every day! I guess I’m just used to a culture where you lock your doors during the day, distrust the person standing next to you in line, and receive pamphlets and answer door bells with wariness and skepticism. But out in the bush, there hasn’t been any civil unrest, racism, mass corruption or political polarity. Most of the battles they face are wholly spiritual, and what they desperately desire is freedom – freedom from the curses that the witch doctors put on them, freedom from cycles of terrible habits, freedom from worshipping things that can’t love back – the freedom that only Jesus can bring. It blows my mind how different our cultures are and how much culture can impact the reception of Jesus.

Village woman carrying cassava

The people of Mwai Kalupe have nothing (and we’re talking NOTHING) – not even clean drinking water or unbroken shoes or clothes that aren’t literally falling apart at the seams. I tried fire-walking the second day we were there (I thought that a fire that’d been dead for 20 hours wouldn’t be hot anymore…silly me!) and burned my left tootsie, so I actually stayed close to camp most of the week and got to hang out with kids and teenagers. Precious three- and four-year olds’ eyes, noses, and mouths were covered in flies because they hadn’t washed their faces in so long. Nearly every one of them was sneezing, sniffing, and coughing, and they didn’t even try to wipe their noses or shoo the flies away. Lihana, the medical missionary with the Zambia Project, told me that the majority of the medical issues in the bush are preventable. Much of it is just lack of good hygiene, problems easily solvable with clean water and basic education (teaching parents to wash their children’s faces, swat at flies, etc.). In general, though, the average lifespan of villagers in the bush (right now around 28) can be extended by just adding nutrients and vitamins into their diets. Many of these villages believe that their farmlands are cursed by witch doctors and can’t produce vegetables, so all across Zambia, fields lie unnecessarily fallow. They don’t even have enough good food to eat themselves, much less package and export – so severe impoverishment remains year after year.

Jehosephat and the gang

The Zambia Project is working to help villages like Mwai Kalupe in both spiritual and practical ways, because spirituality and practicality are connected. When people believe in Christ and Christ alone, the curses that witch doctors put on their families and their land no longer have power over their lives. They experience true spiritual freedom and they aren’t afraid to start planting vegetables and nutritious foods in their fields. They begin to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ and take care of their bodies because they are living sanctuaries. People like Moses, Felix, and Lloyd translate the gospel to Silozi, and missionaries like Lihana and Morris help by bringing traveling health clinics to remote villages and drilling water wells. The combined effort is staggering – people’s lives are being entirely transformed from the inside, out. And I’m getting to be a part of it! It’s AWESOME!

Lloyd and me!

Bryan, Lucas, and I when we got back from the bush (I'd had a nice shower - them, not so much!)

As always, thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers. It’s been so cool seeing God work here in Africa, miles and miles away from home, knowing that it’s the same God that watches over yall. Please continue praying for the Zambia Project and all the fabulous people here working with Hope Church in Mongu and throughout the Western Province. Hugs!

In His peace,
Stephanie :)

to the bush and back again

Hey yall!

Thank you as always for all of your thoughts and prayers for the team and me as we went out to the bush this past week! We all arrived at Mwai Kalupe (apparently it’s “mau-wee-ka-loo-pay”...my bad!) safely and returned to the base in Mongu indelibly changed all and only because of God’s grace. So thank you again, and keep them prayers a-comin. 

So much has happened in the last week that I hardly know where to start! Mwai Kalupe was incredible in every possible way. I’ve gone on one-week missions trips to fix up a churches or help out with VBS or something, usually in small Texas towns, but I’d never communicated the message of Jesus Christ to people who would be receiving it in full for the first time. When we arrived to Mwai Kalupe our first day, the villagers immediately helped clear a patch of ground so we could set up camp and watched closely as tents popped up. 

Our first sunset in the bush

We all thought that after we’d settled in a bit, the villagers would go on home to eat dinner and come back the next day to check out what we were up to. But they actually stuck around - even after Ron, our team leader, invited them to come back for a service at our camp site the following day. They wanted to know, Don’t you have anything to say to us about Jesus now? They’d heard that we were coming to talk about Jesus, and they were so excited to hear our message that they didn’t want to wait another day! It was just like that the next day, and the next, and the next…I’ve never seen such genuine hunger to learn about the gospel before. Then again, I’d never done anything like this before, and the surprises just kept on coming.

Each morning, the team split up into small groups of 4-5, each with one English-Silozi translator and at least one team member who felt comfortable sharing Christ with unreached people groups. As a team, we covered a lot of ground - some groups walked upwards of 4 miles to reach remote clusters of huts/sub-villages that made up Mwai Kalupe, and a couple of the guys walked even further to labor alongside villagers in their rice fields. At about 9 hours (or whenever people showed up…the sun was the best clock out there), we invited villagers to come to the camp site for discipleship class. 

Discipleship class at the camp site

In the afternoons, some groups headed out again while half the team stayed at the site to play epic soccer games and hang out with kids. 

By Day 2, we were learning the Lozi form of “duck-duck-goose” and painting the kids’ fingernails with Tara’s sparkly nail polish (the boys were just as excited as the girls, if not more so!). Every night at 20 hours (8 pm for us American folk), we held a service around a huuuuge camp fire just outside our site. Lloyd, Moses, Felix, Mobi, Goodson, Bonny, and T-bo (our translators) helped us open worship with awesome songs in Silozi, then Ron/Lloyd/Moses stole the night away with solid teachin’ and preachin’. The services were definitely my favorite part of our experience in the bush – all the villagers that came were so excited just for the opportunity to be there, and by Saturday night’s service, they kept the service going on their own even after we’d all gone back to the tents!
 

Dancin and rockin out at Sunday's service

Since I’ll be here for another three or so months, I’ll hopefully be able to join other short-term groups when they go into the bush this summer. Till then, though, I have a lot of reflecting and praying to do…so more updates coming soon! Hope yall’re doing fantastically, and I can’t wait to see you again soon! 

All my love and in His peace,

Stephanie :)