One of the lesser known facts and definite benefits of living in Zambia is definitely the Coke. Zambian Cokes are made with real cane sugar instead of corn syrup, and they come in glass bottles instead of out of a can, bottle, or fountain. People who don’t even drink Coke drink Coke in Zambia. It’s just better here.
The problem is that sometimes it’s hard to find Cokes in town. There have even been months during our stay here that we have experienced a major Coke shortage. (Gasp! Boo! Hiss!) Those times have been dark and discouraging, but we’ve pulled out okay. Just making sacrifices for the Kingdom ;)
The way you get hold of the Cokes is to buy a crate with 24 glass bottles inside. You pay for the crate and the soft drinks that are inside, and then you take all of it home. When you’ve finished the drinks and replaced the glass bottles, you take the crate back to town and exchange it for a filled one from one of several vendors in Livingstone. The crates themselves cost about $10, but the refill on an exchanged crate is only K40,000, or about 40 cents a Coke. You can get other Coke products if the vendor offers them, the most common being Sprite or Fanta.
Now, you would be showing your lack of experience in any third world country if you thought that you could just go to the same place that you buy your bread and milk to stock up on Cokes. No ma’am. We in Zambia have separate buildings where we sell Cokes. Separate Coke warehouses, if you will. These warehouses are usually delicately placed in a dark, narrow alley where the flatbed Coke truck piled precariously high with clanging and swishing bottles is parked. Or, even better, they are placed right smack dab in the middle of a busy street where nobody with any sense would park if they valued their paint job (And we definitely don’t take the paint jobs too seriously, so this is not too big of a problem.)
Today (Friday), I had the pleasure of refilling 3 cases of Coke for a function that we are having here at the base this weekend. The Livingstone Coke shortage is looking to be in action this month, and all of the vendors are quickly running out of stock. In desperation, I went to the place with the longest queue (line): Standard Sales.
Once inside Standard Sales, I had to quickly evaluate something: Is this worth my time? Normally, the answer to that question would be: Absolutely not. The answer would especially be no if I had reminded myself that I am actually not really drinking Cokes at the moment due to the whole “I’m-pregnant-and-trying-not-to-drink-caffeine” thing. (I really am trying, people…) However, I knew that the benefactors of these Cokes were to be our Zambian staff. We’re holding a staff picnic and Appreciation Day on Sunday and there will be Cokes all ‘round. So, I felt pretty selfish walking out just because of a long line. So the saga continued… (Are you tired of it yet? I am.)
I waited in a pile of people and pushed toward the counter to gain the attention of a man who was appropriately titled, “The Man in Charge.” He was begging for people to be patient with him, they were ignoring his pleas, and he was obviously becoming very overwhelmed with the thought of continuing to be the Man in Charge. I waited and pushed, pushed and waited, for about 20 minutes before getting to place my order: “TWO COKES AND ONE SPRITE!” I yelled over the din. He wrote it down, slowly. “What’s the name? “ He asks. Oh geez. Here we go. “JESSI.” I yell. “Justine?” He asks. “YES!” I immediately affirmed. Whatever. I’ll be whoever you want me to be. Just get me some Cokes already.
I pushed my way back out of the pile of people and into another line. Oh, you thought that was it, didn’t you? No ways you get Cokes that easily, my friend. I waited in the payment line for a few minutes, receipt and money in hand. I paid the lady behind the glassed in counter (we’re not jokin’ around with the security at the Coke warehouse.) She leisurely wrote down my receipt number and my payment and stamped the receipt, directing me to a third line. I waited in the third line, was recorded and stamped by the man behind the desk, and seriously considered pulling out my hair. I then waited for the Man in Charge to recognize that I had a receipt in my hand. When he did notice me, my receipt was stacked with the rest of the orders being filled. I waited for a few more minutes as cases of Coke, Sprite, and beer flew past my feet on the way to their owners. (Don’t be confused about the beers. Even though Cokes are delicious and popular in Zambia, a place with this much of a crowd is a full-on drinks distributor.) Finally, the Man in Charge yelled out, “JUSTINE!” That’s me! I rushed to get my order. I quickly realized that I couldn’t carry 3 full cases. I called for my 2 friends. We then rushed out of that place as fast as possible. End of story.
I don’t know how long the whole thing took, but I do know that my friends that were with me actually had license plates made for their vehicle in the time that I was in the Standard Sales. Oh my.
Get this. I’m not even drinking an icy cold Sprite right now because all of the cases got unloaded at the main center and I chose to write this post instead of dragging myself back to the main center to get one. This has been therapeutic though. Maybe I can pretend like it was worth it, just for the story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happy Saturday! We’ve got a birthday party today and a cookout afterwards. We’re headed out into Nyawa for a Women’s Conference on Monday and will stay through Wednesday. After that we’ll greet a team who will be here for the next month doing a building project. And when they go home…so do we! We’ll see you so soon it’s like we’re just here on vacation! HA!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
There's A Good Reason For This!
Okay, I can’t take it anymore.
We’ve been trying to wait.
Okay, we haven’t been trying that hard.
There may still be 3 or 4 people on the planet who don’t know.
And you may be one of them.
We're havin' a baabbbyyyyy!
I was waiting to blog about it until I was 12 weeks (Or, out of the first trimester for those who aren't counting their life in weeks like obsessive pregnant women.)
However, at my first ultrasound today we found out I am actually 13 weeks along, which qualifies for legal blog publishing...I believe.
YAYYYY!
Jake and I have been hoping and waiting for a baby for a while now and are so excited to give Sunda a little brother or sister. Obviously, the details of being pregnant and having a baby are a bit more complicated when you live in a 3rd world country. So, we’ve been spending a lot of time reading, researching, praying, and considering our options.
We will be traveling home in September to do our annual furlough and support raising. It will be a shorter trip this time because we have to get back on that long flight before I get too big to take it!
We have decided to have the baby in South Africa. A beautiful clinic and midwife are already in the works.
We’re also SO excited about the fact that both of our families have decided to travel to Zambia to visit lil’ baby Schwertzy soon after he/she is born. My mom is coming very soon after the baby comes, and Jake’s family is coming in March. (I’m due at the end of January.) We knew there’d have to be something drastic to get them here, and it looks like we’re hit the jackpot on this one!
Like I said, I got my first ultrasound today and it was such a miracle to watch this little BABY moving and kicking and somersaulting around. The tech said, “Can you FEEL that?” I said, “No!” She said, “Don’t worry, you will…very soon.”
Sunda loves the idea that there is a baby in mommy's tummy and will occasionally ask: "Mama, that baby come out yet?" Not yet, Sunda...but are you in for a surprise when it does!"
I have felt pretty strong during this first part, and would humbly admit that it has definitely been an "easy" pregnancy so far. I'm grateful for that, although I'm wondering if I should start taking better advantage of the best excuse there is to have an afternoon nap.
Goodnight for now, friends. Thanks for being so patient about such a long wait.
(I mean really, WHAT was I going to talk about if I couldn't tell you I was preggers?)
We’ve been trying to wait.
Okay, we haven’t been trying that hard.
There may still be 3 or 4 people on the planet who don’t know.
And you may be one of them.
We're havin' a baabbbyyyyy!
I was waiting to blog about it until I was 12 weeks (Or, out of the first trimester for those who aren't counting their life in weeks like obsessive pregnant women.)
However, at my first ultrasound today we found out I am actually 13 weeks along, which qualifies for legal blog publishing...I believe.
YAYYYY!
Jake and I have been hoping and waiting for a baby for a while now and are so excited to give Sunda a little brother or sister. Obviously, the details of being pregnant and having a baby are a bit more complicated when you live in a 3rd world country. So, we’ve been spending a lot of time reading, researching, praying, and considering our options.
We will be traveling home in September to do our annual furlough and support raising. It will be a shorter trip this time because we have to get back on that long flight before I get too big to take it!
We have decided to have the baby in South Africa. A beautiful clinic and midwife are already in the works.
We’re also SO excited about the fact that both of our families have decided to travel to Zambia to visit lil’ baby Schwertzy soon after he/she is born. My mom is coming very soon after the baby comes, and Jake’s family is coming in March. (I’m due at the end of January.) We knew there’d have to be something drastic to get them here, and it looks like we’re hit the jackpot on this one!
Like I said, I got my first ultrasound today and it was such a miracle to watch this little BABY moving and kicking and somersaulting around. The tech said, “Can you FEEL that?” I said, “No!” She said, “Don’t worry, you will…very soon.”
Sunda loves the idea that there is a baby in mommy's tummy and will occasionally ask: "Mama, that baby come out yet?" Not yet, Sunda...but are you in for a surprise when it does!"
I have felt pretty strong during this first part, and would humbly admit that it has definitely been an "easy" pregnancy so far. I'm grateful for that, although I'm wondering if I should start taking better advantage of the best excuse there is to have an afternoon nap.
Goodnight for now, friends. Thanks for being so patient about such a long wait.
(I mean really, WHAT was I going to talk about if I couldn't tell you I was preggers?)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Not MIA...
...just contemplating LIFE
This title has a double meaning because of course I’ve been contemplating Life, as in the life I live. (Or rather, I’ve just been trying to keep up with it.) But, I’m also working mainly with the LIFE Project right now (LIFE stands for Living In Family Environments). We always joke that we have so many acronyms in this ministry that we might as well be the military. Let me just give you a few: We got our AMs working over the CLLs, who manage the LCFs and the LCAs. Clear as mud. Right?
On to similarly uninteresting and just as menial things:
I have to make a confession. Sometimes I really struggle with the things that I’m not. It’s like I have this picture in my head of everything that a good woman or a good mother does. And there are so many of those things that I can’t even begin to comprehend doing. For example:
I’m not a gardener. I have never had any use for planting flowers or growing things. When I was a kid, we used to plant tomato plants and flowers and things every spring. So, I know how to do it. My mom loves that stuff. I’ve never had any use for it. I mean, I appreciate it. I love having a garden. I love fresh veggies and lovely flowers. I just can never seem to get the motivation to learn the names of plants and actually plant any in my places of residence.
I’m not a sewer. Again, my mom is a brilliant seamstress. I never learned. I think I burned up a sewing machine or two in home ec class. I mean, I can sew on a button or fix a seam. But, when it comes to sewing machines, I’m basically worthless.
I’m not an athlete. Sure, I occasionally like to do yoga and tai-bo and such. I may even go for a (painfully slow) run every once in awhile. But I’m not the athlete that my dad and two brothers are. Nope. Not at all. I think I sometimes surprise people when it turns out I am actually slightly more athletically capable than they expected me to be. This is probably because I have grown up around athletes my whole life and then married one. I pretty much know all the rules and theory and may have actually learned a few things by osmosis. But, I hate being hurt and I hate knocking into people. This pretty much rules out every sport I’ve ever played.
I’m not a shopper. Lord help me, I don’t like to shop. Not for clothes. Not for home décor. Not for electronic equipment. Rarely even for Christmas presents. However, I love shopping for food. Let me loose in a Whole Foods or a Farmer’s Market and watch me go. Everything else, I can do without.
I’m not a scrapbooker. My best friend, Jenn, tried to get me into scrapbooking while we were home over the holidays. She’s so diligent and encouraging that I was almost converted, just so that I could spend more time with her. But that’s my only motivation. Time with my best friend. Left to my own devices, my children will have their childhoods chronicled in approximately 100 pictures from birth until graduation. Probably 85 of those pictures will be random artistic shots of obscure moments and forgotten memories. Only 15 will be from events that actually needed to be documented. I still only have about 2 of my wedding pictures printed and framed. ‘Nuff said.
I’m not a motorcycle rider. This has come up recently because Jake rides his motorbike a lot and it would be nice if I had the guts to learn and go with him. He tried to teach me last year. I almost ran into the side of the building. Now, he’s glad that I don’t want to learn because he’d rather me be in one piece. (Somewhere, my dad is reading this and thinking the same thing.) Anyway, riding a motorcycle kind of just increases that possibility of getting hurt and knocking into stuff. Two things I don’t like to do.
So anyway, I’m not a lot of things. Not a gardener, or sewer, or athlete, or shopper, or scrapbooker. These are things that people DO. For FUN. Why don’t I really enjoy any of them? I mean, okay, if you invite me to go shopping with you, I’ll probably go. But because it’s with you. And because there’s a chance that we may run into a Barnes and Noble and a coffee shop.
For some reason, I really struggle when I’m not everything. Do you do that too? Does it bother you when you can’t say that you fall into a group of people who seem to have it together enough to plant a garden, crochet a scarf, run a 5K, find a great deal, and document it all in a beautifully scalloped edge scrapbook? It bothers me. I know, right. Get over it.
So, as I’m hitting my “mid-twenties” (GASP!) I’m realizing that I need to just be okay with who I am and what I like to do. To actually be grateful for who God made me to be and to “boast in my weaknesses.” And stop worrying about who I’m not and trying to make myself like things just because other people like them. Here’s what I do like:
I love to make music. Any kind of music. I like to make music with Sunda. I like to make music in Zambian church. I like to sing to Jesus alone in the car. I love to stand in a 200 person choir and sing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
I love to teach. Anything. And not just formally. Don’t know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich? It is the delight of my heart to break it down into manageable steps for you. I know. I’m a complete nerd. I’m especially great at butting in to teach things where it’s completely unnecessary for me to teach them. People can learn things on their own. In fact, people were doing it for generations before I was even born. I’m getting better at keeping my mouth shut.
I love to read. The Bible. Fiction. History books. Children’s books. Ridiculous magazines. The back of shampoo bottles. Encyclopedias. It’s ridiculous. Reading is like a drug for me. When I settle down and really start reading, I feel this amazing sense of calm come over me. My absolute favorite thing to do is to be near anyone I love and read a book. In one sitting. (They don’t have to be reading a book for this to work, as Jacob will tell you. He often watches soccer, rugby, or 24 as I read. I count it as quality time. I don’t know if it really does count.) I love to read so much that when people say, “Yeah, I’m not a big book person.” I honestly think, “Really? Then what do you do to relax?” Well, Jessi…probably any one of the above activities that you are absolutely unskilled in.
I love to talk. A big surprise to most of you, right? Hahaha. I’ve been kind of dreading everyone coming back to the base and it getting really busy here. Not because I don’t like the people being around, but rather because I just get so distracted by so many people to talk to. I find myself getting less done. Getting Sunda in bed later. Now, if I could only figure out how to talk and read at the same time…oh wait…I think that’s why I also like to write.
Thanks for reading my nonsense (if anyone out there still does, being that I tend to disappear for months at a time.)
This title has a double meaning because of course I’ve been contemplating Life, as in the life I live. (Or rather, I’ve just been trying to keep up with it.) But, I’m also working mainly with the LIFE Project right now (LIFE stands for Living In Family Environments). We always joke that we have so many acronyms in this ministry that we might as well be the military. Let me just give you a few: We got our AMs working over the CLLs, who manage the LCFs and the LCAs. Clear as mud. Right?
On to similarly uninteresting and just as menial things:
I have to make a confession. Sometimes I really struggle with the things that I’m not. It’s like I have this picture in my head of everything that a good woman or a good mother does. And there are so many of those things that I can’t even begin to comprehend doing. For example:
I’m not a gardener. I have never had any use for planting flowers or growing things. When I was a kid, we used to plant tomato plants and flowers and things every spring. So, I know how to do it. My mom loves that stuff. I’ve never had any use for it. I mean, I appreciate it. I love having a garden. I love fresh veggies and lovely flowers. I just can never seem to get the motivation to learn the names of plants and actually plant any in my places of residence.
I’m not a sewer. Again, my mom is a brilliant seamstress. I never learned. I think I burned up a sewing machine or two in home ec class. I mean, I can sew on a button or fix a seam. But, when it comes to sewing machines, I’m basically worthless.
I’m not an athlete. Sure, I occasionally like to do yoga and tai-bo and such. I may even go for a (painfully slow) run every once in awhile. But I’m not the athlete that my dad and two brothers are. Nope. Not at all. I think I sometimes surprise people when it turns out I am actually slightly more athletically capable than they expected me to be. This is probably because I have grown up around athletes my whole life and then married one. I pretty much know all the rules and theory and may have actually learned a few things by osmosis. But, I hate being hurt and I hate knocking into people. This pretty much rules out every sport I’ve ever played.
I’m not a shopper. Lord help me, I don’t like to shop. Not for clothes. Not for home décor. Not for electronic equipment. Rarely even for Christmas presents. However, I love shopping for food. Let me loose in a Whole Foods or a Farmer’s Market and watch me go. Everything else, I can do without.
I’m not a scrapbooker. My best friend, Jenn, tried to get me into scrapbooking while we were home over the holidays. She’s so diligent and encouraging that I was almost converted, just so that I could spend more time with her. But that’s my only motivation. Time with my best friend. Left to my own devices, my children will have their childhoods chronicled in approximately 100 pictures from birth until graduation. Probably 85 of those pictures will be random artistic shots of obscure moments and forgotten memories. Only 15 will be from events that actually needed to be documented. I still only have about 2 of my wedding pictures printed and framed. ‘Nuff said.
I’m not a motorcycle rider. This has come up recently because Jake rides his motorbike a lot and it would be nice if I had the guts to learn and go with him. He tried to teach me last year. I almost ran into the side of the building. Now, he’s glad that I don’t want to learn because he’d rather me be in one piece. (Somewhere, my dad is reading this and thinking the same thing.) Anyway, riding a motorcycle kind of just increases that possibility of getting hurt and knocking into stuff. Two things I don’t like to do.
So anyway, I’m not a lot of things. Not a gardener, or sewer, or athlete, or shopper, or scrapbooker. These are things that people DO. For FUN. Why don’t I really enjoy any of them? I mean, okay, if you invite me to go shopping with you, I’ll probably go. But because it’s with you. And because there’s a chance that we may run into a Barnes and Noble and a coffee shop.
For some reason, I really struggle when I’m not everything. Do you do that too? Does it bother you when you can’t say that you fall into a group of people who seem to have it together enough to plant a garden, crochet a scarf, run a 5K, find a great deal, and document it all in a beautifully scalloped edge scrapbook? It bothers me. I know, right. Get over it.
So, as I’m hitting my “mid-twenties” (GASP!) I’m realizing that I need to just be okay with who I am and what I like to do. To actually be grateful for who God made me to be and to “boast in my weaknesses.” And stop worrying about who I’m not and trying to make myself like things just because other people like them. Here’s what I do like:
I love to make music. Any kind of music. I like to make music with Sunda. I like to make music in Zambian church. I like to sing to Jesus alone in the car. I love to stand in a 200 person choir and sing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
I love to teach. Anything. And not just formally. Don’t know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich? It is the delight of my heart to break it down into manageable steps for you. I know. I’m a complete nerd. I’m especially great at butting in to teach things where it’s completely unnecessary for me to teach them. People can learn things on their own. In fact, people were doing it for generations before I was even born. I’m getting better at keeping my mouth shut.
I love to read. The Bible. Fiction. History books. Children’s books. Ridiculous magazines. The back of shampoo bottles. Encyclopedias. It’s ridiculous. Reading is like a drug for me. When I settle down and really start reading, I feel this amazing sense of calm come over me. My absolute favorite thing to do is to be near anyone I love and read a book. In one sitting. (They don’t have to be reading a book for this to work, as Jacob will tell you. He often watches soccer, rugby, or 24 as I read. I count it as quality time. I don’t know if it really does count.) I love to read so much that when people say, “Yeah, I’m not a big book person.” I honestly think, “Really? Then what do you do to relax?” Well, Jessi…probably any one of the above activities that you are absolutely unskilled in.
I love to talk. A big surprise to most of you, right? Hahaha. I’ve been kind of dreading everyone coming back to the base and it getting really busy here. Not because I don’t like the people being around, but rather because I just get so distracted by so many people to talk to. I find myself getting less done. Getting Sunda in bed later. Now, if I could only figure out how to talk and read at the same time…oh wait…I think that’s why I also like to write.
Thanks for reading my nonsense (if anyone out there still does, being that I tend to disappear for months at a time.)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Out of the tent...into a House!
This is basically a post so people can see some pics of our house and Sunda jumping on her new trampoline!
Enjoy...
Our Home!
Sunda's Room! Small, but perfect...
Bathroom
Enjoy...
Our Home!
Sunda's Room! Small, but perfect...
Bathroom
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A Novel of Life as of Recent
Wow… It has been entirely too long since my last blog entry.
So much has happened in the past few weeks that I hope I can recount the events in proper fashion.
I’ll take us back to over two weeks ago when Jessi, Sunda and I loaded up the Toyota Landcruiser (a fellow missionary friend’s vehicle) and started off for Nyawa for the weekend. It had been raining steadily for several days prior so we knew that the roads were going to be rough. The trip takes me about 2 hours 30 minutes on the dirt bike from our base so we allotted 5 hours in the vehicle because of how slow you have to take the choppy roads.
Our estimate was nearly correct.
There were a few spots on the way there that we had to put into practice the “rocking” technique (you put the truck in first then reverse and continue that until you rock yourself out of the muddy area). Other than that, we had an enjoyable trip to Nyawa. Jessi managed to get a few great shots of the truck in its prime.
I played with this pic and added the text...thought it summed up our commitment to the neglected. I had a good time driving!
We had an excellent weekend of ministry. Jessi and I both spent some time teaching in the church during various times over the weekend. Of course, Sunda kept everyone entertained when we weren’t conducting our meetings. Just before we had sat down for a lunch we noticed that Sunda was leading a bunch of kids into the church building. We followed the crowd to find that she was organizing her own church service. “Ok, you sit down…I’m going to preach,” she told the kids who were all older than her. She went on to tell them “Jesus loves you” and she sang them a few songs to which they all stared in awe… It was priceless.
Above is a pic of Jessi and Sunda carrying water after pumping it out of the borehole.
We tried to get out into one of the more remote areas for an evening service and got stuck for over an hour in thick mud. After getting the truck out of that jam, we decided to turn back. I had some of the guys in a nearby village help me by laying branches over the muddy area so we could ride over it without getting stuck again. The only problem was that I didn’t notice the man who threw part of a tree trunk in the mud instead of a branch…never a good thing. So, naturally, when I sped over the branched area I hit the stump which shot into the side of my tire and whoosh…goodbye, tire.
It was a sidewall puncture so there was no use in patching it. We put the spare on and made it the rest of the way back to our Nyawa base. The next morning we had a great Sunday service where several people committed their lives to Christ for the first time. We said our goodbyes and left in order to get home before nightfall.
The road was basically the same as when we had arrived so we remembered which areas to maneuver around and managed to stay un-stuck for the majority of the trip back.
We were just one kilometer away from getting onto the main road and one large mud puddle away from being finished with “mud bogging” when disaster struck. A large water spot that we had easily plowed through on the way to Nyawa stopped us dead in our tracks and left the bed of the truck filling with water. We had water coming into the driver side door and no amount of rocking helped. We were truly stuck.
Several villagers came within the first 20 minutes, but no amount of pushing helped. We finally had to restort to calling the Overland base and having Arthur (the owner of the truck) and Jeff (another missionary with a Land Rover) come and pull us out of the hole.
We came to find out that the night before, two large coal trucks got stuck in the same spot and made the hole extremely deep, which is why we made it through no problem the day before and got stuck this day.
Arthur and Jeff arrived and after using a Hi-Lift jack to prop up the four corners of the truck, we put lots of rocks and rubber mats under the wheels and then pulled the truck out of the ditch with the help of the Land Rover and a chain. All of this took nearly 5 hours.
Needless to say, we were all ready for a good night sleep when we arrived at the base past midnight.
The next "blog-able" event happened just the next day. I was asked to rush into town in order to pick up a fan belt for one of our trucks because it was broke down in a nearby village and the shops were about to close for the day (you don't want to leave your trucks anywhere overnight because of theft). I threw my helmet on and made way for town. At one of the tougher spots, I geared down to 2nd and let the dirt bike crawl down some large rocks that lead to a small stream. As I was crawling over the rocks, a wingless wasp (we know them in the states as cow ants) crawled onto my hand and stung me...OUCH! I instinctively threw my hand off of the handlebars and at the same time came off of a large rock. The handlebars shot to the right and I went hurtling over the bike. A few rolls and umphs later I came to a stop and did a quick inventory. I had busted my hand open and my arm was scraped up, but there were no major problems. I jerked up the bike (now quite frustrated) and made it the rest of the way into town in time to pick up our spare and get our vehicle out of the village.
The next day I jumped on my dirt bike and left for Nyawa again to continue my Tuesday teachings that have been occuring over the last month (and will be occuring for the next several months). The trip took just about 2 and a half hours (mostly off-road), but I didn't get hung up in the mud like the truck did (oh, the joy of being able to use the footpaths). We had a great time of teaching and then arranged to have an evening meal in one of the nearby villages. The people were so excited to have me because I was the first white person to share a meal with them in their village. They had been preparing some meat for me over the last few days (they leave it out to dry for a few days, boil it and then serve it like jerky). The only problem is that they must not have boiled it long enough because I woke up very early in the bush the next morning feeling very, very sick. It is not fun to be sick out in the bush.
After realizing that this was not going away any time soon, I chose to leave earlier than planned that morning and I started off on the long journey back to the base on the bike. That was a long bike ride! I finally got the mess out of my system a week later.
After that crazy week, we decided to take a relaxing weekend with our friends, the Combrink's. It was a wonderful weekend. We kicked back, enjoyed the company of our friends, and Sunda enjoyed her best friends Michael and Kent. She is starting to get brave in the pool these days...
The following week I made my weekly trip to Nyawa and was excited to see that it hadn't rained the past week so the large, muddy areas were finally drying. We had an excellent time of ministry and teaching, but as the meeting ended the storm clouds rolled in. We quickly visited a few villages, prayed for the sick and I looked at their water situations. Here is a very typical situation for the Nyawa chiefdom.
This is what the people of two villages drink out of (along with their cattle and any other animal that wants to). It is full of disease. They need a borehole.
This particular village was so excited that I was coming, they literally built a shelter for me to sit under as they corporately denounced Satan and agreed to give their lives to Jesus Christ. Can you imagine 20 families dancing as you arrive for the first time at a village and seeing all of them standing together and publicly denouncing the devil and offering their lives to Christ. It was amazing. We shared a meal together (no meat this time!), I preached to them about God's great love and desire for wholehearted followers, and we headed back to Pastor Sweyn's house.
I decided that I was not going to spend the night and instead I left at about 7 pm to try and beat the coming storm. That decision turned into one of the longest nights of my life! The ride in the dark didn't bother me because I had done that before, but it was a bit tougher on the bush roads at night. After about 15 km's into the trip, I noticed that my front wheel was a bit flat so I stopped the bike and used a hand pump with a CO2 cartridge to bring the pressure up. I started off again and made it to Zimba, where the road gradually gets better until you hit Lusaka Rd. (the main paved road). There is another 15 km's of dirt road before you hit the paved road, but it is much smoother and easy to ride on. I was about half way on that dirt road when my bike tire began to feel strange. I pulled over to find that it was completely flat. A quick inspection of the tire showed that a large nail had found my wheel and penetrated through both sides of the tube. I pulled all of my patch kit and tools out from my tool bag that I carry and went to work at pulling the tire off of the room (a job that is not easy or fun at 10pm with little light and no assistance). Using my kick stand, I propped the bike and pulled the tube out. It was a badly damaged, but I managed to patch the holes with three patches. Next, I went to fill the tube with air to see if the patches were working and the valve came completely off of the tube. Now I was in big trouble. When your valve tears off, you need to just pitch the tube because there is no use. My only problem was that I had no other options. So I forced the valve back in the tube, opened up a nut at the bottom of the valve and I forced the rubber between the base of the valve and the nut. I tightened everything, laid hands on the tube and prayed for God to seal everything. Next I put air in the tube and to my astonishment, the tube grew large...it was holding air! I worked the tube back into the tire and fit the tire back onto the rim. I was good to go.
I made it to Livingstone at 1 am and stopped to get a drink and some food at the 24 hour diesel station (this is a new 24 hour service...hallelujah!) I arrived at the base past 2am and collapsed on my bed...I couldn't believe I had made it back.
The next day I woke up late and worked on the bike all day. We were planning on leaving at 3am the next morning to drive to Zambia's capitol, Lusaka, where I was going to purchase a trampoline for Sunda. We made that trip without any issues and Sunda has not stopped bouncing since!
Phew, I'm out of breath just typing this thing. I know it isn't told as wonderfully as my wife can tell a story, but it does give you a good picture into what life is literally like around the clock here in Zambia as sector managers.
I'll work on getting you all a pic of Sunda bouncing on the trampoline.
Love you guys...
jake
So much has happened in the past few weeks that I hope I can recount the events in proper fashion.
I’ll take us back to over two weeks ago when Jessi, Sunda and I loaded up the Toyota Landcruiser (a fellow missionary friend’s vehicle) and started off for Nyawa for the weekend. It had been raining steadily for several days prior so we knew that the roads were going to be rough. The trip takes me about 2 hours 30 minutes on the dirt bike from our base so we allotted 5 hours in the vehicle because of how slow you have to take the choppy roads.
Our estimate was nearly correct.
There were a few spots on the way there that we had to put into practice the “rocking” technique (you put the truck in first then reverse and continue that until you rock yourself out of the muddy area). Other than that, we had an enjoyable trip to Nyawa. Jessi managed to get a few great shots of the truck in its prime.
I played with this pic and added the text...thought it summed up our commitment to the neglected. I had a good time driving!
We had an excellent weekend of ministry. Jessi and I both spent some time teaching in the church during various times over the weekend. Of course, Sunda kept everyone entertained when we weren’t conducting our meetings. Just before we had sat down for a lunch we noticed that Sunda was leading a bunch of kids into the church building. We followed the crowd to find that she was organizing her own church service. “Ok, you sit down…I’m going to preach,” she told the kids who were all older than her. She went on to tell them “Jesus loves you” and she sang them a few songs to which they all stared in awe… It was priceless.
Above is a pic of Jessi and Sunda carrying water after pumping it out of the borehole.
We tried to get out into one of the more remote areas for an evening service and got stuck for over an hour in thick mud. After getting the truck out of that jam, we decided to turn back. I had some of the guys in a nearby village help me by laying branches over the muddy area so we could ride over it without getting stuck again. The only problem was that I didn’t notice the man who threw part of a tree trunk in the mud instead of a branch…never a good thing. So, naturally, when I sped over the branched area I hit the stump which shot into the side of my tire and whoosh…goodbye, tire.
It was a sidewall puncture so there was no use in patching it. We put the spare on and made it the rest of the way back to our Nyawa base. The next morning we had a great Sunday service where several people committed their lives to Christ for the first time. We said our goodbyes and left in order to get home before nightfall.
The road was basically the same as when we had arrived so we remembered which areas to maneuver around and managed to stay un-stuck for the majority of the trip back.
We were just one kilometer away from getting onto the main road and one large mud puddle away from being finished with “mud bogging” when disaster struck. A large water spot that we had easily plowed through on the way to Nyawa stopped us dead in our tracks and left the bed of the truck filling with water. We had water coming into the driver side door and no amount of rocking helped. We were truly stuck.
Several villagers came within the first 20 minutes, but no amount of pushing helped. We finally had to restort to calling the Overland base and having Arthur (the owner of the truck) and Jeff (another missionary with a Land Rover) come and pull us out of the hole.
We came to find out that the night before, two large coal trucks got stuck in the same spot and made the hole extremely deep, which is why we made it through no problem the day before and got stuck this day.
Arthur and Jeff arrived and after using a Hi-Lift jack to prop up the four corners of the truck, we put lots of rocks and rubber mats under the wheels and then pulled the truck out of the ditch with the help of the Land Rover and a chain. All of this took nearly 5 hours.
Needless to say, we were all ready for a good night sleep when we arrived at the base past midnight.
The next "blog-able" event happened just the next day. I was asked to rush into town in order to pick up a fan belt for one of our trucks because it was broke down in a nearby village and the shops were about to close for the day (you don't want to leave your trucks anywhere overnight because of theft). I threw my helmet on and made way for town. At one of the tougher spots, I geared down to 2nd and let the dirt bike crawl down some large rocks that lead to a small stream. As I was crawling over the rocks, a wingless wasp (we know them in the states as cow ants) crawled onto my hand and stung me...OUCH! I instinctively threw my hand off of the handlebars and at the same time came off of a large rock. The handlebars shot to the right and I went hurtling over the bike. A few rolls and umphs later I came to a stop and did a quick inventory. I had busted my hand open and my arm was scraped up, but there were no major problems. I jerked up the bike (now quite frustrated) and made it the rest of the way into town in time to pick up our spare and get our vehicle out of the village.
The next day I jumped on my dirt bike and left for Nyawa again to continue my Tuesday teachings that have been occuring over the last month (and will be occuring for the next several months). The trip took just about 2 and a half hours (mostly off-road), but I didn't get hung up in the mud like the truck did (oh, the joy of being able to use the footpaths). We had a great time of teaching and then arranged to have an evening meal in one of the nearby villages. The people were so excited to have me because I was the first white person to share a meal with them in their village. They had been preparing some meat for me over the last few days (they leave it out to dry for a few days, boil it and then serve it like jerky). The only problem is that they must not have boiled it long enough because I woke up very early in the bush the next morning feeling very, very sick. It is not fun to be sick out in the bush.
After realizing that this was not going away any time soon, I chose to leave earlier than planned that morning and I started off on the long journey back to the base on the bike. That was a long bike ride! I finally got the mess out of my system a week later.
After that crazy week, we decided to take a relaxing weekend with our friends, the Combrink's. It was a wonderful weekend. We kicked back, enjoyed the company of our friends, and Sunda enjoyed her best friends Michael and Kent. She is starting to get brave in the pool these days...
The following week I made my weekly trip to Nyawa and was excited to see that it hadn't rained the past week so the large, muddy areas were finally drying. We had an excellent time of ministry and teaching, but as the meeting ended the storm clouds rolled in. We quickly visited a few villages, prayed for the sick and I looked at their water situations. Here is a very typical situation for the Nyawa chiefdom.
This is what the people of two villages drink out of (along with their cattle and any other animal that wants to). It is full of disease. They need a borehole.
This particular village was so excited that I was coming, they literally built a shelter for me to sit under as they corporately denounced Satan and agreed to give their lives to Jesus Christ. Can you imagine 20 families dancing as you arrive for the first time at a village and seeing all of them standing together and publicly denouncing the devil and offering their lives to Christ. It was amazing. We shared a meal together (no meat this time!), I preached to them about God's great love and desire for wholehearted followers, and we headed back to Pastor Sweyn's house.
I decided that I was not going to spend the night and instead I left at about 7 pm to try and beat the coming storm. That decision turned into one of the longest nights of my life! The ride in the dark didn't bother me because I had done that before, but it was a bit tougher on the bush roads at night. After about 15 km's into the trip, I noticed that my front wheel was a bit flat so I stopped the bike and used a hand pump with a CO2 cartridge to bring the pressure up. I started off again and made it to Zimba, where the road gradually gets better until you hit Lusaka Rd. (the main paved road). There is another 15 km's of dirt road before you hit the paved road, but it is much smoother and easy to ride on. I was about half way on that dirt road when my bike tire began to feel strange. I pulled over to find that it was completely flat. A quick inspection of the tire showed that a large nail had found my wheel and penetrated through both sides of the tube. I pulled all of my patch kit and tools out from my tool bag that I carry and went to work at pulling the tire off of the room (a job that is not easy or fun at 10pm with little light and no assistance). Using my kick stand, I propped the bike and pulled the tube out. It was a badly damaged, but I managed to patch the holes with three patches. Next, I went to fill the tube with air to see if the patches were working and the valve came completely off of the tube. Now I was in big trouble. When your valve tears off, you need to just pitch the tube because there is no use. My only problem was that I had no other options. So I forced the valve back in the tube, opened up a nut at the bottom of the valve and I forced the rubber between the base of the valve and the nut. I tightened everything, laid hands on the tube and prayed for God to seal everything. Next I put air in the tube and to my astonishment, the tube grew large...it was holding air! I worked the tube back into the tire and fit the tire back onto the rim. I was good to go.
I made it to Livingstone at 1 am and stopped to get a drink and some food at the 24 hour diesel station (this is a new 24 hour service...hallelujah!) I arrived at the base past 2am and collapsed on my bed...I couldn't believe I had made it back.
The next day I woke up late and worked on the bike all day. We were planning on leaving at 3am the next morning to drive to Zambia's capitol, Lusaka, where I was going to purchase a trampoline for Sunda. We made that trip without any issues and Sunda has not stopped bouncing since!
Phew, I'm out of breath just typing this thing. I know it isn't told as wonderfully as my wife can tell a story, but it does give you a good picture into what life is literally like around the clock here in Zambia as sector managers.
I'll work on getting you all a pic of Sunda bouncing on the trampoline.
Love you guys...
jake
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