Today I went out to the bank to try and retrieve my card, I had gone to an ATM to try and get some Zambian money the day before and it ate my card…so I had to go to the bank and get it back. I got there around 9:15 and they told me it would be 10a.m. before they would have it…so we went back to the Mission house and shot the interview we had scheduled for Troy…it came out really well and I am pretty sure it will be the key to tying everything on this trip together into one cohesive story. After the interview we packed up and got ready to head out to lunch and the next location…the car we have been using wouldn’t start so we all piled into Troy’s car and headed out… we ate lunch, kind of an inside joke but we had chicken again! We have eaten a lot of chicken here…Zambians eat a lot of chicken therefore it is the majority of the options around here. We headed out to the next shoot location. As we drive down the roads we pass tons of blue vans just packed full of Zambians, they are only supposed to hold about 12 people per van, but the drivers want to make more money so they cram about 18 to 20 people in.. if the police see them they will pull them over, kick everyone out and arrest the driver…we watched a car pull out into the middle of an intersection where a ton of the blue vans were at a light waiting… 3 police officers got out and walked towards the vans…it was obvious they had too many people in just about every van. The light changed and we were able to go, so we didn’t get to watch the full process, but I’m sure they all got kicked out and drivers arrested. We ended up at Troy’s office where we shot a little b-roll of Troy working and doing what he does best…then we left and went out to Collins house (the boy that grew up in garbage dump sleeping in a cemetary) He has been adopted by a pastor and we wanted to interview his new father. It was a great interview from a man who obviously loves God and is obedient to His will. The room we interviewed in had some really cool lighting coming in from the windows so Matt took a photo of me along with a couple of guys that looked like some kind of rap album cover or something…it’s funny because we looked like we were all posing, but non of us knew the picture was being taken. After the interview we left and headed to a marketplace where we walked around looking at more things that the Zambians create and sell. I have failed to mention that the majority of the roads here are really really horrible, so it is extremely common to have to have back surgery, you just get bounced around so much while you drive 5 miles per hour over these unpaved and partially paved roads. When you are in these places every once in a while you will hear a Zambian call you a Mazunga… it means “one who runs in circles accomplishing nothing” It comes from when Europeans first arrived, and the Africans noticed that the white people didn’t work so much as walk around and tell other people to work.It’s not derogatory, it has become kind of a status word where you have enough money that you don’t have to work, you can be lazy and do what you want. I’d like to think it’s comparable to the english words “rockstar” or “celebrity”, but really, I can tell when they are saying it, they mean “whitey”.. So it’s not really a term of endearment or anything We then headed back to the Mission house and planned out dinner…we decided to take Troy and his family out to dinner so we went out to Rhapsody again. I was really tired so I went to bed as soon as we got back. Check the photos to see images from the trip.

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.

As I ran this morning I started thinking about the Zambian people…You don’t see too many overweight Zambians, they walk or ride bikes almost eveyrwhere they go, they are hard workers and don’t live in the “safe” environment that Americans do. Everyday could be there last in a much more real way then you and I experience it. They don’t believe in deodorant, so most of them have some serious B.O., and when you get into a setting where you are surrounded by them it can be quite bad! They are in general a very friendly people and love well. They have a great respect for others and I love the simplicity of how they live life. I found out the reason why there is always so much trash all over the streets of Lusaka. There are 2 places for Africans, their personal space and their common space. They keep their personal space such as their home as clean as they possibly can, but common areas they don’t care about because they are not responsible for it, so they throw their trash down anywhere they go. When you greet a Zambian you don’t just shake hands, you also bring your left hand to your right forearm and hold it while you shake.. you also start with a regular hand shake, then you wrap your hand around their thumb and vise versa, then back to the regular handshake. It is also a very soft grip, not the confident strong grip that Americans have when we shake. The left hand on the right forearm is a sign of respect. The women of Zambia are hard workers as well… they pretty much all have babies and carry them on their backs wrapped in a sling around their shoulder and waist. They have no problems with pulling out their breast and feeding the baby in public places which is extremely awkward. I also found out that 50% of all Zambians are under the age of 16. Today we went out to the bush, this is where things get much much more primitive. They live in grass huts and don’t have much of anything. We were there visiting an HIV/AIDS victim that has become bed ridden. When we got there, Troy, who is our guide on this trip, went into the hut and started talking to the man with AIDS, he led the man to Christ through telling the story of Jesus, it’s hard to know whether it was genuine or if the man might have felt pressured into saying the prayer, but I guess that’s not for us to worry about, we are just called to share. After staying for a while and meeting the people of this village, we left and went to a church building where Troy was leading a group of couples on a program he and his wife call “True Love Stays”. These are couples that are struggling in their marriages and have fallen out of “love” with each other. He talked about how God can heal these marriages and how that love is not a feeling the way society tells us it is, but that it is a choice, he compared it to our relationship with Christ, sometimes we don’t have the feelings for God, but we make the right decisions and Love God out of obedience. After he spoke we went to dinner and then back to the Mission House. When we arrived back at the mission house we discovered that the storm had knocked the power out, so we had to light some candles and decided to watch an episode of “The Office” on laptop battery power since Matt had brought the entire 3rd season. Then it was time for bed without any electricity and no fan to keep me cool during the night.

I slept better today…I think I slept till about 4a.m. and then felt wide awake after that. I got up and ready for the day. We drove out to the school we had visited yesterday and met up with Collin. Once we were there we hung out with some of the children as they played football and the girls play a game where they draw a circle on the ground and put a bunch of stones in the middle…they toss a stone in the air and pull some stones out of the circle before they catch the one they threw into the air…they keep throwing the stone in the air and each time they watch the stone go up and down meanwhile trying to shove all the rocks except for 1 back into the circle..this process is repeated until they have as many stones as they can get from the center. It takes some serious hand eye coordination and yet they seem so graceful and at ease with it. The kids at the schools love to wave and laugh and stare as we walk around because we are such a strange site to them. I watched as the “kitchen staff” basically a couple of ladies in an outdoor kitchen area prepared lunch for the children, a giant pot of some sort of stew. Once Collin arrived he went to one of the classrooms along with about 15 other students and they had their “true love waits” class. It was so encouraging to hear the students talk about their struggles and success stories with the opposite sex and how they are determined to wait till marriage. I love their hearts for God, it’s so rare to see in kids their age 13-16. We then packed up and went out to a huge area that was pretty much a landfill / garbage dump. It smelled so horrible and everywhere you look there were little smoldering fires of burning trash. The smoke would blow into your eyes and lungs as you try and look around at all the young kids and adults that walk through and rummage for food and things to sell. Collin explained how he and his “brother” (not blood, they call each other that because of what they went through together) used to live in this garbage dump and they would look for food and things to sell. As a new truck shows up to the site and empties it’s garbage, the crowd of kids and adults who by the way were all drunk and high would run with excitement to find the new things that were being dumped. There was a small pond about 100 yards away that we walked to as Collin and his brother explained how they would take a bath in it. Just along side the garbage dump is a cemetary… the Zambians don’t really keep their cemetaries looking nice so it mostly looks like the woods, with big mounds of dirt and maybe a few head stones here and there. We took Collin and his brother there and set up for an interview. They explained how they slept in the cemetary hidden from everyone and showed us the exact spot where they would sleep. The told their testimony of how they started going to the school at about 12 years old and they would show up drunk, but eventually started hearing about Jesus and True Love Waits. It’s so hard to image anyone living that way, I was struggling with the thoughts in my head of how people could be in such a horrible situation. They are now about 15 years old and you would never know they ever lived that life style. After the interview was over, we packed up and went to lunch, it’s such a bad feeling to walk through all of that and know that you get to leave from it, but that for everyone else there it is a way of life. Lunch was at about 2:30 so we were all exhausted but we still had another interview out at a place where people would go to be tested for HIV/AIDS and receive medication if they were positive. The interview went well with the founder of the organization and we packed up to head back to the mission house. We went out to a restaurant that was pretty decent, infact it had the most white people I had seen on this trip all in one place. We went and picked up 3 cases of bottled water and headed back to the mission. It has been a long day and I’m sure I will sleep well. Goto the photo album to view photos from this trip.

I can’t say I slept really well, I slept well while I was asleep, but I only slept until midnight and then I was wide awake for a while…I think I fell back asleep for a few hours and then was up again around 4a.m. The internet is working just enough for me to get on facebook and tool around a little, but not to do much more than that. I got out of bed at 7:30, after praying and reading my bible, and got ready to go for a run. Running down the streets of Lusaka is quite interesting… I didn’t see any other white people anywhere..the sides of the roads are full of locals as they walk everywhere. Lot’s of staring and finger pointing as I run down the side of the roads. I’m not sure how far I ran but I don’t think it was the full 3 miles I normally do. I got back, took a shower and loaded up the truck with gear. We went out to our first location of the day and shot 4 interviews, we were in the shade but it was pretty hot to be outside for so long. There are tons of fruit trees here, it’s pretty awesome, I’ve seen banana, mango, and lime. There are also tons of flies everywhere…I guess it’s the trade-off. At about 2pm we headed to lunch. The place was called Steers and they served burgers and chicken…I got a burger. I left the group for a few minutes and when I got back they told me that a huge rat had run out from the restaurant and right under our table. I’m pretty sure I ate a rat burger because it was probably the worst burger I’ve ever had. After we ate, we went to a mission school where one of our main stories is located, a boy named Collin who used to live and sleep in a garbage dump/ graveyard. We talked to him for a while and he took 3 of the team members to the grave site where he used to live, while Jessie and I went back to the Mission house. I didn’t have a key to get to the rooms so I had to hang out in the lobby and wait for them to get back. I put in a vhs tape of “the princess bride” started watching it and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up to everyone standing over me looking at me. It was weird to wonder how long they had been standing there watching me sleep until someone decided to wake me up. We decided to order a pizza, so we waited on that for about 30 minutes. We ate and then I got ready for bed. I’m really tired…should sleep well tonight. Goto the photo album to view photos from the trip.

The plane ride was long and as always uncomfortable, because of the time change it actually took 2 days to get here. Eating nothing but airplane meals for 2 days is not a pleasant experience. Shawn and I are the only team members that are flying together, the other 3 are already there. We landed for the first time after an 8 hour flight in Rome and quickly realized that it was just a fuel stop and would not be aloud to exit the plane. We then took off for the next 6 hour leg of the journey to Addis ababa. When we landed we were able to get off the plane just long enough to get to the new gate, go through security once again and followed the voices saying Lusaka Lusaka to the gate we were told. A mere 5 hours later we landed and felt so great that we were done with flying till we head back home. We got to customs and had to pay $30s each for our work visas, which is 20 less than we thought it would be. After paying and getting our passports stamped…suddenly realizing that we are in Zimbabwe (an entirely different country) We frantically thought back to figure out how we could have ended up on the wrong airplane! We told the people at customs and they called for someone to come and help us out…they said there was no other flights out this day. Shortly a couple of security people came down and said that they had been looking for us… apparently we were supposed to stay on the plane that was then continuing on to Zambia. Luckily they had held the plane for us and quickly got us back to the gate. We did not get a refund for our visas…so we like to think of it as our contribution to Zimbabwe. We got back on our plane and took off on a short 1 hour flight to Zambia. Once we arrived we paid 50 each for our work visas, grabbed our luggage from baggage claims and were picked up by Troy, a missionary here in Lusaka and he took us to the Mission house we would be staying at. As we were leaving the airports it was strange to see men and women of the military holding fully automatic assault rifles like they were toys, I have a feeling this will be a common site here. It is dry and warm, and just like any movie you’ve ever seen based in africa! As we drive down the wrong side of the road it is incredibly diverse from house to what I can only describe as garbage piles made into homes. People on bicycles, walking, driving, women with big baskets on top of their heads and angry africans honking at each other because a car accident is apparently time for some to stop get out and talk in large communites about. Kids on the sides of the road play football (soccer) with balls they’ve made themselves out of grocery bags, they are actually pretty great soccer balls. We get to the mission house which is set inside of a fenced/brick wall, as are most building around here. I have my own room with a twin bed and a big mosquito netting wrapped around it. I do have internet access, but it is quite slow…at times worse than dial up. I met the rest of the team, Matt, Jessie, and Ethan. We went out to the local grocery store and stocked up on bottled water and some snacks. The people here stare, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m white, or because of the camera around my neck. The guys look like they are angry, but I’m not sure if that’s what it is or not. We got back to the mission house and started a meeting about the next 8 days. I suddenly realized how incredibly tired I was and couldn’t stop nodding off. I was trying everything I could to keep my eyes open, but I didn’t get much sleep on the planes so it was definitely time for bed. Good night! Goto the photos page to see pictures from the trip to Africa.