intensity

This week has been off to kind of an interesting start.. I’m a little torn and confused on how I feel about everything. God is moving, for sure, but I’m struggling to stay motivated and energized.

Monday began with a 3-hour tour around Lusaka. We saw the major spots of the city and visited a community school, which was one building with a whopping 3 classrooms for at least 5 grades. Afterwards, we met up with the other buses and headed to camp! So according to the Lord’s sovereign plan for my week, I arrived at camp on Monday afternoon to meet my own group of 11-14 year old girls. It took a little while for them to open up (and they’re still slowly opening up to me), but eventually I could get them to laugh at me and smile at me. I mean, let’s think about it. These kids are coming from the utter slums of a third world country to meet a muzungu (white person) who wants to hang out with them for a week. Kids like this are passed around from one abusive family member to the next, so I’m sure they’re a little apprehensive about meeting some random stranger who’s going to be with them every day for the next five days. I’d be closed off too if I were them.

My point is that these kids try to keep themselves so guarded that when they do actually begin to trust you, it’s like a floodgate is opened. During the week, each American ambassador is supposed to conduct a “blessing time” with each of his or her kids. A blessing time is a one-on-one session in which the American and the Zambian partner talk with one of the kids in the group about their home life, their family, their spiritual position, etc... During the blessing times is when things really start to get intense. We as the ambassadors grow close to the kids when we dance and joke and play with them throughout the day, so when we hear that our kids have never felt joy or don’t think that anyone IN THE WHOLE WORLD loves them, it truly breaks our hearts. Today, I had a blessing time with my littlest girl, Bridget, and the Spirit told me to ask her if she had ever felt joy in her life. She started crying and spoke in Nyanja to my Zambian partner, Notrine, who translated and told me that Bridget has never felt joy because she’s never felt loved. This little girl has lived 11 years without feeling loved. As tears stream down her face, I look into her eyes and say, “Bridget, I love you.” I pulled her into a long hug and lost it. I had to pull it together and tell her that I loved her so much, but God loves her way more than I ever could. After talking to her about the Gospel, she accepted Jesus Christ into her heart and knows that she has a heavenly Father that loves her.

So many of the blessing times are like that one. Working on summer staff kind of separates us from having to deal with such heartbreaking stories of the lives that these kids live; and despite hearing stories like this from other Americans’ groups all summer, these are now MY kids experiencing this, it’s MY girls telling me these things. Hearing these stories in the previous weeks was sad, yes, but it wasn’t personal. It absolutely is now. These girls have grabbed my heart, and it kills me to hear what kind of pain they are going through at such a young age. Granted, this is not my first year having a group, but God always finds a way to break my heart yet again through these kids.

Here’s where I’m torn. This is my fifth week of hard work and little sleep out here, and I’m exhausted. I want to spend as much time with my Dad while he’s here, but I also want to spend time with the FLMI staff because it is my last week out here with them AND I need to be spending more time in the Word than ever because I have a group. However, life as a summer staffer AND an ambassador with a group allows for very little extra time to do any of the above things. I’m physically exhausted, frustrated with my lack of time here, anxious to get home, emotionally wrecked for my girls, and I’m having a hard time being positive about having a group. Yes, I love my group and they are such sweet and funny little girls, but Satan is truly fighting my Spirit and is trying to make this week null and void for me and for the girls. He wants to penetrate my mind with negativity and take away the effectiveness that that Lord can have for His Kingdom and for these girls through me. To be completely honest, it is extremely challenging to keep myself motivated and positive about the rest of my time here and to carry out my calling to this group this week. My prayer is that God will give me the strength and energy and attitude that I need for tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, and that I will live by His Word when it says,

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
Acts 20:24

I know God has given me this task, and I need to go full force with this group of girls. The Gospel is worth a little exhaustion on my part, their lives and their salvation is so much more important than my readiness to go home, for goodness sake. I know I don’t have a choice, there is no other option than to plug and chug and continue on to the best of my ability (and calling on the Lord to fill in the rest) so that these girls can know the love and sacrifice and kingdom of God.

Please be praying for me as I’m finishing out my week with this struggle. Satan is coming at me hard, he is trying to put earthly desires in the way of God’s will, and we just can’t have that at all.

On the plus side, my girls platted (braided) my hair at camp today. Definitely not my look, but I’m loving the picture that Megan got!

Blessings,
Mariah

"out of my element"

Quick Update: Dad is FINALLY here in Zambia! We both will get our Zambian partner assignments tomorrow and have groups during this upcoming week! Please be praying for our week ahead with brand new kiddos!

Looking back on the majority of my previous posts, I’ve realized that I haven’t really shared much about Zambian culture unless the information was necessary to explain the story. Instead of just describing the Zambian way of life, I would like to share some personal anecdotes that speak for themselves.

On Zambian dining:
Upon entering a restaurant, we are seated and given individual menus. The items on the menu look very appealing, especially the chicken and bacon sandwich and mango freezo (which is a smoothie or a milkshake). So when asked what I would like to order, I tell the waitress that I would like a mango freezo and a chicken and bacon sandwich. She stops me mid-sentence and tells me that they are out of bacon. Cool. I order the runner-up to my initial choice of entree without any issues and the waitress proceeds to the rest of the table. Ten minutes after she leaves to put our orders in, she comes back and tells me that they are also out of the mango freezo and I have to pick another, so I pick yet another runner-up and order the white chocolate freezo. Okay good. Another 30 minutes later, we all get our food and drinks and dig in. Well, my white chocolate second choice freezo actually just tastes like a milk freezo. No flavor, kinda gross. So I ask the waitress to put in some chocolate syrup and call it good. TY-PI-CAL.

On the Zambian perception of the Asian culture:
Here in Mulungushi Village, many of the villas are rented out to members of the Bank of China or something like that, so there is a large population of Asians in this little neighborhood of ours. Well, one of our truck drivers, Uncle Ben, has shed some light for us on what Zambians really think of these Asians. I wasn’t there for the actual conversation, but in short, Zambians are scared of Asians because they think that Asians all know karate and can beat up the Zambians. No joke.

On an experience with Zambian cleaning ladies:
Every week we hire a couple cleaning ladies to tidy up and clean the villas that we rent out for our Americans to stay in. When they’re done cleaning all of the other villas, we have them come to the summer staff villa to clean our floors, kitchen, and bathrooms. Well, one morning, I had to be somewhere else for something, and so I left Pamela cleaning in our villa. I come back to see that she is working hard on her hands and knees scrubbing our kitchen floor... with a couple rags and a green loofa. I thought to myself, “hmm that’s kinda weird that she’s using a loofa to clean the floors.. and it’s also kinda funny that it’s about the same color as the one that I use in the shower!” Needless to say, later that night as I’m taking a shower, I reach for my little green loofa and it has mysteriously disappeared! Ironic? Nope.

Other little tidbits:
- Unlike the typical American college sorority girl, all Zambians like their T-shirts TIGHT so they order them a size (or two) too small.
- Zambians tend to mix up their “L’s” and their “R’s” when speaking English (Engrish), so I am known to many as “Auntie Maliah” and my dad is “Uncle Cretus.”
A very small percentage of Zambians wear deodorant.
- By the lack of trash cans in public places, Zambians seemingly support littering and are against proper waste disposal and recycling.
- Zambia is so dusty and dirty during this season that we track in so much dust all around our villa. Literally every inch of our villa has a layer of dust on top of it. As soon as I step out of the shower and my feet hit the ground, I’m already filthy.
-All Zambians have beautiful singing voices. Every day at the end of camp, the Zambians lead a couple songs in a cappella for a time of worship, and every single one of them sounds like an angel.
-Fun word differences: a softy = a soft drink; petrol = gasoline; plastics = plastic bags; snap = photo

Ohhhh Zambia.. you're definitely in a league of your own.

a revelation

Well, I’m writing this post not to tell about what I’ve been up to, but rather to give God the glory about a struggle I’ve been having. Let me start off by giving a little background to this story. First of all, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or talked about it at all yet, but the key verse for this year is Matthew 6:33 which says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Secondly, at Camp LIFE, the American counselors are all given a group of kids to minister to each week. Full-time staff isn’t allowed to have one because of their responsibilities, but summer staff is allowed to have a group (but doesn’t necessarily have to have one). At the beginning of the summer, they designated certain weeks for the summer staffers to have groups if we wanted, and I was assigned to the last week that I would be here (which is this upcoming week). Well, this whole summer, I’ve been debating whether or not I really want a group. I love being behind the scenes of camp and making things run smoothly, and I’m really in my element doing summer staff tasks. Being assigned to have my group on the last week also made me question wanting a group because I wanted to spend the last week here as a full summer staffer, doing summer staff jobs, not being a counselor. My dad is also coming and having a group next week, so I wanted to have that free time to also spend with him and his group. Furthermore, I’m on a Z-pack trying to get over this fever and sinus cold AND we’ve been going, going, going on very little sleep, so by the time my week for camp rolls around, I would absolutely be physically exhausted and probably wouldn’t have the energy to spend on my kids. But on the other hand, I was constantly reminding myself that if I were a counselor, 10 more kids who have never been to Camp LIFE and who have probably never heard about Jesus Christ would get to come and have their lives changed. They would have the chance to receive hope and light in their seemingly hopeless lives full of darkness and pain. I would hear the stories of 10 kids who have no one else to tell their stories to. Because I have to give a final answer to the staff  ASAP, I talked to the other summer staffers about it all last night. Even after talking to them, I was still so lost and confused about what to do.
This morning, I woke up and that decision was at the forefront of my mind. Greer is always telling the kids that to give power to the Word or to prayer, you must speak it out loud. After I brushed my teeth, I said out loud, “Lord, please give me discernment on whether or not you want me to have a group. Please let me carry out your will for this last week.” And I kid you not, immediately, the Lord reminded me of the key verse for this week. Seek first HIS KINGDOM, and then all these things will be added unto you. Oh. My. Gosh. This entire summer, we’ve been telling kids to act on this verse, but I haven’t even been doing it myself. Greer always tells the counselors that this verse isn’t only for the kids, but it’s also for them. Seeking first God’s kingdom means putting my selfish desires out of the way and personally investing in the lives of ten kids for His glory. What it means is that I’m having a group next week. Hands down. The Lord spoke very clearly to me this morning about what He wants me to do next week. Spending my last week with the staff and spending time here with my Dad is nothing compared to giving the Lord victory over Satan’s grasp in these kids’ lives and giving up a week of what I want to do to further God’s kingdom. DUH. After this battle between having a group and not having a group, I’m now so excited to see who God is going to put in my life next week. I know that each and every one of the kids in my group will be given hope in Christ next week. I’m excited to see how God’s going to continue to teach me this verse this week. I don’t know what age kids I’m getting or whether they’re girls or boys, but I’m excited and ready to blindly trust in the Lord once again and to see how He’s going to work in my heart this next week. God is so good and sovereign, and He definitely knows what He’s doing! I am so blessed that He is continuing to teach me so much during my time here in Zambia.

a whirlwind of blessings

Tuesday:
Back to rotation day on Tuesday! I worked the “snaps” station again with Cynthia Knight (the wife of one of the staff members) and we did some work!! Cynthia is a speed demon when it comes to getting things done, so our photo station time flew by super quickly! But the best thing about working one of the two photo stations was that I got to see about half of all of the kids attending Camp LIFE. As one girl’s group of older boys walked up to have their snaps taken, I hear “Mariah! Mariah!” I look over and see one of my dad’s boys from last year, Bright! Last year I had met him in the compound and had found out that way that he was one of my dad’s boys, but I remembered him and he remembered me! So I saw him this year, and two more of my dad’s boys, Moses and Lazarus! So much fun!

 After rotations was over, we had lunch and it was about time for the big session of the day. At this point, the summer staff girls were all debating who would stay and who would go back to the villas to work on donations. Megan and I decided to stay for the afternoon and stay home the next day since Hannah and Kim wanted to go the next morning to be there for when the Freedom Song played. Big session began with two of the songs, and then Greer comes on the mic and says, “okay now we’re going to play the Freedom Song.” Megan and I looked at each other with surprise and excitement, because we were both bummed about having to miss it the next day. The song started playing and it was such a powerful time in that room. That song spurred freedom from these kids and I was able to see the power of prayer and the might of God. We took kids aside and prayed for freedom from bondage for these kids, bondage that was keeping them from truly knowing the Lord. It was an incredible afternoon, and one that I will never forget!

Wednesday:
This day really wasn’t too too eventful, or at least nothing super memorable is jumping out at me. We did make-up snaps for the kids that didn’t get to take theirs the day before, and I got to spend part of the afternoon in the prayer room praying for lots of kids. Prayer is so powerful!

Thursday:
We spend this day in the communities again, and I was at Matero. My boys from 2009 and 2010 are all from Matero, so I was hoping to see them there during the course of the day. However, this particular compound is HUGE, so I didn’t get to run into any of them. Just being in the same area with them was a comforting thought though. Anyway, the amount of kids that came to camp from Matero was only two groups, so it was a much smaller group working in the community together than last week. I was with a married couple that had individual groups, and their kids were so sweet to me. Almost instantaneously, the kids came up to me and held my hand and linked arms with me as we walked through the community. On more than one occasion, the kids asked if they could carry my backpack for me. And things like this haven’t just happened with this specific group of kids, but so many of these orphans and vulnerable children that come to camp are like this. And it blows my mind that these kids who have nothing and who oftentimes don’t even know what real love looks like are still so eager to love on us and cling to us... something they don’t experience very often. They’re chomping at the bit to serve us willingly, even though they are forced and beaten to serve their parents, aunt, uncles, etc... They love to hug and be hugged, hold hands, play with my hair, stroke my skin, play with my arm hair (they don’t have any), and just physically be loved on. Once these kids realize that we’re here to love on them and not to abandon them, the emotional guard that they come with is broken and they become the most affectionate kids in the world. Many of these kids receive more love during the one week they come to camp than they do throughout the rest of the year. Given their circumstances, their capacity to love astounds me. Rambling... sorry!
Anyway, Thursday was a great time to be with these kids serving the community. We picked up trash around a police post and evangelized to drunks (at 11:00 in the morning).

Friday:
Friday is shoe day, and it actually went really well this time! As opposed to last week, we had much less chaos and mess-ups! Thursday night, summer staff had spent hours sorting all of the specific shoe sizes according to the kids’ and the groups they were in. By the time Friday morning rolled around, shoe distribution seemed like a breeze compared to the prior week! We had shoes for just about every kid (the ones that didn’t get them that day would get them sometime the next week) and we were all very prepared... it felt so good! Because we were so organized, we got to see the big session on the hilltop (last Friday, we were too busy working to see it). We went over and saw hundreds of kids sitting on the top of this hill overlooking miles and miles of Zambia. These kids were looking at their homeland in a way that they had never seen it before! As we talked about the kingdom of God, they got to see their nation the way God sees it. It was so so beautiful!
We went to the Tree of Life afterwards (which was further down the hill) and I got to hang out with my favorite kiddos there. Esther came running up, as did baby Gertrude and my two boys from CL 2009, Musole and Wisdom. The Tree of Life always boosts my spirits because of the kids that I get to see. Almost all of these kids were discovered at Camp LIFE and someone heard their story for the first time. All of these kids had stories full of pain, of sickness, of sadness, and of despair. But now, because somebody told their story, they are here at the Tree of Life with big, beautiful smiles, and God has rescued them from the darkness that they were once living in. The American counselors at Camp LIFE are listening to and telling the stories of these orphans and vulnerable children who would otherwise have no one to tell their stories. Camp LIFE is such a place of joy and of hope for these kids. When I remember this, all of the early mornings and late nights, the heavy lifting and the constant running, the stressful situations and many responsibilities all seem like nothing at all, because it’s all truly worth it to know that these kids get the chance to find light and hope in Jesus.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were all about the same as the previous ones, so I won’t make this blog post into a book! Fun fact about Sunday, I bought a Zambian quilt that I’m absolutely in love with! Everything else is really routine and uneventful! So until next time,

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23

Blessings,
Mariah

Camp LIFE from the hilltop!

With Wisdom at the Tree of Life!

so little time, so so SO much to do!

Wellllll I’m going to try to cram the past 6 days into this one post, so again, here are the main highlights of each day!

Thursday:
Thursday was the day in the community! We sent out all of the Americans to meet up with their kids in the compounds and serve the people in the communities. Some people painted, some swept the streets, and some picked up trash on the side of the road (and this is not like in America.. the ground on the sides of the roads are literally covered in trash). Kim and I were the only American staff members at Bauleni, but the Zambian staff there knew exactly what to do, so we really didn’t have much of a job. In the morning, we basically surveyed what each of the groups were doing and walked around and watched everyone. Kim and I approached a group of kids from the community (not with Camp LIFE that week) and they started to teach us some words in Nyanja. One of the boys there had his little sister with him, so I asked if I could hold her. He let me, and I got to hold this precious baby girl for about two hours. She fell asleep in my arms for about an hour during lunchtime. I felt so honored that God would entrust this little baby girl to me for a couple of hours to be able to hold her for Him... I got to be the arms of Christ as I held her and loved on her. After we finished up in the community, all of the Americans headed out to the GO Center (where we have camp Mon-Wed) and met up with all of the other counselors and traveled to the hilltop to see the Legacy Center. (The Legacy Center is kind of like a convention center being built on the same property as the Tree of Life and will serve as the gathering place for future years of Camp LIFE as well as a source of income as it will be rented out by business for use for conferences.) Anyway, we got to see that and see that progress that has been made on that building, at it was super cool to see the work and dreams that Family Legacy has had for this center truly come to fruition!

Friday:
Well Friday was shoe day, which is always super fun... kinda. Basically, shoe day in the past has always been hectic in trying to find the right sizes and the correct amount of shoes for the kids, and Friday was no different. However, this year, we are giving out school uniform shoes instead of just plain old tennis shoes. Many of the kids that come to camp don’t go to school, so giving them these shoes means that the kids are one step closer to getting an education- they aren’t allowed in school without them. Camp was on the hilltop that day, and even though I didn’t get to see much of it because summer staff was slammed with shoe distribution, imagining the kids getting to hear Greer and Pastor Raphael tell them about the Kingdom of God as they overlook miles and miles of their native country Zambia fills me with joy and anticipation! I know God worked miracles and brought freedom and deliverance for so many kids during Week 1- so many new kids that will be next to us in Heaven!

Saturday:
Saturday was an early day; we were out the door by 6:00 saying goodbye to Week 1 Americans and on our way to cleaning the villas before the Week 2 Americans arrived. But since walking to each villa on foot would take too long, Susan let me take the Pajero around Mulungushi with the cleaning people so that we could get the villas done quickly.  Now a Pajero is a very common sporty little SUV out here in Zambia, and it’s built to be driven here in Africa. If you didn’t already know, Africans drive on the right side of the car AND the left side of the street (as if one wasn’t bad enough). However, I would say that I quickly adjusted to this totally opposite way of driving and didn’t have too much of an issue with driving on the wrong side of the road. I’m proud to say that I can cross that off of my bucket list!


Sunday:
Well the highlight for this day is of course Zambian church! Always! But I can add a bit more to that... We woke up for church and went at around 9. Zambian church basically is composed of 45 minutes of singing and (energetic) dancing, and then about 30 minutes of sermon. So that was of course, wonderful to be in Zambian church again! Then we went to the market in which I bought a rug and a purse for myself and looked at a whole lot more. We went to a new place called the NewsCafe, which is apparently South African owned. It was definitely one of the nicest restaurants in Lusaka.. the food was pretty good, the decor inside was fancier than the main competition, and the bathrooms were ridiculous. Let me explain, as soon as I walked into the bathroom, I saw on my left a couch and three mirrors. The three mirrors were facing the three doors on the right side of the room. Behind each of the doors was a personal toilet, sink, mirror, and air hand dryer (which was so powerful that the skin on your hand was smashed down). This South African style bathroom was ironically a breath of fresh air in  good old Zambia!

Monday:
Monday marked the beginning of week 2. We had (almost) an entirely new group of American counselors, a slew of new ideas on procedures, and we were ready to go! At this moment, I honestly can’t really remember anything that stood out to me about this day..

And I know that it is now Friday (I started writing this on Wednesday, I think), but I have literally been writing this blog post for around four days.. we are seriously starving for free time out here! Hours to blog or email are very few and far between. So, I guess I'll just have to keep everyone in suspense about the past few days.. maybe I'll get to post about them next week! Ugghhhh...

Anyway, love and miss you guys! Wish I could see all of your beautiful faces!

Blessings,
Mariah

those freakin' muzungus

Well it’s been a few days since I was last able to give an update on everything, so I’m going to try to remember the highlights of what’s happened since then!

Tree of Life Freedom House Grand Opening:
Saturday was the opening of the Freedom House at the Tree of Life Children’s Village! Such a good day! We started out the day by preparing the villas for the arrival of the Americans by distributing all of the supplies that we had sorted the day before to each villa. We all woke up super early and were headed toward the villas at around 7 am. An hour later, all of the villas had their supplies for the week and the Americans were arriving! Annnnnd I can’t remember what happened after that.

But then eventually we ate lunch and headed out to the Tree of Life for the house opening! We all got there two or so hours before the house was scheduled to open, so everyone was working on staging the house with decorations and homey items! Once we had finished there, the house was adorable and it was time to line up to greet the new kiddos! All of us went down to the road that the bus would drive down and lined it, preparing to greet the Freedom House kids. It wasn’t until about an hour and a half later that the bus actually arrived, but during that time, we all got to spend some sweet moments dancing and singing and playing with the TOL kids. When the bus finally drove up, everyone was clapping and cheering and waving at the new arrivals-- there was such joy in the eyes of the old kids and the new ones! The Freedom House kids got off the bus and the old kids all sang their greeting songs for them. Then, Greer talked to the new kids and explained what was happening for them. The kids were directed toward their new home and they got to tour the God-send of a house that they would get to stay in! I unfortunately didn’t get to see any of the reactions or the looks on their faces because we had to rush to get to the orientation meeting for our Americans, but I’m sure they were overwhelmed with gratitude and joy!

First Day of Camp:
Monday marked the first day of camp! Being here on the Monday of the first week of camp was definitely a new experience for me-- I’ve always been here during the second half of the summer, never the first! Anyway, the staff had been warning us that sometimes, the first day/week is a little rough simply because it takes a little while to get all of the bugs worked out, so I was almost expecting something resembling a train wreck for the first day. However, the first day went really well!! Summer staff girls and John all headed out on Junior (the trailer/trucks that we haul all of our stuff around in) at around 7:30 am with lots of supplies for camp for the whole summer-- snack buckets, brooms, trunks of beads and costumes, etc... We unloaded everything and realized we had still left some trash cans and tables back at the villas, so Hannah, Megan, and I all climbed back on Junior and headed back. We got the stuff and headed back to camp! The rest of the day was wonderful, it felt so so good to be back!

Last night at around 10:30/11 pm the other summer staff girls and I were making our PB&J’s for camp and we got to talking about what would be happening at camp today. Today is the “freedom” day, probably the most powerful day of the week. During the first big session, we sing a song called “The Freedom Song,” and the first two minutes is instrumental. During that first part of the song, each American counselor makes his or her way down their line of kids and holds each one and prays freedom over them. The prayers are for freedom from any chains that are binding the children in darkness and anything that keeps their hearts from knowing Jesus Christ. It is an incredibly powerful day for both the kids and the Americans. Anyway, last night we got to talking about what would be going on today, and we had a really good, long discussion that lasted until 1:30. We all decided to pray for the events today, and we had one of the most incredible prayers together. We all went around in a circle and individually prayed for the freedom day, and it was truly so powerful. The spirit was so present in that prayer! Despite it being so late, during the prayer, I was not tired or distracted at all. But as the fourth girl in the circle was praying, I found my mind wandering and myself being super distracted. I quickly recognized that Satan was trying to take my mind and my focus off of this prayer for freedom for the kids, so I began praying (within the prayer) for an undistracted mind and for God to be victorious in the small battle over my mind during that prayer. This tells me that Satan is present, and He hates what is going on in camp. Praise the Lord! Please continue to pray with me for freedom for the children and that they would come to know Jesus! God is doing some powerful things!!

I apologize that it’s been so long since my last post, but as this first week wraps up, there will probably be less chaos here and more time time update y’all!! Hope all is well!

Blessings,
Mariah

off to a great start!

I’M FINALLY HERE!! We just finished our second day on the ground, so let me try to remember what has happened since we left DFW!

A group of us flew out of DFW on Tuesday at around 6 pm and I got to meet most of the other summer staff girls that I’m living with! The 10-hour flight wasn’t bad at all.. didn’t sleep at all but on the bright side, I got to watch a ton of movies! We arrived in London at around 8 am, i think, and Megan and I made the (best) decision to rent a room at the Sofitel during our layover. (The Sofitel is a beautiful hotel connected to the London Heathrow airport.) Our layover in London was about 10 hours, so we got a good 6 hours of sleep and the chance to shower! After we checked out of the hotel, we went back into the airport, made it through security without a hitch, and waited on our next flight to Zambia. The second 10-hour flight in two days also wasn’t too bad.. I did manage to sleep for about an hour! It was much like the first flight, but I watched different movies and the dinner and breakfast was less appealing to say the least... The absolute highlight of that flight was the incredible African sunrise that greeted us as we were preparing to land. I can honestly say that I have ever seen a more beautiful sunrise in my life! God truly welcomed us to Zambia by showing us His beauty through this sunrise-- every color of the rainbow was represented as they blended together to form the perfect sunrise! What a way to start off this summer!

We landed on Thursday morning at an early 6 am and were out of the airport by 7:15 am or so. Praise the Lord that we all got every piece of luggage that we sent over and that none of it was lost in transit! Such a blessing! As we all loaded the bus to make our way to Mulungushi Villas (our lodging for the summer), we were informed by FLMI staff that summer staff girls would be put to work immediately. We got to the villas shortly after and had a chance to unpack our stuff and get settled in. Megan and I are in one room together, and Kim, Hannah, and Emily are all in another room. Then we all loaded up and went to the orientation meeting for the Zambian Camp LIFE volunteers. It was about two hours of singing and dancing, passing out staff T-shirts, and listening to Greer explain the layout of Camp LIFE and the expectations for the volunteers. After we were done there, we all went over to the Arcades (the shopping center/restaurants/market close to the villas) and ate some lunch. When we got back to the villas, they had us start in on unpacking boxes and sorting uniforms that would be given to the kids at the Tree of Life. After an hour and a half or so of doing that, we went to the main villa and started loading up donation boxes and transferring them back to our villa to organize them before they were also sent out to the Tree of Life. Definitely got some heavy lifting in already! Anyway, after that, we finished up with uniforms and all tried to stay awake until dinner. Our pizza dinner was at Megan’s/The Hughey’s villa and I was definitely struggling to keep my eyes completely open as conversations around me were going on. We finished dinner and came back to the villa around 7 pm, and I was definitely out by 7:30 pm.

A whopping 12 hours later, I woke up, showered, and got ready for day two! Today we started out by heading to the main villa to start labeling supplies that would be sent out to all of the villas for the summer... such as cleaning supplies, storage bins, dish drying racks, etc... This was a huge task as there was a large number of these supplies! Then, Katy pulled me aside and we went to go write down the numbers of each of the villas’ electrical units. Each summer, FLMI rents out certain villas in Mulungushi, and we are responsible for paying the bills for the electricity, so that’s why we had to collect the numbers. We did that and then ate a quick lunch around 1:30 pm. I met back up with summer staff and we all headed out to the Tree of Life to help with the allocation of all of the clothes that we sorted yesterday. We got done with that a few hours later and got to see some of our kiddos there and hang out with them! Finally, we came back to the villas, bought internet, and went to dinner at Mandahill (basically a nicer Arcades). After dinner, we had a summer staff meeting with John and Katy and in which we discussed general expectations and goals for being on summer staff this year. After the meeting, we all had some time to catch up on emails and facebook, and then we talked with Paige until past midnight.. and then we went to bed!

So far it’s been a great first two days-- can’t wait for the Americans to get here tomorrow and camp to start on Monday!!


People mentioned in this blog:
Megan Jarvie- summer staff
Hannah Ellis- summer staff
Kim Schroeder- summer staff
Emily Herring- summer staff
Greer- CEO and founder of Family Legacy Missions Int.
Megan Malnar- staff on FLMI, lives in Zambia full-time, worked summer staff with me last summer
The Hugheys- Clay (father) is staff on FLMI, wife Erin and 4 adorable kids, lives in Zambia full-time
Katy Gibson- staff on FLMI, worked summer staff with me last year
John Tucker- staff on FLMI
Paige Baten-Locke- staff on FLMI, the “mother” of the summer staff girls’ villa