Orphange :: Part 2

I have already written a post about the orphanage but I definitely think it deserves another one!

This orphanage has become a huge part of my heart and knowing I may never see those sweet children again breaks my heart into two.  I have never met so many kids who were so genuinely excited to see us!  They wanted to be played with. They wanted to be held.  They wanted to be loved.  We were all more than willing to give that to them!

11 of the 62 children at the orphanage are HIV positive.  Fortunately they are able to get the ARV's at the hospital and are being treated properly for it.  The kids range from ages 6 months to about 15 years old.

 This is Benny and I.  I don't think he was feeling very well this day so we pretty much snuggled the whole time we were there.

It's always mass chaos but so much fun!

  

Toms!  I was so excited to see these :) Maybe now my brother in law will stop making fun of me for wearing "elf shoes"

This place will always have such a soft spot in my heart!  I will never forgetting the jumping children full of excitement as our bus drove in their driveway.

Now here are a few sad pictures...

 

My poor iPhone dropped at the market and the screen was obliterated. :(  Fortunately I was able to find a screen protector a few days later so the glass stays in place!  Now it looks even more awesome because I had to tape the screen protector on the sides because it kept coming up.

I didn't use a mosquito net in Choma because I didn't have one for my bottom bunk and wasn't really getting any bites during the night (with plenty of bug spray/deet used each night, of course)  Unfortunately this night I got probably 40ish bug bites on my legs alone.  It was awful and SUPER itchy! 

Something to leave you with:
A prayer by Blaire Pascal (shared with me by me teammate, Chrissy)

"I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor death; but that You may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death for Your glory. You alone knoweth what is expedient for me; You are the sovereign master; do with me according to Your will. Give to me or take away from me, ONLY CONFORM MY WILL TO YOURS. I know but one thing Lord, that it is good to follow You and bad to offend You. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, not anything else in the power of men or angels and is hidden among the secrets of Your providence which I adore, but do not seek to fathom"

Life in Choma

The Monday after we had rain was extremely cold.  It was probably between 60-70 with a breeze, but we have gotten used to temperatures of 90-100 pretty much everyday so this was COLD.  As we walked downtown, all the Zambians had their winter coats on.  I finally understand why Floridians are piling on the layers when it's 60 degrees in January while us Ohioans go down there and are in shorts and t-shirts. 

We had the privilege of having our ex-president of IWU, Dr. Henry Smith come visit us that day.  He is now the Chancellor of the University and has been traveling around the world to find opportunities for students to study abroad.  He many not be our president anymore, but we were all pretty excited about this. :)

We also got to go out to lunch at a cafe!  We hadn't eaten out since being in Lusaka so this was definitely a treat!  It was quite the experience to eat out but still exciting.  We also ate outside and were absolutely FREEZING.  Who knew we would ever get this cold in Zambia?

 

While we were ordering, they had some jewelery for sale.  Bud is super goofy and was willing to try it on for us. :)

 

We were so cold!

There was a slide so obviously these children had to use it. haha

It took forever to get our food and they brought each plate out one at a time.  The burger was definitely better than the one I got in Lusaka!

 

I got my food before these two and they were starving.  haha sorry guys!

Budford and Jude-Monster hanging out in our living room.  Aren't they just the cutest? 

We brought a bunch of cake and brownie mixes so we have been utilizing our access to the kitchen here to make treats once in a while

Study Day at Wonderbake!  This place sells baked goods, coffee, ice cream, etc.  It is also air-conditioned.  While some people shopped at the market, a few of us decided to get coffee and do homework here for the afternoon.  It felt like trying to find a table at McConn in there.  We scoped out the place and pounced on a table as soon as one opened up!

Pam and Phil Leslie...our professor and her husband, arrived on Friday, Oct. 4th and they came bearing gifts!! Shelli Rowley, the amazing woman who planned this trip, contacted our families and had them send us all packages.  It was the most amazing and much-needed surprise ever.  I got letters from my family, pictures, candy, and Starbucks Coffee. (not mad about that at all)   It was literally like Christmas morning.

Bud and Judy!  This is the day before they left.  We definitely miss having them here!

Spar is the grocery store here in Choma.  They also have a bakery so we got these amazing croissants one day.

A little taste of Fall in hot Zambia!  I was so excited to see a pumpkin!

This is an adorable little girl in church!  She just loved Sarah.

Kids either love us or are extremely terrified of us.  They loved us in church this Sunday!

We have worship night and testimonies every Sunday evening.  We have a fire pit here in Choma so we had our worship around the fire a couple weeks ago!  It was such a beautiful evening.  Each week I am blown away by everyone's stories.  We have cried many tears together sharing our hearts and learning more about one another.

Make-shift s'mores!  No graham crackers but interesting marshmallows and random crackers.

My first morning drinking my coffee from home.  Heaven.  (the coffee here is not so awesome)

Surprise ice cream at Wonderbake!

This is what we look like at pretty much every meal here...we play euchre ALL.THE.TIME.  It's an obsession.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go through withdrawal when we leave or if I'll never want to play again!

So many blessings each and every day!  I'm really loving my time here.

Let the Rain Fall Down

"Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it. - See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Rain#sthash.FSl58yKL.dpuf

"Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it. - See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Rain#sthash.FSl58yKL.dpuf

You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;
    let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
    let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it;
    I, the Lord, have created it.

Isaiah 45:8

On Sunday, September 29th, we went to church just down the road from our compound.  We all crowded together on our benches and proceeded to drip with sweat throughout the whole service.  And when I say drip I mean we poured out sweat from places we didn't even know could sweat.  It was 105 degrees that day...in the shade.  It was HOT.  We were all sweating the entire afternoon....being indoors was just as hot as being out!  It was an extremely uncomfortable day and we all began to dread October...which is notorious for being the hottest month.

THEN that evening it began to get cloudy and started to look and smell a little like rain.  The temperature slowly began to cool off and we all looked expectantly at the big, dark clouds, willing for rain to come.

Side note:  Rain was not likely.  It literally had not rained once since March.

A lot of us were doing homework outside that evening because the temperature had cooled off so much after dinner.  As we sat there, we began to see tiny little rain drops fall on the sidewalk.  Of course after we all screamed and ran out from under the porch, it stopped sprinkling as quickly as it began.

A bunch of us were just giddy with excitement and began to sing and dance...hoping for more rain to come.  It quickly turned into very loud singing (Hilary Duff's "Come Clean" was definitely involved) and doing the "rain dance".  We gave up hope after a while and went back to our homework.

After about an hour or so, the rain began to fall faster and harder and we once again screamed and ran out to enjoy the glorious rain; praising God for the relief from the hot day.  I sure wish I could post videos on here from our rain dance...it was pretty awesome. 

"Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it. - See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Rain#sthash.FSl58yKL.dpuf

As I began to reflect on how much this rain affected our group, I couldn't help but go to bed with a smile that night.  God has been so faithful and this rain proved how much He has been taking care of our every need.

We had been having some conflict with our group while we were in Zimba.  There were petty arguments and silly little issues going on...but regardless, they were all affecting our group and causing strain on some of our relationships.  

Sunday was our first day back in Choma and I can't help but see God's hand working in our situation.

We were all so hot and tired during the day, but then the rain came and washed away our sweat and gave us pure joy and relief.  God also used this rain to show how He was working in our situation and washing away our past sins.  We were cleansed of our iniquities.  I think we all felt the sweet relief the rain brought us and saw how God was once again proving his faithfulness to our group.

Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; 

his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, 

as the spring rains that water the earth.” 

Hosea 6:3

Isaiah 45:8

Verse Concepts

"Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it.
- See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Rain#sthash.FSl58yKL.dpuf

Isaiah 45:8

Verse Concepts

"Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it.
- See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Rain#sthash.FSl58yKL.dpuf

Isaiah 45:8

Verse Concepts

"Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it.
- See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Rain#sthash.FSl58yKL.dpuf

Life in the Village

Last Thursday afternoon, we headed to the village to learn about how they work and what their daily life looks like.  It was about a 45 minute drive and most of it was on a narrow, bumpy dirt road.  Our bus was bouncing all over the place...slightly terrifying.  

We got to the village and it just looked so picturesque and African-like.  We were greeted by so many friendly Zambians who were all super excited to meet us!  They had chairs, benches and logs all set up for us to sit down together.  They were very hospitable!

We first got a tour of the whole village.  These are the chicken coops!

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This is the cow pasture

And these are all the cows!  

This is a mortar and pestle looking thing that they use to crush nuts and roasted corn kernels

 

And there were lots of dogs!  I was happy about this.

They were cute but kinda skittish!

This is the wheel they use to grind up corn.  The corn meal is then used to make nshima...which is a staple food for Zambians! (it is pretty much tasteless...and sits like a brick in your stomach for hours)

Notice the solar panels on the top of this house!

Of course there was a lot of playing with children that went on!  We brought a frisbee and they loved it!

After our tour, we walked about a half a mile to their gardens.

These are two of the men in the village.  It is very common for people of the same sex to hold hands here!

Beautiful gardens!  There was corn, cabbage, and so much more but I really can't remember right now!

This is how they water the gardens each day.  They have a small man-made pond and have this pump type device that you stand on to pump water through the hose!  It was pretty cool.  Kind of like a step-machine at the gym....only way more functional!

This is the other end of the hose.  It is very dry here so they have to water the gardens several times a day. 

I took a turn at pumping.  It wasn't too difficult but would be a very monotonous task!

This tree was absolutely beautiful!

This was a sweet little 2 month old baby.

 

We later walked about a 1/4 mile to the water pump to collect water.

This cutie held my hand the entire way!

We all took a turn pumping water and filling our buckets!

This is how they carry EVERYTHING here.  I will never understand how they keep it balanced!

We all took turns carrying the water on our heads but could only do it while holding on tightly!

It doesn't look that difficult but holy crap...these women must have very strong necks because it was heavy!

I have so much respect for these women and children who walk to that well about 5 times a day to collect water for their whole village.  This water is used for cooking, drinking, washing, and bathing.  Amazing.

This is our bus driver, Lavmo.  He is the one brave enough to drive on those crazy roads with our huge bus!

 

This little girl was extremely sweet and also very ticklish!

 Our group with a bunch of the people from the village!

It was such a wonderful day!  Definitely one of my favorite things we have done so far.  It is amazing how much they trust in God and rely on Him to provide for their needs.  They are amazing people!