We're starting this blog two weeks after we left Hope in Searcy, AR to begin her semester (Friday August 17). Therefore, we are adding communications we have received here by date they were received:

Landed

Wednesday August 22, 2012
(from director of HIZ program)
After two back to back 9 hour flights, we have landed safely in Lusaka! As always, uneventful travel is the type of travel we’re looking for, and the group did great. We’ll see tonight how many of our bags made it in and tomorrow morning we finish the trip with a 5-6 hour drive to Namwianga. (I have since heard that they got all their baggage! Good thing because most of it was medicine, medical supplies and special treats for the orphans!)

Thank you for your prayers.

We know that the world is big, and there has been a lot of history since the beginning of time. Praying for safe travel sometimes feels selfish. Yet we worship and pray to a Creator that, despite a huge world to look after, listens to and loves even us. We pray His blessing on you this week as we seek to honor God wherever we are.

Stay tuned for more as we try to articulate the story of this semester humbly and boldly.

Grace and peace

Jeremy Daggett   

 

 Thursday August 23, 2012

(from director of HIZ program)

This evening we made it to Namwianga and were blessed to meet some of our gracious hosts for our semester with the mission. Ba Harold and Ba Leonard cooked us a delicious meal that we shared on the back porch of the Hamby house (our classroom, dining room, and student center, pictured below). Tomorrow morning: orientation. Tomorrow afternoon: we begin to learn about the Havens and visit for the first time.

If you read the book of Psalms, you’ll notice right away a tension between praise and lament. This tension I believe accurately reflects the story of humanity. At this point, Psalm 8 is very much on our minds. We look ahead to God leading us through the Psalms this semester as we learn from and live with another portion of His humanity.

        

Picture Below: Hope is the girl in the green shirt, right lower corner. So exciting for us to actually see a picture of her so far away. This room serves as their classroom, dining room, student center, etc while in Zambia

 

Thursday August 23, 2012
Dear Mom and Dad,
     I am safely at Namwianga at last. Today we got to go to the havens and I was assigned a baby named Jonathan who is 6 months old and a baby name Michelo who is 13 months old. It was sad to see so many babies without a family but it is a very happy orphanage and the aunties really care about them. I tried asking people what 'hope' means in Tonga and got a few different answers, so I will wait to ask my language teacher.
     I am a little sad just because I am not as out going as I would like to be. I think what I really need is some one-on-one time with people and Zambians to really feel useful, but it is hard when I don't like to push myself on people.
     This is areally a nice place and very beautiful. On Saturday we will go to see Victoria Falls.
     I will talk to you again soon. Pass on my message to the family.
Love you all,
Hope


Friday August 24, 2012
(from the director of the HIZ program)

Dearest friends and family of the 2012 HIZ group,

First of all, thank you for your interest in this group and especially for your prayers for our safety in travel and first days in Zambia. We have been given an incredible welcome in our first two full days at Namwianga and have even had electricity! We had been told before we arrived that the electricity would be very scattered and that even water for showers was short, but so far we've been well lit and I even used the projector in class today! :) As Klay Bartee (a counselor, professor, and coach at Harding University, and member of the Namwianga Board) said the Monday we left the US of A, "electricity has absolutely nothing to do with relationships." So far, that hasn't been tested, but we know the time will come when we'll be rid of that distraction and can just give of ourselves in relationship to the people we're meeting. For now though we're very thankful for the electricity.

Thursday morning we spent doing orientation to Namwianga. There are a lot of cultural rules to learn, besides all of the rules of the mission and how we're to fit into that picture. We also were oriented to how the Havens work and function. These are the orphanages that many of your students will be spending their time in helping the mothers of the homes and aunties who take care of and love the babies that are housed there. I hope you'll ask your child about why they didn't even bring their cameras to the Havens on their very first visit Thursday afternoon, I think they had a really special time.

 We're very blessed that Meagan Hawley is again living in Zambia, and she helps facilitate the relationship between our students and how they get to serve at the Havens. You can read more about her and what she is doing here: http://www.zambianhavenonearth.blogspot.com

Friday morning we took a tour of the mission and went into the little town that is 7 km away, which is called Kalomo. They did a quick tour of the town to see what all is there (many shops, a few restaurants and stop signs, and an open air market) and got an "El Pantano Cooler", a slush at a restaurant owned by a Peruvian woman married to the director of Namwianga's medical clinic (did you follow all of that?) We came back for lunch and afterward unloaded some supplies from the HIZ container and met for Missionary Anthropology. Everyone had a couple hours of free time this afternoon before dinner. After dinner, we were invited to Roy and Kathi Merritt's home to sing with about 20 Zambians who meet every Friday night to sing. For the next several Friday nights they'll be working through the entire Tonga songbook to try to teach more of the songs to people who might lead them in churches around here and on village outreach.

 I uploaded one of the songs that were sung that we got to learn. It switches back and forth between English and Tonga and in English is called "Jesus you are worthy". Here it is: http://d.pr/a/37pj (if you have a hard time playing it, try downloading it or trying a different browser)

Tomorrow, we head into Livingstone to see Victoria Falls and shop for a few things that the students may have forgotten. More later!

Grace and peace,

Jeremy Daggett
HIZ 2012 Field Director


Sunday August 26, 2012

We're coming up on one week since we left HUT, and the days are flying by. We've been at Namwianga for four days now, and they've been four really good days. Since the last update we took a day trip into Livingstone to see Victoria Falls before it dries up to a trickle. Because of the low amount of rain this past rainy season the water flow wasn't at it's peak, but it was still an unbelievable sight to see. We ate a late lunch, did some grocery shopping for a few things we can only find in Livingstone, and headed back out to Namwianga for dinner and tea time.

We were invited on Sunday morning to worship with a group of 16 churches of Christ who had come together for a weekend-long meeting. Ba Janice stayed at Namwianga with a few of the students who weren't feeling 100%. There is a little stomach bug going around, sticks around for just a few hours and then students are feeling better. Not fun to travel on bumpy roads with though. It's an incredible blessing to have a Nurse Practicioner (Janice Bingham) and two Physician Assistants (Louisa Duke and Katie Daggett) looking after our group. All of the adjustments that our American bodies go through getting used to a new diet have been well taken care of.

This village church at Kasibi hosted over 500 Zambians this morning, and they treated us as their honored guests. I was asked to preach, and Chris Jackson gave a thought before the Lord's Supper and two collections. We were a little late getting there because of one of our trucks getting stuck in the sand on the way there (it happened to be the one I was driving :) but that ended up being good material for a sermon illustration. Near the end of the 4-hour worship service we were asked to sing three songs, and they were floored that we already knew three songs in Tonga after four days in country. Of course we mispronounced a lot of the words so they still had a chance to get a good laugh at our expense :) We were laughing along with them happy to have this opportunity to bless them, as the Zambians constantly bless us. After worship they fed us Nsima (their traditional cornmeal mush) and chicken and we headed back to Namwianga! We met with the Namwianga Church of Christ this evening, a worship service more similar to what our students are used to (i.e. only about an hour long) and called it a day.

This next week we begin our classes, focusing most on Tonga (morning and afternoon) and doing some Missionary Anthropology and Health Care Missions as well. Ba Janice and Ba Katie are giving students an orientation and tour of the medical clinic this week and will begin seeing patients soon. After a few days of greater variability in the schedule we get just a little more structured this week. The week after, all of the Zambian college, secondary, and primary students arrive to Namwianga and begin school, and we'll get into our regular weekly schedule.

As always, thanks for your thoughts and prayer for our group. Our hope is that God will be honored through who we are and what we do as we learn from and make relationships with these people in some way so different than us, and in some ways so much the same.

Grace and peace,

Jeremy Daggett

HIZ 2012 Field Director
 



Wednesday August 29, 2012
Dear Mom & Dad,

     Hi. I was sick on Sunday but not on Saturday so I got to go to Victoria Falls. It was very beautiful and it went on forever. We only saw about half of it because we only saw the Zambian side and not the Zimbabwe side. I included a few pictures of it for you and a baboon with its baby. Baboons were all around the Falls park.

     I was sick though so I missed church on Sunday which was supposedly really cool but I should have some more opportunities to see that. This Sunday we are going to go to a traditional wedding which is exciting.

     I am getting a little stressed with class work and a little homesick. Maybe culture shock is hitting early. I don't know but today I was a little sad. Yesterday was great though and I did a lot at the havens, seeing the toddlers in language class and helping them eat and bathe beofre nap time and then helping wash some of their clothes in the tub with a sweet auntie named Susan who has six children of her own.

     Learning Tonga is very hard for me but most of the people speak English very well. They really like it if you try to speak Tonga though.

     I really miss you and love you a lot. I hope you are doing okay. Sorry I don't answer for a while, it is annoying to get on the internet and usually I want to get to bed as fast as I can but I will try to keep up with you fairly often.

     Oh and did you get the thing from Jeremy about the house phones? We can get calls from you but you would have to pay for it and we would have to set up a time to talk before hand so I would be waiting for your call. Anyway, I love you.

Hope

 mother & baby baboon;               Victoria Falls

 Hope & classmate 

 

 

Happy Wednesday!

August 29, 2012

(from director of the HIZ program)

 

Our first week in Zambia has flown by. It's hard to believe we've just been here one week and thing will continue to get busier when all of the Namwianga students start coming in next week. Everyone is healthy! Of course our bodies will all continue to adjust to being in a different place, but the bug that was passed around didn't stick with anyone for more than a few hours and our medical team (i.e. Janice, Katie, and Louisa) did an incredible job checking on all of our students and making sure everyone was getting what they needed! What a blessing to have such experience and talent dedicating to taking care of the group.

 

We've started getting into more of a routine this week, starting some classes and doing intensive Tonga training. Ba Siaziyu, our language and literature teacher, has been teaching us an hour of Tonga in the morning. Ba Simmafuta has been spending an hour with us each afternoon working on Tonga songs. This group really has a talent for singing and the Zambians have taken notice of their desire to learn a variety of songs. We may not sing or pronounce them perfectly (and maybe never will!) but there's something the Zambians just love about hearing Makuas (white-skinned people) singing in Tonga. It's one small way we can give; we show that we really do care about learning who they are as a people through focusing on their culture and language.

 

One third of the group went through an orientation to the medical clinic on Monday and Tuesday had the chance to spend about 3 hours there observing as Janice, Katie, and Louisa saw patients. I wasn't there so I'll let them tell you more about that. Today and Friday we'll take the next two thirds of the group to the clinic for orientation. We'll eventually make out a schedule where those who are interested in going to the clinic regularly will be able to do that. Others of the group went and spent about three hours at the Havens, still learning how they can help out there. Each member of the group has been assigned a baby or two or three to spend time with and do some therapy with (whatever the baby needs as designated by Meagan Hawley, the Haven Medical Advocate). Usually it's some intentional tummy time, working on sitting up, making sounds; developmental delays that our group can focus on and try to help.

 

We've been amazed at how much power we've had our first week, especially since hearing before we came that Zambia had been going through many planned power outages all month. Well, we got our first taste of "powerlessness" as the electricity went out yesterday for most of the day. It came back on in the early evening and turned out to be a huge blessing for the story I'm about to tell:

 

Three cheers to our medical team! I stayed up late late last night helping Janice, Katie, Louisa, and Meagan get an IV into a tiny baby. It was incredible to see them work together. After about 3 hours, multiple attempts, they got the IV in at about 1:30am. The baby's veins were so small and blood pressure so low that it was near impossible to start the IV, but Ba Janice persevered and finally got it! Today is Janice's birthday; it seemed fitting that the first hour and a half of it she was doing all she could to save this baby's life. Janice is so respected here at Namwianga, and all of us hope we can be as active and committed when we reach her age!

 

This week we continue Tonga and classes learning all we can before Namwianga fills up with students and gets into its regular busy schedule!

 

Grace and peace,

Jeremy