9/20/2012
Dear Friends and Family,
We have been in Zambia for one month now, which is extremely hard to believe! It's been an incredible month; we've learned so much I don't know if we really know how to articulate how much we've learned. With cross-cultural encounter comes constant evaluating and reevaluating, which is what makes the International Programs (whether it be HIZ, HUF, HUG, HUE, HUA, HULA, or HIP) singular in their learning potential. What is learned in class is easily defined; exactly what is learned through a simple cross-cultural conversation, chapel program, or football (soccer) game is delineated less easily but profound in its application. Our students are becoming conversant with culture, worldview, and the humanities (from an African perspective), and all of this in light of Jesus of Nazareth.
Christian education is incredible.
So, some specifics about our day-to-day life. This week has been a little less crazy than last week (with the National Measles Vaccination week in which our students participated) but great nonetheless. Last Friday we attended the George Benson Christian College of Education graduation. This turned out to be a fascinating, cultural experience; I think the group really enjoyed it. On Saturday we had one of our Saturday "cultural events," our Tonga and Literature teacher, Ba Siaziyu, invited a woman to come and speak about Zambian marriage and preparation for marriage. The rest of the day was free, so most of the group walked to town for lunch and to hang out for a while. We played a game of ultimate frisbee that afternoon and ended the day with a special South African meal (cooked by Sue Calder!) and a Nertz tournament (group card game).
On Sunday, some of our group stayed here and worshipped at the Namwianga Church of Christ, while another part of the group (17 of us) went with some George Benson students to a town about 45 minutes away to worship with the village church. We helped with the whole service, I did the Bible study, Greg preached, Chris and Parker took turns leading singing (in Tonga!) and Phil spoke before the Lord's Supper. There were two collections this morning, one the regular collection, another for some work on their church building. It is the custom here to announce at the end of the service the number in attendance and the amount given in the collection. This Sunday, the amount of the first collection was announced: "79,000 Zambian Kwacha, plus one egg." The second collection: "39,000 Zambian Kwacha, plus also another egg." After our initial surprise that two eggs made it into the offering, I thought of the woman with two small copper coins, whom Jesus pointed to as an example of true giving.
Now that the precedent is set by a Zambian, I won't be surprised when one of our students contributes an egg this Sunday :)
Each day of this week we've been without electricity. It was an unplanned outage on Monday, but we were warned about the outages on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thankfully, the electricity does come back on throughout the night (about 8:30pm on Tuesday night) and we get to have our fans going and charge phones and computers, etc.
Our program for this week didn't change much in spite of our power-less-ness. Each morning we still had Tonga class starting at 6:30, and African Humanities at 7:00. After breakfast, Monday and Tuesday morning were dedicated to field work: many of the group went to the clinic to work with Janice, Louisa, Katie, and the Zambian medical professionals, and another portion of the group worked at the Namwianga Basic school. Though the plan had been for these students to observe the teaching process, I warned them when I dropped them off that they'd likely find themselves teaching within the first few minutes. That turned out to be the case, and of course our students were up to the task. They plan to put together lesson plans and go back one or two days a week to teach specific lessons as a part of the primary school curriculum. Classes met Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Monday evening we had our weekly "Family Meeting" for cultural processing, Tuesday evening we played football and volleyball with the George Benson students and had a lower-key evening on the Hamby porch, dimly lit with oil burning lanterns.
Wednesday was one of our "regular class days", which just means we started class at 6:30, and after breakfast at 8, George Benson chapel at 9 (which our students organized, Seth Watkins spoke), we met for morning classes before a 12:00 lunch. A couple of our smaller classes met Wednesday after lunch, though most of the group had a chance to go to the Havens or to town.
As I type, Ba Moonga is teaching African history. After breakfast, we'll head out on a day trip to Macha Hospital. The Macha mission has been around for about 100 years, and the hospital has a research division well-known for its work with malaria. We plan to be back this evening before dinner, and then make preparations for a weekend trip to Livingstone. It's been a busy month; we're excited to have a couple days off from class, to relax and enjoy some of the fun activities Livingstone has to offer. We'll try to take plenty of pictures and share these.
That's it for now. Thank you for your prayers for our group. Our prayer, not just for ourselves here in Africa but for God's people all over the world, including you all in the US of A, is that we will all ask: "Where is God in this situation? How is God at work here?" When we ask this, we hope that the plans we make, the work we do, the ways we bless will all be a part of God's global mission. We pray with Jesus "Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Grace and peace,
HIZ 2012 Field Director
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