Last update from Zambia…Oct. 21st
It’s hard to believe 5 months have already passed since I arrived here. I’ll send out a recap/conclusion in a couple weeks when I get some videos and pictures posted, but this will be my last (planned) update from Africa since I fly out on Tuesday at 9 AM EST (which means I will be enjoying my mom/aunts cooking on Wednesday at 6 PM EST!)
On September 20th, the Zambian presidential elections were held. The current president was voted out of office and a new president took over immediately. There was some small rioting around town and around the country, but things cooled off much sooner than Harrison expected them too. Unfortunately, the elections and the changeover in government limited what we were able to accomplish with the building projects. After the elections, we weren’t allowed to get the prisoners until this past Friday. We stayed busy with working on the projects ourselves (digging the dirt for the brick, working on the well, collecting rock, doing visitations, trying to get the vehicles running, spending some time at the farm (a piece of land Harrison got to start an orphanage; he has a lady moving out there to live to start farming the land so the orphanage can be self-supporting), and taking a day off to get away and tent camp out in the bush.
This week everyone has been going at it hard. We’ve been able to hire the prisoners again. In total, the wells deeper (but we still haven’t hit water), we’ve made 18,000+ bricks, the mountain side is graded, and the rock piles (for the concrete) are larger. I was able to finish the Standard Operating Procedures and Camp Manual and go through the hundreds of videos and thousands of pictures that the Banda’s and the Chamber’s will be using for promotional videos. We had the baptism service a couple of weekends ago (which one of my close friends was one of the ones baptized) and the youth group was started this past Sunday. Lastly, I was asked to teach some classes on running a youth group and teaching, so that has been going on as well.
A couple of praises:
· I received a care-package from home. Included were some episodes of Home Improvement (one of Harrison and my favorite shows). We’ll have to teach the nationals how to grunt before I go.
· Harrison was given a lot of used piping and hosing that we’ll be able to use at the house and have already been using at the worksite.
· When Harrison took in one of the buses to the shop, the shop owner allowed him to borrow another vehicle (a truck) that has been a wonderful help in transporting all of our tools to the church plot every day.
· There were some lions and elephants in the area we went camping. Though the elephants did come to the camp ground, nothing was damaged and no one was hurt.
· The other short termer who left two weeks ago arrived home safe.
Prayer Requests:
· The rains have moved in ahead of when they normally do. The bricks must be burnt fast or they will be ruined (and weeks of work will be washed away). The plan is to burn 20,000 this coming week.
· We’ll leave Tuesday early morning for the 8 hour drivel to the capital for me to fly out. When I go back, Harrison has to take the truck he borrowed back. When he does so, he will have no reliable vehicle. Right now, they have 2 buses (one’s in the shop and the other’s not running) that they’d like to use for bus ministries and a Landcrusier (which has made more trips since I’ve been here to the shop than I have made to the refrigerator looking for a late night snack and is currently not running either). It’d be nice for them to be able to get (at least one) running properly.
· Travel Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for all of us.
· While I won’t be here to see the outside of the house complete, once the brick is burnt, Lord willing, everything should go quick. Starting next week, they’ll look to dig the foundation, put in the footers, mix the concrete, and pour the slab. After that the walls and roof can go up. Within a month, the exterior of the house should be up.
Thank you for all the prayers throughout the summer and support (although we’re not done yet). I look forward to seeing you all in person very soon. I’m planning on being at HHBC, CCF, and PRCC on Sunday (Oct. 30th) and will be making some trips to TLC and CU soon.
