Zambia 2008

Home again

2008-02-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

This is our fourth day back home in Kelowna. It is amazing how quickly I have gotten caught up in the business of my life - going back to work the day after arriving home may have had something to do with that.

It was heartwarming to hear how many people at work had followed our blog and were truly interested in our experiences in Zambia.

Thank you all who were praying for us - we travelled with relatively few problems. Please continue to pray for some who came home not well - I hope you are all healing.

At Roberta's suggestion I thought I would do one final entry on how this trip to Zambia has influenced me.

We went to show God's love to the children of Buseko and Grace through our actions and our prayers. What the children, and adults we met showed me was a spiritual reliance that is difficult for us to grasp with all the worldly resources we have readily at hand. I am greatly humbled and at the same time encouraged by these people to continue to develop spiritually.

I learned more about what it means to be truly generous, to be willing to share whatever you have with others if their need is greater than yours - so many families struggling already, but willingly caring for the children of family members who have died of AIDs . Although I have always valued generosity, I know I need to work on giving with a more generous heart.

It was an amazing trip - a combination of accomplishing some tasks, but experiencing a great deal more.

John and Susan Chalkias are partnering with the people of Zambia to change and improve things rather than just providing for them. We witnessed how much they care and how much they are respected in return.

I am looking forward to sharing more with everyone through pictures and stories.

Carol

Leaving Zambia

2008-01-26T01:19:00.000-08:00

Roberta sent a note about the power outages we experienced the last few nights in Ndola so we were not able to let you know how we were doing. We enjoyed many candlelight dinners and cooking our food on a brazier outside. I am sitting at the airport in Lusaka and thought I would e-mail some thoughts as I leave Zambia.
I will always remember the friendliness of the people of Zambia, whether walking along the side of the road, smiling and waving when they see the muzungoos (white people) passing in our minibus, or when they greet you with Mulishani ( How are you?) The reply is bwino (fine). As a sign of respect, they curtsy and hold their forearm with their left hand when they shake. Another common greeting as they get to know you is to hug, once on each side.
Zambians greet each person in a group individually,no matter how large the group. After the church service we attended, we filed out row by row, greeted everyone who left before us and then stood at the end of the line to greet those who followed us. I would say there were around 150 people that we greeted and greeted us. I thought this would be a good thing to do at Sunridge, a great way to get to know people!
The younger children at Buseko were so cute and very rambunctious - we would just have to enter the room and we would have 3 or 4 climbing over us.
We were very impressed with the politeness of the older children. They look out for and help with the younger ones quite willingly.
There are always a few who touch you in a special way. Carl is a 2 year old boy that I sponsor. He is not able to crawl or walk yet and when we arrived he was not well, just recovering from a bout of TB with some secondary infections. I was able to hold him and he quieted when I sang to him - Jesus Loves You. It was heartwarming to see him feeling better by the time we left and be able to coax a little smile from him.
Susan is 7 , although she looks about 4. One day she sat on my lap as we watched a soccer game and we sang songs. To hear her singing, There's No One, There's No One like Jesus with such passion - I will never forget. Natalie was able to get her singing this on a short video later.
Aggie is a 12 year old - she helped us with our Bemba words, very patiently and then wrote out several for us. She wants to be a missionary to tell people about God so they will be saved. She doesn't have any idea about where she will go, but knows God will lead her.
We are homeward bound with a couple of days in Cairo.
Bye for now and God Bless,
Carol

Friday

2008-01-25T09:27:00.001-08:00

Hello Kelowna! It is balmy and nice here. But before you get too envious, it is also pouring rain and we have intermitant power. (Which is why we haven't been able to blog for a few days.) There was a huge power outage last weekend which effected Zambia (the whole country), Zimbabwe and Congo. Could you imagine our whole country being out of power? Since then, we've been out of power on and off (mostly off), so we've been utilizing our camping skills, cooking over charcoal fires, boiling water for coffee, drying our clothes inside on clotheslines, eating and showering by candlelight (cold showers of course) etc. It is all part of the adventure!

This past week has been great. We did some more work at Grace Academy and on Wednesday we took 7 of the kids to Ndola Game Park. It was a lot of fun to get to know these precious kids better. We got to sleep in safari tents and there were monkeys right in the area where we were 'camping', very cool!

Tomorrow we leave Zambia and head for Egypt. The past 2 weeks have gone so fast and we have experienced so much. We are looking forward to sharing our experiences with you!

Thank you again for all your prayers. We have really seen God at work here in this country. We have also experienced His protection and safekeeping. Please continue to pray for our team as we finish up our journey and process all God wants to teach us. Also please pray for health, we have 2 members experiencing colds right now and flying with a cold can be very uncomfortable.

See you soon!

Roberta

2008-01-20T07:44:00.001-08:00

This is an attachment to Kathie Houston's blog After church we witnessed a river baptisim of 14 adults After church we walked approx 2 kms to the river through the compound, through corn and vegetable fields TIA-This is Africa!!! Baptism was very moving We are truly blessed! Joan Cote

Kitwe

2008-01-20T07:34:00.001-08:00

I got about two thirds through a message last evening when the power suddenly went out, so all was lost. Thank goodness, Bob had brought a flashlight with him, but it didn't take long before the candles were out in the internet cafe - I think they are somewhat used to this. It was actually a particularly long power outage, not coming back until about 1:30 today.

So here goes my second attempt to tell you aboutour trip to Kitwe on Thursday afternoon.

Kitwe is the second largest city in Zambia about 60 km northwest of Ndola. We visited the Carewell Oasis Medical Centre, a primary health centre operated by a Christian physician team, Dr's Phiri. Thier philosophy is based on Jeremiah 30:17 " For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds says the Lord." This is the first way they are bringing the love of God to the people of Zambia through health care.

Secondly they are building a church next to the medical clinic. Dr Antoinette shared her thoughts very eloquently, but I will do my best to summarize what she said. She believes that first and foremost the people must have an identity with Christ . Through God their hearts and minds will be renewed and they will realize that they are not a downtrodden people. Only then will the education be effective and result in some behaviour changes to stop the HIVpandemic. Dr. Phiri was saying that although the rate of AIDs has gone down with antiretroviral medication, the HIV rate is still quite high one in four households are affected.

God's Blessings,

Carol

Saturday - not sure of the date!

2008-01-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe in some ways that we've been gone for a week but because we have seen so much and have done so much, it seems much more than one week!

Today, we returned to Grace Academy (it's about 36 km away) to complete some painting and making 15 bookshelves and to assist with the Village children Outreach program. Each of us does something a bit different and it is amazing what gets accomplished! It doesn't get accomplished as quickly as it might at home because timing of things in Africa are different. We have become quite accoustomed to using the phrase TIA (This is Africa). Today we got pulled over by the road vehicle inspection police and had to pay a fine. It was $145,000 kwtchas ($36 Can) for something or other. Apparrently, it is a way to make some tax revenue monies from people who they feel can afford to pay additional taxes. They don't fine the trucks carrying 20 people in the back of the truck because they know that they cannot afford to pay and if they didn't get to the market to sell their good, they wouldn't have food to eat for their families. So, in a Zambian way, it kind of makes sense!

We had a great time with assisting in the outreach program, singing, playing games and then providing them with a full meal of M'sheemah, sausages and vegetables. We later met some of these children in their homes because Carley, the Canadian Dorm mom, has made friends with many of the women in the nearby fields. Grace academy is way out of the city and is in a rural setting. So she took us on a long walk in the tall grasses following a narrow path that led us to a few small brick huts that had families with young women with many children. Carely calls them her aunties (common term of respect for adult women who become friends) and so we met 6 different aunties. We did a bit of a health check on one young mom who recently had a baby who is still jaundiced. The mom is a bit jaundiced as well and had been loosing a lot of blood shortly after she delivered. But she and baby appear to be recuperating. She has very little food to eat and she has 3 other children to feed so is not getting much rest either (she is 22 years old).

These women were charming and welcomed us into their home settings. Only one could speak English (she had grade 7) but we had taken some of the older Grace girls with us and they interpreted the Bemba into English. Carley has agreed to teach these women and some of their childrren school starting next week (they cannot afford to send their children to school!). They so look forward to Carely coming and talking to them and playing with the children! She is an amazing young women who has embraced the Zambian culture and goes beyond the expectation of what a dorm parent would do.

The Grace girls love going into the village areas and helping their people as well. It is such a loving and friendly culture! We are truly learning more of what it means to show God's love through the Zambian people's actions than we ever anticipated that we would learn!

Till later!

Love Kathie

17th of January

2008-01-17T02:02:00.001-08:00

Wow, yesterday was an intensionally emotional day following a visit to the children's hospital, visiting a very poor housing compound and giving tickets out for large pieces of plastic for leaking roofs (we returned today to give out the plastic to those who had tickets - 50 only), and then a visit to a hospice. But it was the final visit of the day that put it all together for me. Our last visit was taking Mary, the Buseko Home nurse, home to her place on another compound. (Being a nurse does not provide for the same privileges that I have at home. Wages only pay for rent and family costs...no cars or owning even a small brick home!)

Mary provided us with a tour of her home. Although she is a single lady, she has become mother to a few of her brother's children (5 in total). 5/8 of her sibblings have died and so she has taken on much of the responsibility of her immediate family. Her younger brother also lives with her so her home that seemed large for a single person suddenly became small for the numbers of people living inside it.

Mary told us more about her life and how she came to be at Buseko home. She had initially been a practical nurse but knew that God wanted her to do more with her life. She went on to became a diploma RN and also took additional courses on HIV AIDS. After working in the N'dola Childrens Hospital (largest in Zambia) for 2 years she had a yearning to do more ministry work and to combine it with her career. She found out about Buseko home in 2004 and felt that God was calling her to be there. She interviewed and was accepted. John and Susan, directors of Seeds of Hope, then brought her to BC for a full years course on further HIV training. She now looks after the medical needs of all the children at the Orhpanage and the Grace Academy. Right now there are 39/54 children who have AIDS and receiving treatment.

Mary also told us that looking after these children now is her Ministry and she has accepted her position with Buseko Home as a partnership with John and Susan. She has become a mother to all of the children at Buseko and Grace and loves these children as her own. She cannot have children of her own and feels that God has now blessed her with the care of these 5 children of her sibblings as well as 54 children of the home and school. For many years, she has had a similar vision as John and Susan have for Zambia and feels that with her Zambian heritage and understanding of the culture combined with Seeds of Hope resources, they together will make a difference in the future of Zambia . Her ability to show the love of Jesus to all of these children, and her extended work she does in many of the homes where these children have come from is a true testimony of how God can use her. She uses every opportunity to tell the children, people in her community about the love of God and that there is hope for them to make a difference in their and their children's lives . I wish I could have retold her testimony as powefully as she had but I'm afraid I can't do it justice. But for me, this was the "icing on the cake". I could see in action exactly what the written vision is for the Seeds of Hope. It truly is making a difference. We have seen these healthy looking, vibrant, respectful, God loving children, have confidence in themselves and their futures. They truly live out the mission statement of Life, Love and Laughter! What a wonderful testimony Mary has been to use to see how one life can impact so many!

Love Kathie

Thursday Jan 17

2008-01-17T01:58:00.001-08:00

Here it is day four in Zambia and our minds and hearts are so full of what we have seen and experienced it is going to take us time to sort through it all. We are all madly journalling at every opportunity so that we do not forget anything.

John is carefully choosing our experiences - all ties in to the vision that he and Susan have for their project here. Their vision and plan is incredible and as their project grows, the number of Zambians they touch and assist will multiply proportionately. Their vision is basically to break the cycle of poverty here in Ndola.

We stay at Buseko home, the orphanage which was the first part of their project. We have also been to Grace Academy which grew from the orphanage when these children were growing and thriving with the antiretroviral medication. At Grace Academy the children live in a family atomosphere, they are receiving a good education and the confidence to believe that they can do something greater and anything they desire. The children assist with an outreach feeding program for other children in the area. As John said, it is easy to feed a hundred children, but their program does more than that. They monitor these children, and when they are there, they do an activity and there is worship. It is truly joyous to hear these children praising God in Bemba.

They have just completed a rec hall where they will be able to do more community outreach and worship services. This is where we have been painting.

Yesterday we went to a Children's Hospital and started in the malnutrition ward - children that look like little old men, or are "swollen" due to lack of protein in their diet. This was a very emotional experience - in Zambian hospitals parents must stay with their children 24 hours/day. They sleep in hard chairs or lying on the cement floor. Although many did not speak English they understood and were thankful as we prayed over them. They may not have understood the words, but they knew that we cared. One of the next phases for John & Susan is to build a malnutrion clinic. It would not just be getting the childrens nutrition improved as they would only end up returning a few months later. The moms will also come in for nutrition classes and will learn some business skills. They will be assisted to set up a small business so they will be able to support their families and feed their children properly.

We then went to visit one of the 7 compounds in the Ndola area. About 40,000 people live in each one - we will be able to show pictures of the very crude homes that they live in. This is the rainy season here and many roofs leak. We walked around and distributed tickets for plastic tarps.

We went back today and distributed the tarps from the community centre - the Zambian people are very friendly and thankful. They took the time to thank each one of us for the tarp. I'm not sure what John and Susan have planned here, but these compounds are where many of their children come from and where people rarely leave.

Yesterday afternoon we visited a hospice run by Sister Alice, a feisty Irish nun. This is a completely hospice totally reliant on donations. Again we were able to pray over these women and men. The good news is that now that the antiretroviral medication is funded by the government, many people that come to the hospice improve and are able to return home.

John and Susan are working on funding for a high school, a mechanical school, and on and on it goes - as I said their vision is incredible and inspiring - all very well thought out.

I read James 1:9 from the New Century version. "Believers who are poor should take pride that God has made them spiritually rich. Those who are rich should take pride that God has shown them that they are spiritually poor." These people are totally reliant on God in a way that we are not - they are an example to us in so many ways.

God's Blessings,

Carol

The market

2008-01-15T11:00:00.001-08:00

Remember I said we were going to the market? We did. It was pretty cool. It is an open air market with stands made out of logs and boards, and anything else they can find. There are ditches between the rows of stands where the water rolls off the roofs and pools on the ground, forming rivers throughout. Though there are grocery stores out here, many of the people get their needs met by shopping at the market. One can buy pretty much anything at the market: eggs, fruit, vegetables, spices, fabric, electronics, DVDs, cell phone minutes, clothes and live chickens. Yup, they buy them live and take them home to butcher them. One guy I saw bought about 10, and then proceeded to put them in the trunk of his Toyota to take them home. (No bags or cages or floor covering to protect from the 'droppings'.) Very interesting and different, that's for sure. Oh ya, they also have tiny dried fish (about the size of anchovies) and dried caterpillars, apparently they eat them. I don't think I'm going to try that....

We were the only white people at the market, everyone else was black. Which caused much staring and some jokes at our expense.

It really helped to gain some perspective on people's lives here. The average wage here is about $1.00 per day. One egg costs about 15 cents. So when you think about all that a person would need to buy to live, and egg is pretty costly. Other things are costly in comparison as well, which would be why so many people don't eat much or often and sleep on dirt floors in a hut with no furniture or heat. Very sobering when I reflect on how much I have and take for granted, living in Canada.

Tomorrow we will be visiting one of the shanty towns to hand out tickets to distribute tarps for covering the roofs of huts. We have to hand out tickets, because if we just came with the tarps, we would be swamped. Then on the next day we will go and hand out the tarp to the people with tickets. We will also be visiting children in one of the local hospitals, that should be very interesting.

Thank you again for all your prayers, we can really see how God is taking care of us and how He is working here. We'll write again as soon as we can.

Roberta

Aggi

2008-01-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

Aggi is the cook at the Buseko home and also a seamstress.

The first day, our recovery day, we went to a market and all the women bought material. The selection was incredible. Carlie Simla ( from Kelowna and is a dorm mother at Grace Academy) did the bartering for us - she was good!

Aggi measured us all up (we won't share that part) and when all was done we had her making 32 items form skirts to tops and dresses for us before we leave.

We were feeling that we were putting too much of a burden on her as she works all day, but she was very grateful for the extra money - the cost for each item is about 25,000 katcha, which works out to be about 7 to 8 dollars. She will use the money to pay for her electricity bill which currently is about 2 million katcha.

She is a single mother supporting her children ( I'm not sure how many) and at Buseko home makes about $4/day which is very good money. The average wage is $1 - 2 /day.

It is wonderful to get to know the staff as well as the children.

The cook for us, Morea, was looking at my bible and said how much she enjoyed it as there were the explanatory notes at the bottom. I leave it out for her each day to read when she has time.

I have met my sponsored child, Carl. He is almost 2 years old but is not walking yet. He has not been well, but was better today.

There is so much to share and we are each trying to tell a bit.

The stories are incredible. All ready my head and my heart are full.

Bye for now.

Carol

Kathie's addition

2008-01-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

My term to add to the blog: It was an amazing day today with doing a lot of physical work, assisting with the village feeding program; seeing how amazing the kids are at Grace academy etc.

But I want to share a story about one of the den mothers I met last night. She has 6 children of her own. 3 of them attend college. She only makes about $4.00/day being a den mother (that is about 1 or 2 more dollars/day than she would be paid by regular Zambian employers) and has to pay about $1000/month for her kids to go to college. Her husband died a few years ago and she was left with the childraisng and all the costs that go with that. But she is so thankful to be part of Grace Academy and loves the 6 children that she is the mother for a the school. To those 6 children, she is their mother and treat her as if she really were and she treats them like they were her own children.

Each den mother has her own story and I look forward to hearing more stories as the next 2 weeks go by.

A highlight for us was to meet Kenny our child that we sponsor at Grace. He was very shy when he first met us yesterday but since having Bob play a little baseball with him, he is feeling much more comfortable. Now he smiles and waves and comes over to us each time he sees us. He is definitely shier thatn the rest because almost all of the other children cannot wait to introduce themselves and ask our names. They love to play and laugh. I have never seen a group of livlier, respectful loving children. They love Jesus and love to sing songs of praise. Even the small orphan children under 5 who live at Buseko Home love to sing and just cannot wait to see us and touch us!

As eveyone tonight was to write something, I won't add any more for today. What a blessing it is to be here! Bob and I feel so thankful to be here!

Love Kathie

Monday

2008-01-14T00:34:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! We've arrived at Buseko! We are all safe, our travels went well. God was really looking out for us. The only major glitch was when our rented bus wouldn't start and we had to push it around the mall parking lot to get it started. It was about a 1 hour delay and God got us going again. (And many of the locals laughing at all the white people pushing the bus.) The drive from Lusaka (where we landed) to Ndola was beautiful. It is rainy season so everything is lush and various shades of green. The main highway was interesting, every 70 km or so there is a police checkpoint, where you need to slow down and they check your vehicle (we were waved through all stops). Also, every time you get close to a "major" (which could be very small) town / village there are speed bumps on the highway. Every 5-10 kms there are little huts and people. It's not like Canada where there is 100's of kms between towns and cities with farmland in between. There are always people walking or riding bikes on the highway and lots of people bring their wares or food to the edge of the road to sell.

I could already write a book on what we've seen and learned about this beautiful country, but we are heading out for the day soon, and I don't have much time today.

The property here is beautiful and the kids are precious. Natalie already had a chance this morning to assist with feeding and getting them ready. Today we are going to visit Grace Academy and visit one of the local markets. Tomorrow the plan is to do some work @ Grace, probably painting.

Thank you again for all your prayers. We will have many stories to tell when we get home.

Until the next time we get the internet!

Roberta (for the whole team)

We arrived in Kenya

2008-01-12T20:38:00.001-08:00

Hello all! So far our flights have gone well, we haven't gotten much sleep so I'm sure we'll sleep well tonight once we reach Bueseko House.

Right now we're in Nairobi and waiting in a very long line to check in for the last flight on our journey, from Nairobi to Lusaka. From there we will take a bus (about a 5 hour drive) to Ndola.

It is hot and muggy here, to be expected seeing as we are so close to the equator. Lusaka is to be somewhat cooler, but very high humidity.

I guess I better go and stand in that line up. Thank you for your prayers, we'll write again as soon as we can.

Roberta

We're leaving today!

2008-01-11T11:03:00.001-08:00

The day has finally arrived! Today our team is leaving from Kelowna airport @ 1:45 pm and flying to Vancouver. There we will meet up with John Chalkis and an Abbostford member of our team. Then we fly to Amsterdam @ 6:30 pm (where we will also meet up with the final 2 members of our team). After a bit of a layover, we then fly to Kenya, and then will arrive in Lusaka (Zambia) on Sunday at about 10:00 am (their time).

We are very excited and felt so blessed by the sending off / prayer time we received from SunRidge last Sunday. We are all open to how God wants to use us and looking forward to all we will experience and learn.

Thank you for your continued support in prayer. At this point we are not sure how often we will be able get to a computer to update this blog, but do want to keep everyone updated as often as we can (so keep checking back!).

Roberta

Our team

2008-01-11T11:02:00.001-08:00

Here is the team from SunRidge travelling with Seeds of Hope to Zambia.

(L to R) Roberta Neumann, Lynnda Swan, Carol Butcher, Joan Cote (in back), Kathie Houston, Natalie Mark and Bob Houston.

Thank you for your continued prayers!