Hello again! I hope all is well with you. This is what we’ve been up to:

10/3/09 The Funeral Celebrations and Rain Dance

On October 3rd we got a real treat. It was a real cultural experience. It really was. A chief’s brother had died a few months ago and the community was having another celebration to honor him. We got to participate! They danced around, hitting drums, making music on homemade flutes! It was a crowd of people that danced around the drums. The people with the drums would move frequently because of the dust that was stirred up. All of the visitors got pushed to the middle to dance around the drums. We must have been entertaining. Almost all the men were drunk. One old man grabbed my hand and started talking to me. I didn’t understand and asked him to repeat himself several times. My suspicions were confirmed when he said “Marriage”. I got away though. Two little girls grabbed my hands and we followed the crowd around. The women tied fabric around our waists and laughed at our dancing. One woman did that and then asked me for money for the fabric. I just smiled at her as if I didn’t understand her. She took it back later. My friend Brady and I were taught a dance that consisted of holding hands and walking in a line. Somehow we always messed it up and the woman made us do it over and over again. It was sweet of her but it was kindof funny. How did we mess that up? After a little while of doing this we all sat down near some of the huts. Everyone sat with their legs flat on the ground. We didn’t know it at the time, but one of the women (she was carrying a whip made of animal hair) was calling for rain. She is a powerful woman in the community. We talked about this with our Tonga teacher afterwards. The dancing, I think, was to appease the Gods. It did rain a little bit when we were there, during the middle of dry season. It hasn’t rained in weeks. Demons are real and they are given some power. The older men of the group were dressed up very strangely. I believe I saw one wearing a leotard, short shorts, knee socks, and something around his head. A lot of them were wearing women’s bathing suits with shorts. They were holding spears and intended to look fearsome. The Tongas are peaceful people and they don’t fight. This is to demonstrate that if they did fight, they would be scary. They actually were scary- they were leaping and stomping and whirling their spears around. We had to be careful not to get too close. I’m not sure if they intended to be funny, but they sure were. We got to meet the chief. He was sitting with other elders under a thatched roof with no walls. There were tarps on the ground and we came to him and got on our knees out of respect. Our Tonga teacher said some things to him. He seemed to receive us well. We didn’t stay there long.

10/8 Mumena

We arrived at Mumena the night of Thurs, October 8. We had dinner with the Mumena team. I sat next to Rick Love, a missionary who has lived there with his family since May 2008. He told us a lot of great things about his life here. He said that he enjoyed being on a team with members of different ages and experience. There is someone for him to look up to, learn from, and be the final word for important decisions. Groups often split up because there is no clear leader and they argue. Their group is made of Phil and Paula Boyd, their daughter Saundra and husband Brian Davis, and Rick and Karen Love. They have kids, too! Saundra and Brian have Noah (age 9) and Bryson (age 5). Rick and Karen have three: Matthew (age 4), Lydia (age 3), and Emily (6 mos.) Rick told us about a common struggle for African Christians: witchcraft. One man had been a preacher for 30 years but still practiced witchcraft. A huge problem is lack of healthcare, which pushes them to see witch doctors. If someone goes to see the doctor they are probably dying. The team encourages people to seek help before they are desperate. Many times they don’t realize it’s ok to use medicine from the bush. Rick has conversations with people: “Who put the medicine in the bush?”. He explains that because God made good things and gave them to us we can use them. Africans think that there’s impersonal spiritual power that they manipulate to heal people, curse people, get rain, etc. They think that if they do something (ritual etc.) they will get what they want as a payment. African Christians often approach God with the same mindset. They believe that if they are devout Christians, that God will answer their prayers. That’s how things work with demons! Why won’t it work with God? They don’t see themselves at the mercy of demons, they think that by serving the spiritual forces they have power. They think they are the manipulators. Demons may allow them to be so deceived, but God does not. They don’t understand when they pray for rain and it doesn’t come. God must not be powerful. We had a good evening. We slept in unfinished dorm rooms: concrete floors, tin roofs, sleeping bags, and mosquito nets. It felt like we were in Africa.

10/9

Today I met Rick’s wife, Karen, who has been such a blessing to me. She told me that being in Zambia has been great for their family. They spend a lot of time together. She also feels really safe here. We walked to class together. Before class we all sang a few songs and she cried. It was the sweetest thing. In our classes Brian Davis taught about the Kingdom of God, the worldview of the Koonde tribe, principles of church planting, demons, witchcraft, and working with your team members. He is a very wise person. I’ve learned a lot from him. I can’t even begin to explain. They are really good people.

10/10

Today we went to a Refugee camp, where we got to spend the morning and afternoon with the church there. There were a lot of kids. They sang a song or two and then we sang a few songs. After that someone would give a brief lesson (translated into French and English) and then we would jump up and down to stay alert. The cycle repeated itself three or four times. In the middle we stopped and ate lunch! They had all worked the Saturday before to have the money to pay for a goat. Wow. That was my favorite meal I’ve had here so far- that’s love. They didn’t even know us. We are brothers and sisters, that’s enough. In their culture children always eat last. It was really hard to eat in front of children that needed it a lot worse than we did. They gave us generous helpings. Once we found out that the children would be getting our leftovers we mostly stopped eating. We saw a mentally retarded child sitting outside the cooking room and they treated him with love. They used to think that his mental retardation was a demon. They were angry and ashamed of him. Brian Davis explained that he just has a physical problem, and now his mother smiles again. I’m glad that he was able to relate that to them. The common belief in Africa is that white people can’t be affected by evil spirits. At night we all dressed up to have Halloween with the kids. It was so much fun! We put charcoal on our faces and dressed up any way we could. Jordanne (my roommate) and I were barbarian princesses. We just took down our hair (we could have been cavewomen), put on chitenges, and put charcoal on our faces. It was so much fun. Everyone was so creative. The most culturally appropriate costumes were of a Tonga woman (my friend Katie) and her gigantic baby, who was on her back (Brady). The kids loved it. They were dressed as Darth Vader, Little Bo peep, a fairy, a Power Ranger, and Luke Skywalker. Daniel, who was dressed as a native (charcoal all over himself), found a baby bat! I didn’t think bats could be cute. The little guy was so precious.

10/11, Sunday 

We (Trent, Erin, Haleigh, Liz, Katie, and I) climbed into the back of Rick’s truck and drove to a newly planted church. When we got there we sat down on rough wooden benches under a thatched roof. The church is trying to build a building before the rainy season but is limited by a lack of skilled workers. The foundation is laid and they have bricks. We were greeted with a song welcoming us to the church of love, joy, and peace. Then Haleigh, Erin, and Trent acted out the story of David and Goliath for the kids. Rick was asked to speak and he spoke on the story of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. (Matthew 14:22) He contextualized his message so they could see Jesus’ teachings in their own way. He told them when bad things happen keep looking at Jesus. Peter had faith to get out of the boat but he sank because he lost his focus. The disciples looked out of the boat and thought Jesus was a ghost. That’s exactly what Satan wants us to think, isn’t it? Jesus doesn’t expect or want us to pray for our children and wait, watching them die. He expects us to try to help them. Sometimes God says no. He is still good and he is still there. They were so good to us. Their worship was simple. I kept thinking about the things Rick had told us earlier about witchcraft. I wondered if this was a ritual to appease the spiritual forces or if this was pure worship.

10/16

 Today is our first day at the Havens after being gone for 9 days! When I first got there I just sat on the floor and played with the kids that were on the immaculate floor. There was one girl hiding under her crib. Sammy found her and we coaxed her out. Kurt was so responsive today, especially when I first picked him up. He smiled and laughed and grabbed my fingers. Later on he settled down. He was glad to be held. I felt like I could just put him on my back like the locals do and he would be content. I think t he kids missed us. It was fun to play with them, I’ve forgotten how precious they are. A lot of us came to the havens.

10/18

 I volunteered to help out with children’s church again this Sunday. We went to the church that meets in the Benson. I carried around the same little boy that would scream and cry unless he was held. He didn’t bother me this time. I didn’t let him. I just got a chair and held him as everyone else sang and danced around. The teacher this Sunday had a lot of control over the kids. She really held their attention and knew all their names. They did several songs and she told them the story of Samson. Some of the songs and activities: • “Have you been taking the time to be reading his word? It’s not for your mom and it’s not for your dad…”

• One about getting a partner and dancing in circles with them and then getting a new partner.

• A game with a bible- “What is this?” “A BIBLE!” “A BIBLE?” “A BIBLE!” • “Pamela” “Yes” “You select?” “Jonathan” “Jonathan” “Yes?”…. In some ways I really like how they treat their children. They don’t allow them to be brats. If someone is fussy they pick them up but they don’t fuss over them. There was one teacher and she had the attention of about 30 kids. I don’t see that in the US. They know respect.

10/24/09 A lesson on traditional cooking

Ba Siazu (our Tonga language teacher) brought his wife, daughter, and son to teach us how to make a traditional meal. We fixed three chickens, tomatoes, onions, and sweet beer. The chickens were bound together and a fire was going with a pot of water over it. We took them to the back and they killed two of them by sawing through their necks with a knife. My friend Derek killed the other one. It was bloody at first, and they had to hold them still until they actually died. They soaked the chickens in the hot water and we helped by pulling the feathers out. They came out easily in the hot water. It seemed as ordinary as shucking corn. Chickens are a good design. God did a good job with them. After we finished the feathers we washed them. Next, the son and daughter cut up a chicken. They started by sawing in a certain spot and then breaking the bone. They knew the anatomy of a chicken very well. They would cut right where the shoulder was and they had so many pieces of meat from that one chicken! It actually wasn’t gross until they started taking the organs out. When they started doing that I went to see what Mrs. Siazu was doing. She had cornmeal in a large bowl. She had a smaller bowl which had a screen over it and was mostly empty. She would stir water throughout the cornmeal and then she would pour the water out of it, through the screen. She seemed to be taking something out, little black dots. She would pour some of the water from the smaller bowl back into the larger bowl and repeat the process 2 or 3 dozen times. Some of us helped. Finally, she was satisfied. She poured the nsima mix into the hot water over the fire and let it get hotter, stirring occasionally and adding salt. About half an hour later we stirred roots into hot water and combined the nsima mix with the water from the roots to make sweet beer. We all had some! It was pretty good. It was sweet and it had a lot of corn in it. The top half of the glass was sweet and watery and the last half was almost all sweetened cornmeal. It was non-alcoholic, of course. When all three chickens were cut up they were put into a pot of hot water and left for 20 minutes. We cut up tomatoes and onions to eat with it. I washed pots with Mrs. Siazu. Nsima is very sticky and she used the sandy dirt to help get it off. She used dish soap too. She was so thorough with her cleaning! When it was all finished we ate it! And it was good. The chicken was really tender. The gizzard is the most prized piece of the chicken and it is an honor to be given it. No one ate the feet for some reason.

Sorry this is kindof rough.

We’re going on another trip! I’ll have to tell you about it later. We get back on sunday. We will be in the US in a month. How strange! Bittersweet.

Love you guys. (and really looking forward to seeing you!)