I woke up this morning to the power still being off, so I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it was light enough outside to go for my run…While I was running this morning I heard the loudest Frogs croaking I’ve ever heard in my life… I ran over a small creek where it was coming from and couldn’t believe how loud they were..they must have been huge! When I got back, Matt was up and I had thought to myself, what if when the power went out it tripped a master breaker, so I said something to Matt about it, but he dismissed it and said he didn’t think it was that. I went and took a shower and when I got out I found Matt looking around for a breaker box… we eventually found it and sure enough it had been tripped…We had noticed the night before when we were watching the office that some of the lights outside had come back on, but we figured it was some kind of backup battery or something…so we suffered in the heat all night long for no reason. We had some time to kill before Troy showed up to take us to church so I started reading from the book Pastor Jamie gave me called “Everything Belongs” by Richard Rohr… can I just say Holy Crap! This book is amazing… it’s basically stating everything that God has placed in my heart the last month or so and putting it into words. Everyone who claims christianity should read this book…i’m only on the second chapter and it’s unbelievable. Shortly after reading we left for church. Troy was a guest speaker at a baptist church in Lusaka, so we went to the service. The music was absolutely incredible, just like anything you would expect to hear from an African choir, and they are such amazing singers. Troy’s sermon was excellent, it felt long because he had to pause after each sentence for the interpreter to speak what he had said. But he spoke about water and how we can’t live without it and how Christ is the living water within us and how we should pour it out to those around us. After the service, the pastor of the church took us into his home and we sat around a coffee table where he and his family started serving us lunch. Wow, we weren’t expecting this and knowing how poor this community of people was, it must have been a huge sacrifice to feed us all. In Africa Fanta is huge and me already loving orange Fanta am now tasting an even better Fanta then we have in the states! So we had Orange Fanta to drink, along with Chicken, rice, rape (which is some form of spinach and greens and was really good, although I never thought I’d say rape was a good thing) and Nshima, which is kind of like grits, but better… you roll a small amount up in your hand into a ball and then press your thumb into it creating a little spoon like crater, dip it into the sauce and eat it. The pastor’s wife came around to each of us on her knees with a picture of water and a big bowl, she then poured the water over our hands and into the bowl to cleanse them. I thought about when Jesus washed the disciples feet and began to tear up at a beautiful sight of humility and act of service. The family is in a tiny house next door to the church and within it lives 12 people… most of whom are kids, atleast 4 of whom are adopted because the parents have been killed or died from sickness. The Pastor began to share his testimony about how much anger he had in his life before Christ, and how he would go around trying to start fights just so he could fight people. When he got saved God took the anger out of him and he has never struggled with it since! He then told us a story of how he was being approached by some people, I’m unclear on who they were, but he knew they were a threat so he cried out “In the name of Jesus!” and how they all went running in different directions… Later he was able to confront one of the men and asked why they had run away… the man told him that at first he was standing there, then suddenly he vanished and an angel was standing there holding a sword. It was so great to hear his testimony and story. As we finished the meal, we passed around the pitcher of water and the bowl, this time with a bar of soap as well and each clean our hands as someone poured the water for us. As we were leaving we each shook hands with him and said “Zicomo” which means thankyou. From there we went to another church building where we would be shooting an interview with a newly married couple that both work and met at the “True Love Waits” facility. We shot the interview with them and then headed back to the Mission House. On sundays, there is a shopping mall type area that becomes a marketplace and fills up the parking lot with tons of Zambians selling the amazing sculptures, clothing, jewelry and other unique items at “I give you very good price” prices! Although it can be annoying to be approached every 3 seconds by someone desperately trying to sell you whatever they have made, it is still a neat experience. I bought a few surprises for my wife. We then went back to Rhapsody the nicest restaurant in Lusaka because it is Shawn’s 36th birthday today. I got the fillet again since it was so good the last time! We came back and watched another episode of the office and then went to bed.
Tags: Africa, Italy, Lusaka, Rome, Sincera, Zambia, Zimbabwe