Daily Life

Here is what a typical week currently looks like for the Attema's in Singanga village:

Sunday: We have church in the village. Then the members of the team that live in town pack up and head back to Livingstone. In the afternoon, we usually rest, work on projects around the base, or go to a football game in one of the neighboring villages. The football team is made up of young men from the surrounding villages. Benjamin occasionally plays or helps coach. Lately, Benjamin has been working on different projects regarding the pigs and we have done a little bit of gardening.

Monday: This is our day off. We typically stay in the village and it is quiet and peaceful. The team has all gone to town except for 1 other couple. Our mornings are filled with rest and quiet time. We sometimes play games, do some cooking, wash clothes, or work on a project that's happening on the base.

Tuesday: We head to town on Tuesday's. We have team meetings all morning. The meetings start with team church where we worship and share with one another. Then we move into process group where we process different things that are going on individually or as a team so that we can all remain healthy. After process group, we are assigned different team tasks for the week, some of which are done in the early afternoon while we are still in town. We usually grab lunch in town (which means we eat some meat!), and we do all of our shopping for the week before heading back to the village in the evening.

Wednesday - Friday: In the mornings we do language learning, Allison tutors and Benjamin sometimes takes this time for devotions or working on his pig project. In the afternoons, we meet with our church groups. There are always many children around so we spend a fair amount of time playing games and hanging out with the kids. Benjamin also does some work with the four Zambian men who work on the base and we visit people in the villages and purchase different items such as fish and buns.

Saturday: In the morning we do some language learning and then we have required tutoring for all of the sponsored kids. All hands are needed on deck to make this program run smoothly. We both have tutoring groups that we meet with for an hour. After that, we have discipleship time for an hour that is open to all children. We typically work with the 12 and under kids teaching Bible stories and life skills. The afternoons are currently left open to help with any team things, work on projects, play football, build relationships with the kids and adults, or to meet with groups we weren't able to meet with during the week. At night the children from the children's home come over for a worship night. We sometimes have these hosted in different villages rather than doing them on the base.