Christmas in Zambia

Christmas has come and gone here in Zambia. It was a lot different than Christmas in Michigan but it was still wonderful.

On Thursday, we met with the ladies from Sugar village again. This time it went very well. Elizabeth, Beatrice, and Christopher were the three Zambians who all showed up, but this time we also had eight kids join us. We told the story of Jesus' birth and then we decided to act it out with the kids and everybody loved it! The mood was much lighter than it has been in the past few weeks and we are hoping that we were able to break through a little bit.

On Friday, we met with the women at Tobacco Farm and with Lizzy in Singanga village. Both of these meetings went well. Lizzy ended up retelling the story in Lozi four times to the children! She then asked us if she could keep our drawing so that she could tell it to others.

We had a tutoring party on Saturday, which consisted of dressing up the students to do a nativity story reenactment as well as making paper chains and glitter star ornaments. In the afternoon we had a Christmas party with the children's home. During the evening we showed the nativity story movie and then we shared the God story through candles. It went very well and we had a huge turnout of roughly 70 people from the villages!

After our Christmas morning service on Sunday, we went over to a Faith's house for a Christmas party. Faith is also with Love's Door and it was so wonderful to just enjoy the food and the fellowship without planning anything! And finally, we finished our celebrations with a Love's Door get together on Monday night. We had a nice dinner and then we did a small gift exchange.

The parties have been great but we are ready to get back to normal life. We are excited for all of the things that will happen in 2017!

Lizzy telling the story of Jesus' birth

Some of the tutoring students dressed up as nativity animals

Candlelight service

Last Week

This past week went well! We are both almost recovered from colds that we had. Allison is in the midst of trying to get rid of ring worm, which has not been fun.

But the highlight of our week was meeting with a group of ladies at Tobacco Farm (the name was changed to Fruit Farm last year but the new name hasn't caught on with the locals yet). This was our second time meeting with a few of the ladies who live at Tobacco Farm. We met a woman named Angelina when she came to our church at Love's Door a few weeks ago and from there she has connected us and invited us in.

Angelina is a true person of peace. She is hungry for the gospel and is a gatherer of people. Her younger sister Jenny, and coworkers Frieda and Sandra met with us last Friday. They had some really great questions about whether God forgives unknown sins and what to do when you feel like no one is hearing your prayers.

We are so excited to continue our relationship with these women. They are soaking up Jesus stories and hopefully will soon be passing them on to others. Angelina has also blessed us with bananas from the Tobacco Farm and she said that she will butcher up two of her own pigeons for us free of charge. We are excited to try the new meat!

The women in Sugar Village have been much more difficult. There is a lot of influence from the New Apostolic Church, which has been discouraging people from fully accepting us. There are strong denominational pulls in Zambia that sometimes takes the place of really being a Jesus follower.

The New Apostolic Church, among other beliefs, believe that the current "apostles" who run the denomination have more authority than scripture. They also believe that they can grant salvation and that witchcraft and Christianity can coincide. We are still learning more and more what these local congregations believe but we are realizing that it is a big barrier.

So please pray for us as we continue to try to share the true Jesus!

Surprise!

There is a lodge a couple of miles away called Siankaba. It is a beautiful place on the Zambezi River. A night for two at this lodge costs roughly $1000! Earlier this year, some people here at Love's Door became friends with some of the Siankaba staff through volleyball. There is a volleyball court near Siankaba that their staff uses frequently. Just about every week we walk over and play for an hour or two against their staff.

This past week, Siankaba invited us to have a braai (the Zambia way of say of referring to cookout or grilling) with them. We found out this week that the manager extended the invitation to include staying a night at the lodge! So on Wednesday evening, a group of us from Love's Door headed to Siankaba. We played volleyball for a couple of hours and then we were shown the beautiful lodge. It is gorgeous! You can check it out online if you wish: www.siankaba.net

They fed us supper and stayed up late into the night chatting with us. We had breakfast there the next morning and then headed out around 10:00. It was a lovely getaway to just relax and recharge. We also found that the staff of Siankaba really enjoyed having others to share in the joys and struggles of working in the villages. They have a number of projects currently going such as building wells and building a school as a way of giving back to the community. It will be interesting to see if we can partner in the future or at least how this friendship will grow. But for now we are so grateful for the wonderful surprise respite that we received!

Supplies

Every Tuesday we head into Livingstone for group meetings and to purchase supplies. There is a store in town called Shoprite, which is similar to an American grocery store. They have most food items that we need plus additional items such as soap, hygiene products, etc. Around town there are various other stores that carry different supplies like paper, furniture, construction materials, etc.

Most Zambians shop at the many outdoor markets. These can be fun to walk through with so many people packed together selling specific items. We have used these markets for clothing, vinyl flooring, wood, containers, and some food items. There are also people all over who sell things on the sidewalks, usually food items or electronics. This is where we mainly purchase bananas, pineapples, and avocados.

Often times when we are in town, we eat out at a restaurant for lunch. There are a number of cafes and restaurants that have a variety of foods and prepare American food as well. So after a week of not eating meat it is nice to grab a burger, pizza, Zambian Mexican, shawarma, or some other food that might contain meat or cheese!

We are in the process of finding fish suppliers in the village and we may even be able to purchase a chicken periodically. We should be receiving our first fish tomorrow from a local villager as long as he is successful. There are some villagers who purchase items such as eggs in town and then resell the in the village. But they are pretty hit and miss as to whether they will actually have stock.

So it is usually an experience trying to find certain items! Sometimes it is like a treasure hunt and sometimes it is frustrating. And we always have to be weary of receiving the Mzungu (white person) prices.