Muchochoma Village

One of the awesome things about Clothed in Hope is that the women have started a partnership with a group of women in a village about 1.5 hours outside of town. We had the great pleasure of visiting them on Monday.

We sang and danced together. One of the visiting women shared some encouragement with a biblical message. The hosting women put on skits teaching about tithing and loving your neighbors. A member of our team taught about HIV/AIDS. We shared in lunch together (very American- PB& J sandwiches). And we took lots of pictures! I have shared a few of them below.

We were packed 19 deep riding out on a dirt road to the village in a mini-bus (van).

I loved singing and dancing with the women of Muchochoma.

 

Some of the women from Ng'ombe hanging out during lunch.

 

 This 64-year-old woman is so beautiful (and funny)! I was so happy to chat with her for a little bit thanks to someone voluntarily coming over and translating for us.

This is Emma, one of the women in CiH in Ng'ombe.

 

Chikondi means love in Nyanja and is a term that goes hand in hand with CiH.

 

Chaos with Kids

Aside from working with the women of Clothed in Hope we were asked to put on a children's program. Kelly, Ian, and I were assigned this job while the other three team members did a biblical study with the women. We were totally unsure of what this was going to look like. Kelly offered up her knowledge of vacation bible school and wrote out a lesson for each day with plans for songs, games, crafts, memory verses, a bible story, and a time to share. We were ready to take on this task even though we still were unclear on how many children we would have, what the age they would be, where it would take place, etc. etc. 
 
Then we got to day one.
 
We had hoped the women's children would come but we were unsure on who attended morning school and who attended afternoon school. Well... only one showed up. We looked at each other and then went for the gate to the center and literally called in children from outside asking if they wanted to come play. Now we were rolling. We had 20+ kids and we were ready to go. It wasn't long before we found out the women's class inside couldn't hear anything over us, and we were asked to move outside the center's gate. We began to play in a small area in the pathway and a small area beside the building. This had quickly become a street ministry. 
 
It wasn't but a few minutes in that we realized our "schedule" would become completely disregarded. That first day was absolute chaos. The children couldn't understand what we were trying to do, we didn't know what games they were trying to play (one looked like dodgeball yet only two people could throw, the other was netball with no nets). We pushed through. Our fearless leader, Kelly, never backed down when there was clear anxiety on Ian and my faces. We rallied them in from games, sang a few songs, talked about Job, and taught them a memory verse- Romans 8:39 (that we went over at least 12 times so something had to have stuck... right?). Have I mentioned the language/accent barrier? We have no idea how much of what we said they really understood!
 
We had made it through a grueling hour and a half.
 
Today was day two. As we walked out of the center and onto the path to see what children wanted to come hang out with the three crazy mzungu we decided to ditch most of the plans we had made and more of less see where the afternoon took us. We decided to start off with bubbles we had brought because all kids will love bubbles... right? Yes! It was a hit. They loved getting a turn blowing the bubbles; they loved chasing after and popping the bubbles others had blown. Today was going to be a better day.
 
And it was! The children were taking in everything we gave them. We organized some relay races, sang more songs, reviewed our verse, learned a new one (1 John 4:11), and shared another bible story. It was a success!
 
The best part is that older youth came today asking if we had something for them... most of them being males, We are talking teenage-to-early-twenties males asking for someone to pour into them... What an opportunity! Tomorrow Ian will be hanging out with them, sharing God's love with them, and talking to them about being Godly men toward women. This is a heavy load but an opportunity that must be taken.

It is so wonderful to see God working in this group, in these women, and in their families. We pray for more opportunities to serve and for the relationships we have begun to build all in hope of sharing the Lord's love as it is so abundantly amazing.

"It all began with feeling timid..."

As I shared in my last post, we have a group blog that I posted to today. It was wonderful to process the first day with the ladies through this writing. Please check out "It all began with feeling timid..."  to read about my first time meeting the women and getting to worship with them.

Made it to Zambia

After 30+ hours of riding in airplanes and hanging out in airports we have arrived safely and with no problems in Zambia. I have found that traveling with people is a lot more fun than traveling alone and that I can no longer sleep on airplanes (I was quite tired upon arrival!).

I have been pleasantly surprised to the similarities I have found with Zambia and Kenya so far. It has made the transition very easy for me and kind of comforting. The children even yell out "how are you?" as we pass by on the street (something that has always made me laugh yet smile a bit too).

Our first day was spent settling into our house, taking a trip to the store for food, and catching up on our sleep! Today we went to the center to meet the women, their children, and be welcomed with a celebration. I will be writing more about this on our group's blog tomorrow. It was originally set up to share information as we prepared (such as this post I wrote with random Zambia facts). Now we will be using it to share with our supporters about this experience. Please check it out and get perspective from everyone in the group throughout the trip. For now, I will keep it short and look forward to sharing more on the group blog tomorrow.