Life and adventures in Zambia!

So in the past few weeks I have returned to Kamfinsa where I have been teaching once a week. Although the first week I arrived to find the school wasn't open, so I happily joined Liz to help with a discipleship group of 14 woman she is starting running there. It was a great time of worshipping together in Bemba (including some songs I now recognize), dancing together, praying and Gods peace coming!

In the play-school as part of our school day we have introduced 'Time with God sessions' which we have been planning to help the kids have a real relationship with God. During one of the first sessions we were singing a song Thank you Lord for ............ and the children chose something they were thankful for. For the rest of the day children were walking around singing Thank you Lord for (bicycles, food, various people's names) such a demonstration of how to be continually thankful! 

Last weekend we went camping at a place called 'The Sunken Lake' it was a very unexpectedly beautiful place (see the photo) it was a great time to enjoy being outside, swimming, jumping off rocks, a rope swing and campfires! There were around 20 people there (unusually all white)  it was quite a shock to see so many white people in one place!

Esnat, Gift and Purity are well settled into the play school now and getting some more English. Which is great it means there are more opportunities to add in different activities (including parachute games, which all the kids love)

. It is difficult at times to feel like you are having a real impact through the day to day things you do, but as I was reminded recently that even impact on an individual scale has significance. I was told a story about a wise old man and a small boy who was busy throwing starfish one by one back into the sea, after a storm where thousands were washed up. The old man told the boy he could never make a difference, the boy simply picked up one more starfish threw it into the sea saying "it made a difference to that one" and continued along the beach picking up the starfish. 

Yesterday I went along on some home visits to see the guardians homes who have applied to join the new orphan project. We visited 5 homes including one who will be another pupil for the school  (Mabel). It was interesting to see some different places and meet some of the people, practice some more Bemba and enjoy some more off road driving, involving praying that a bridge would hold the weight of the car and finding some very narrow tracks. It will be a very difficult process to make decisions about which orphans we can support. There are over 300 (single or double orphans) who have applied and we can only support around half that amount. We are just praying for Gods wisdom in it all?! 

One of my newest Bemba words is 'katwish ' meaning 'I don't know' which I'm sure will come in useful! We have also impressed some of the bible college students by knowing the Bemba word for window (insolokoto) which some of them didn't even know!