Internet, FINALLY!

Hello again!

The last few days have been full of excitement and interesting experiences.

On Saturday we went to the ceremony for the chief and it was a very different party than we Canadians are used to. Much of the entertainment was singing and dancing. This was fun to watch and at one point we were even invited to dance with the locals in the ceremony. Sarah, Helena, Cassie, Mark, Kyle, Robin and Megan tried and did our best but our hips just don’t seem to move the way theirs do. We actually were getting lessons from a priest in how to dance and greet the chief. For Helena and Sarah the lesson included him grabbing  and shaking them back and forth. We managed to dance up to the chief as the Zambians did and give him our respects. After listening to a bunch of speeches we couldn’t understand we were able to give the chief our gift which was a leopard print blanket. After we gave the gift we all had to kneel in front of the chief, say “A Timba” (all hail the chief). It was interesting to say the least.

Sunday morning we went to one of the local churches in Lundazi. The first service was in English and the second service was in Tambuka.. we stay for both. Before the service there were choir performances from the kids, adult choirs, and even us! They were very welcoming and introduced us to everyone. Megan and Jordan were given the opportunity to pray during the service which was different(and nerve racking) but they did a wonderful job. The service was mainly focused on singing and praising God. It was amazing to see how the people in Africa worship God. Their hearts are very passionate about looking toward our real home in heaven. The preaching was done by a young girl and three boys- two in each service. It was very obvious that they loved God in how exuberant they were.

In the afternoon we enjoyed a Bible study and singing by the river at a castle in Lundazi. We had a fruitful discussion about not judging others and trusting in God when making decisions in life. Our group enjoys singing and once we learned how to sing acapella, we didn’t stop until it was getting dark(it gets dark around 6 here).

When we got back to our guest house there were many kids waiting for us to play a game of soccer or football. Before we started we had to figure out what game we were playing as they call soccer ‘football’. The talent these young kids have is phenomenal and even showed up Richard who likes to think he is our soccer star.

Funnies:              What did the egg say to the person? – you crack me up! (Eric)

                                What do you call a fake noodle? –an impasta! (Sarah)

                                Do you know where the nearest animal hospital is? – cuz these    pythons are sick! (Steve)

                                Mark’s newest talent is braiding all the girls’ hair

                                Helena seems to enjoy tripping over everything

Monday (today) we had our second day of work at Kapinda Day High School. We were all put to work and found something productive to do. Some were plastering, some cleared out rocks from the building, some carried bricks, some mixed cement (or mORtorrr- is how we all say it) and some(Steve) took care of our personal cement needs. Kyle dared to challenge Megan to a competition involving who is better at plastering- unfortunately for Kyle he got owned. We managed to get a lot accomplished and got to know the local workers even better. The kids even helped us out throughout the day.

Right now we are relaxing waiting for dinner and fighting for the showers (cold ones but totally worth it when you are covered in dirt and cement)- and the others are playing euchre which is a daily occurrence here. Hank and Michelle Dejong are here visiting us and we are actually using their laptop (that is why the blog is much longer today) which is much faster than Philemon’s.

We hope to keep to updated as much as we can but the power often goes out in the middle of posting a blog – or the internet doesn’t work all together.

We would like to send our love to our friends and family back home! We are having an amazing time and are very blessed to be here. Praise God!

Yours in Christ

Team Lundazi