Immigration

This week has been crazy! On Tuesday we found out that our application for two year work permits had been rejected. To appeal the decision we would have to go to Lusaka to the immigration headquarters... or else leave Zambia.

So we purchased bus tickets for Lusaka. On Wednesday, we packed a couple of bags and visited Headman Singanga to have him write a reference letter. He made it difficult but after two visits and around three hours of talking, we received the letters. We then had a party for Jake and Tammy who are heading back to the states after doing a little traveling (the party consisted of cooking a village goat!)

We arrived to the Livingstone bus station at 9:00 for our 9:30 bus departure. The company decided to change busses so instead of 2 and 3 seat rows, this bus was a 2 x 2... meaning 20% of the bus was unable to board. Despite being the first people to buy tickets two days prior and having pre-assigned seating, we were kicked off and moved to another bus. We finally started moving around 10:30 towards Lusaka.

The bus was very uncomfortable. There was no overhead storage and the seats did not recline. We made 6-8 stops along the way picking up and dropping off people before arriving in Lusaka. But after 8 hours, we arrived and took a taxi to Lusaka Backpackers for the night.

This hostel was a bright point on the trip. The cost was only $40 per night and the bed was comfortable and they had very good food to purchase for dinner and breakfast.

At 7:30 on Friday morning, we said our final goodbyes to Jake and Tammy and Jason and Leanna (they are all traveling to Zanzibar before Jake and Tammy continue heading to the States).

We headed to immigration in the rain. The immigration lady seemed to be in a good mood. She took our appeal letter from Love's Door, reference letter from Headman and one of the local school teachers, but she threw out our letter from one of our former Zambian directors and a letter on our own behalf (without even reading them). She told us to call her next week Friday to hear the decision and she gave us 7 more days in the country... which only gives us until the day that we hear the decision.

Now we are back on the bus heading to Livingstone after only a ten minute conversation at immigration! It has been a process but we are excited to be back in our little village house.

There will be a meeting next Thursday where our appeal will be decided upon. Please pray for favor in immigration and for this to all be taken care of before we head to Michigan on March 30 to attend the wedding of Allison's sister.

Updates on Sugar Village

This past week we went to Sugar Village and met with Christopher and Elizabeth. We asked Elizabeth about her legs because a few months ago they had been healed during a worship night we had in Sugar village. After that, the pain slowly started coming back. 

She informed us that the pain was back and that she was going to go to the witchdoctor. Apparently she had been to the clinic and there was nothing they could do for her and she has been prayed over a number of different times so she believes that the sickness must be dealt with by a witchdoctor. She believes someone has put a curse on her and so whatever is in her legs needs to be taken out by the witchdoctor. 

We abandoned our plans of discussing the Lord's Supper and spent a very long time talking about binding and loosing from Matthew 16. We also talked about only serving one master and choosing between Jesus and the witchdoctor. She didn't seem ready to make a decision about just following Jesus because it is so culturally acceptable to dabble in whatever works... and the pain in her legs hadn't left. 

Memory, one of our Zambian coworkers talked about Shadrach, Meshack, and Abendago and how they trusted God even if He didn't rescue them. Her husband, Christopher, joined in and brought up the story of Job and how he always stayed faithful to God. Elizabeth agreed that she would only trust Jesus. Memory pressed her and asked that if we left her with money, would she take that and visit the witchdoctor the following day. She said she would make the decision not go to the witchdoctor. 

We then spent time in passionate, militant prayer over her. We prayed that any curses on her life would be bound in Jesus name and that the pain would be gone. After a while, we stopped and asked her how the pain was. She said the pain had moved from her knees to her hips while we were praying, so we prayed again. This time she said that the pain left her completely! Praise Jesus! We then prayed again to seal everything that happened and to pray against fear and pain creeping back into her life. The Lord is working in mighty ways to transform the lives of the people in that group. Please continue praying that their hearts would be open to a personal relationship with Jesus. 

Update on our Groups

Here is a brief update on how our groups are going: 

-Tobacco Farm: we are officially a church! Praise God! This past week we had a meeting where we discussed what a church is. Everyone agreed that what we are doing is church and we want to recognize it as such. Both of us our super excited about this progress!

-Lizzy & Mama Ruth: this past week we took communion together! We were nervous going into it because Mama Ruth is heavily influenced by the New Apostolic church and we didn't know if she would be okay with taking communion in her home. We spent a lot of time in scripture seeing what the first church did, and we took communion together with nshima, meat, and water. The Lord is working in mighty ways here. This week we hope to talk about recognizing ourselves as a church, which would be a huge step!

-Sugar Village: We discussed baptism again this past week. Beatrice, who is very sick, wants to be baptized. Hopefully this week she will be feeling better and she can be baptized. 

Mama Ruth checking our words with scripture from a Lozi Bible

The Lord's Supper

Last week we met with Angelina and her sister Jenny at Tobacco Farm. This time we focused on the Lord's Supper because we had heard from Angelina that she had stopped taking it due to feeling unworthy from past mistakes and some strongly held denominational views on communion. We started off by sharing the story of the first Lord's supper from 1 Corinthians 11. Then we talked about what it meant. Both Jenny and Angelina had many questions about things like, children taking communion, what types of food could be used, why some people use intinction, and where communion could be taken. It was neat to see the Holy Spirit work as we could see a lightbulb go on in Angelina and her views dramatically change. 

At one point, Jenny responded to a question saying "we are the church! The Bible says that my body is a temple and when we come together to meet we are the church. So we are not limited to taking communion in church building." It was awesome to see her get it! We looked at Acts 2 where the early church constantly ate together and broke bread (celebrated the Lord's Supper) in their own homes. When we had finished discussing, we asked if they would want to join us in taking communion right there in her house with whatever food she had. Jenny and Angelina's faces lit up and we were all very excited. We took the Lord's supper with nshima (typical Zambian dish) and water. It was one of the best communions we have ever experienced. This is the first time we've taken communion in any of our groups and we are really excited to experience more of it. 

Our House!

Here are some pictures of our new house!

The kitchen

The living room

The bedroom

The bathroom

The shower

The hallway leading from the kitchen/living room to the bedroom (the bathroom is on the left)

The backside of the house

The front door

Our view of the Zambezi River from the patio

We're Back!

So we are back in Zambia! After about 40 hours of travel, including flying around in circles for an hour waiting for a storm to move past the Livingstone runway, we made it safely to Zambia. Another hour taxi ride through the beaten up road from rainy season and we made it to a river that had grown over the road. It has rained so much since we left! At this point the taxi had to make us walk with our four suitcases, one carry-on, and a backpack because the taxi couldn't make it through the stream. We removed our shoes and ferried our suitcases across the river with the help of two boys who we had never met before. Dan and Regina picked us up with a vehicle on the other side shortly after and we finished our journey to our home in Singanga village.

We have a new house now! Instead of living above the team kitchen in a loft, we now have our own house. Wahoo! We will post pictures later with a description of the house. But it is so nice to have our own place to call home and be able to use a flush toilet :)

Things have seemed to change rapidly here. It is amazing how you can experience some culture shock after being gone less than two weeks. Things have progressed on the base, new kids faces have appeared, and surprisingly, the world doesn't stop when we go away!

Monday evening we had a wonderful surprise. Angelina, who works at Tobacco Farm, stopped by. We meet with her and some women every week as one of our church planting groups. She knocked off work (clocked out) and then walked 45 minutes in her work clothes to come and visit us because she learned that we were back. We talked until it was almost dark and then we sent her home with our flashlight. It was so good to spend time with her and know that we have friends here!

Flying to Zambia

We are going back to Zambia today! We are ready for some warm weather and the chance to see everyone again. Please pray for us as we transition back into a different culture and team life.