Gobble, Gobble

I got up this morning at 7:00. I had breakfast at 7:30 and was supposed to leave with my group at 8 and some people from WHIZ to go out today and distribute food to several different villages in the area. However, Maureen told us that there was some kind of emergency meeting with some of the WHIZ staff members that was going to delay our start to the food distribution. So the group of us that was supposed to go got out Phase 10 and played an entire game while we waited to leave. Normally i would be frustrated if I was supposed to leave at 8 to go somewhere and hadn't gone anywhere two hours later, but it's just different here and i've learned already in the short time i've been here to be flexible and go with the flow of things. I've learned to find things to do to make my time productive while i'm waiting to go to church or to town or out to the villages. So we finished our game and then around 11:30 we were told that we would not be able to go out to the villages today. I was kind of bummed because i had really been looking forward to going out and actually getting involved with the people here. Although my group was not told why the distribution had been postponed the WHIZ staff is looking into arranging things so that we will be able to go with them later this week on Thursday and Friday. I am praying that God will work everything out so that we will be able to go and share with the people.

I took a hour nap before lunch which really helped to refresh me after just sitting around all morning playing a game while we waited. Some of the girls had some interesting experiences with wild life today....no more snakes though!! Apparently there was a muskrat type animal in the superdorm and Alyssa Rogers was able to corner it and throw a sheet over it. She then took it outside and released it. Right after she released her and a few other girls who were outside looked over and there was a turkey flapping it's wings and sqwauking at them. It surprised them and they all screamed. A friend of Dave Waters', the missionary here, had brought it over to him today. Dave told us that the turkey will probably be a meal for us in the next couple days. It was interesting watching the turkey walk around on our porch. He came up to the door a couple times and the glass in the doors here is reflective so he would see himself in the window and then start hitting the window with his beak and calling. Our history professor let the turkey inside for a couple mins and it was so funny because its feet kept sliding out from underneath it on the tile floor. After a few mins our Prof shooed it back outside.

This afternoon we had our nursing classes from 3:30-6 and just went over a couple powerpoints. After dinner was my history class from 7-9. I wasn't too sure about this class when i signed up, but i think it will be really good and i will learn a lot from it. The Professor is also very nice and is being very flexible with all of the unexpected schedule changes that have come up already since she got here yesterday. Tomorrow we are suppposed to get out for a little bit and take a field trip for history class to the museum in Choma and the library. i am interested to see what their library is like here. I will fill you in tomorrow on whether we make it there or not. Basically i think the thing God has been teaching me this far in my trip is just to be flexible and not get frustrated or uptight when plans fall through and have to be moved around. Good night from Zambia!

Sunday in Zambia :)

There seems to be a bug going around amongst several of the team members. I thankfully have not had it and hope to stay clear of it. Some people have had it worse than others but everyone that has had it has had diarrhea and an upset, crampy stomach. Megan has a fever of 101 and has been sleeping since lunch. Hopefully she will be feeling better tomorrow. Church this morning was really good. We went at 10 this week instead of 9. We just didn't go to sunday school. The man who preached taught from Genesis 16 i think? It was about abraham and isaac when God asked him to sacrifice his son. He talked about how God is faithful to us and how our faith is dead if there are no works along with it. There was a lot of singing that i really enjoyed. It's amazing just to listen to them all singing at the top of their lungs worshipping their Creator. Church got done about 11:45 and we got back to the guest house at 12. Lunch was at 1:15. At 2 i went with several girls to a craft store that Beth, the missionary, knew about and i got several things. All the items were handmade. They had jewlrey, wooden spoons, carved animals, carved boxes, candle stick holders, baskets, all sorts of stuff. When we got back i worked on hw and my journals that are due tomorrow. Dinner was at 6 and then at 7 a few of us went over to Beth's house, which is in the compound, and played with some children she had invited over, and Beth and Dave had a bonfire going. i was over there til 8:30 and then we had a time of sharing testimonies here in the guest house with the whole group. Each sunday night 3 girls are going to share their testimonies and about how God is working in their lives. It was really good to hear the stories of some of the other girls. i took a shower after we all talked and then finished up my journals. I am going to go to bed soon. Tomorrow i will get to go with 7 other girls to do food distribuitions in about 20 diff villages! I am really excited for that :) We will leave at 8 and won't get back til around dinner time. Then i'll have history class from 7-9 tomorrow night. it will be a long day for sure. Breakfast at 7:30...so i'll need to get some sleep in! Good night!

Where I am living

Yesterday was a good day. We had a session in the morning with the Livelihood program director and then a review session of the things we had learned this week in sessions with Debbie from World Hope International. We had a little free time before lunch that i used to do some reading for class. Then after lunch it was more reading. Class was from 3:30-6 and we just discussed interesting topics from the chapters we had read. Dinner was at 7 and the cooks had prepared a big cook out for us. I had the most wonderful potato salad and grilled chicken. Then after dinner we all watched Miss Congeniality together. It was a good day all together.

Today was the first free day i have had since i got to Zambia. I got up at 7 to go running with several girls but didn't make it very far. It was still nice to get out and exercise though. Although now my calf muscles are killing me, especially after having cramps in both of them last night while i was sleeping. I took a quick shower after getting back and then had breakfast. After breakfast, we all had one group session together this morning from 8-10:30 with a woman who works as a nurse at Choma General Hospital and is currently working to get her Master's degree. She talked to us about working as a nurse in Zambia and then very graciously answered all of our many questions about health care in Zambia. Before lunch I went into town with 7 other girls and we just spent a little time walking around. I went to Spar, which is their main grocery store here, and i also stopped at the museum and craft centre to get a couple postcards to send home! When i got back from town i had lunch and then took a nap in the afternoon and did some more reading. it was a very warm day and a little hard to nap but i woke up feeling more refreshed than i was in the morning.

Lastly on this post i just want to give you a tour of my "home" for the next couple months through some pictures. Hope you enjoy them!

Another day

I slept very well last night. The best i have slept since leaving the States. I still woke up feeling a little groggy but i think i'm finally starting to get the hang of this new time! For breakfast I had a piece of toast with apricot jam and a hard boiled egg. The eggs are really good and I have one just about every morning. After breakfast we had a session over in our classroom with Ba (Mr.) Richmond. He is the director at WHIZ for the Reach 4 Life program and the AB program. I really enjoyed his presentation about these two programs. The reach 4 life program is a program that is mandated by the Zambian government for all schools that the WHIZ staff approaches. The WHIZ staff first must approach the school adminstrators about implementing the reach 4 life program in their school. The program is for high school students and focuses on teaching the students about abstinence from a Biblical perspective. For each new school where the program is started there is a launch where each student is giving a reach 4 life Bible. This Bible is published specfically for the program and includes the entire New Testament as well as a few chapters from the book of Psalms. Integrated into the Bible are discussion topics with relating Bible passages focusing on Spiritual life, sexual purity, dating relationships, and living a Christian life. The WHIZ staff will train group leaders who will have from 30-45 minutes a week to complete a lesson from the Bible with the students in their group. I really enjoyed hearing about this program and was impressed with the resources that WHIZ has to use with this program. The program is completely dependent on donations in order to go into a new school and launch the reach 4 life program.

The other program Ba Richmond talked about was the AB program which stands for Abstinece and Being faithful. This program is funded by a U.S. grant and the WHIZ staff will go into rural areas to educate adults from ages 24-49 about abstinence for single people and being faithful for married couples. This program cannot focus on teaching abstinence from a Biblical perspective because it is funded by a U.S. grant. The grant for this program will end at the end of September, and as of now the WHIZ staff does not have more funding lined up to continue the current program. I had just never really heard anything about programs being used in Africa to help decrease the spread of AIDS and so it was really interesting today to hear about these two programs in particular and about some of the successes they have had using them.

After that session I had some free time that i used to check my email and do some reading for school. I am glad to say i am staying pretty on top of it all...for now ;). Then lunch was at 1. We had some soup with chicken and noodles in it and also a salad. After lunch we had some more free time that i used to do more reading!! Yay! Some of the girls walked into town to do a little shopping. I think it will take about 30-40 mins to walk to town. It took the girls who went today 25 mins but they were speedwalking. I had class from 4-5:15. There wasn't any lecture because Prof. Leslie didn't have her computer with the powerpoints but we did get to talk about some of the things we will get to do for clinicals and minstry opportunities. We had a little break before dinner at 6. After dinner i took a quick shower and then got ready for a group meeting at 8. We have often had group meetings after dinner this week where we can all get together and talk about what we've seen and learned that day and about any struggles we may be having. It has been a good time to talk and learn from the other girls.

Praise God my headache didn't come back at all today. I will continue relying on Him to help me through everyday here. All of you that are praying, your prayers are so appreciated and needed. I also want to praise God for watching over and protecting Alyssa, a girl on my team, this morning. Some of the girls have been getting up early to walk with the missionary who lives here and when Alyssa went out the door this summer she slipped and fell on a rug. When she looked over she saw a small snake curled up to her right. She quickly got up and went to get Beth Waters, the american missionary. Beth came over and one of the other girls tried to push it away but it reared up and started hissing at them. So Beth threw the rug over it, dropped a big rock on it and then jumped on the rock to smash the snake. She was able to kill it and no one was harmed. Beth later told us that the snake was a baby Black Mamba, one of the most dangerous snakes in Africa. So just praise the Lord for watching over Alyssa and the other girls this morning. We will all be on the look out and watching carefully our steps around the compound. Please pray for God's continued protection over me and my team.

I will try soon to take pictures of the guest house where i am staying so you all can get a better idea of where i am staying!

Quick Update

I could feel my headache on the edge of my mind all day but it did not come back full strength so taht i couldn't focus on things. Praise the Lord! So just thank you for all your prayers. I appreciate them and it helps so much to know all you guys back in the States are praying for me!

So far...

So it's been a couple days since i got on here and updated ya'll. So i'll fill you in but try to not get too lengthy.

First off, I must just say that I serve an AWESOME God. I am so amazed that He chose me and brought me all the way here to Zambia. I am greatly enjoying my time here but it has not been free of some frustrations. Let me first bring you up today in Zambia and then i'd just like to share a few prayer requests at the end that I would ask you to pray for as you remember me here in Africa!

I left off with arriving in Zambia on Saturday evening. I did get some sleep that night. Sunday morning our group of 18 was broken up into 3 groups. Each group went to one of 3 local Wesleyan churches. I thought this was really great because we will stay at the church we went to the first Sunday for the remainder of our stay and will be able to get invovled in a local church and the people that attend there. The smaller groups make it much easier for all of us to get involved. The church that I attend is called Muche Papa. You will have to pardon my spelling as I am just trying to spell it how it sounds but i'm sure it isn't correct, but then again you won't know either. :) The church service started at 9 with Sunday School and then around 10the main service started. The service went til 12:30, but I really enjoyed it. It was very refreshing to see the worship of God's people here in Zambia. I will share just a few highlights from that service. That Sunday was communion Sunday for the church I attended. It was really much like communion at my home church. The Pastor talked about the importance of communion and read from the Word about it and then the bread and cups were passed out to the congregation. After communion we sang a few songs. Most of them were in Tonga, a native language here, but the voices of the Zambians all raised together in praise to God was beautiful. One last thing I will share about the service was a time of corporate prayer. This was very different from anything i've experienced in the States but it was special time. The choir began a song and as they sang people would break out into prayer to God lifting their voices aloud to Him. Soon all the Zambians, inclucing the children, in the church were praying aloud to God, shouting their cries out to Him. It was amazing to hear them cryign to God and know that He heard everyone of them. The time of prayer was closed with a song. After church we came back to the guest house and when the other two groups returned we ate lunch together. We had a little free time in the afternoon and then some training sessions with our professors and some of the staff here.

Monday I woke up still tired but excited for the day. Monday was the day we were able to go into the town of Choma and see the stores and market place. one thing they have tried to stress to us here is that the Zambians are not focused so much on when seomthing will happen but that the event will happen sometime that day. So i learned this on Monday morning. We were supposed to leave in 3 groups to go into town at 9, but 9 soon turned to 10 and then 10:30. I decided at 9:20 that i would just get my history reading and work on that so that i would accomplish something instead of just sitting and waiting, which helped a lot. We finally did get into town and my group walked around with Beth Waters, an american missionary who works with World Hope here. She has been here in Zambia for 2 years so she was able to tell us all the good places to go and where we could find things in the town. It was a different experience going through the town for sure. It was very crowded, people just everywhere. But they were all very friendly. Beth just encouraged us to smile and say hello if someone was looking at us and the minute we did we got a big smile in return. The people here are just beautiful and were so friendly. They take time to greet each other and ask how each other is before just asking whatever they need to ask. The greeting is very important to Zambians. They don't want to just discuss things if they haven't greeted you properly. In the town we got our money exchanged and then i bought two designs of fabric. The one i had made into a chitenge, a traditional multi-purpose peice of cloth that is worn and used by Zambian women. The other material I payed a woman to make me two purses/bags from. The rest of the day Monday we had some more sessions and a little free time.

Tuesday was a day filled with session after session it seemed like. We did start classes finally, but didn't do much besides talk about what will be expected and what projects and papers we will have for each class. We also had another session with Debbie, a worker with WHI in the US, where she helped us to think about all the changes we are and will be experiencing during our time here. Tuesday night i did not sleep well at all. I had a horrible headache. i was able to get a few hours so that was good.

So that brings me to today, Wednesday. This morning we had breakfast at 8. I had some pancakes and a hard-boiled egg. At 8:30 our team joined the World Hope Zambia staff for their weekly devotions. We had time to sing and pray together, as well as hear a devotion from one of the staff members. At 9:30 the devotion time ended and we had a half hour to relax before another training session with Debbie. That lasted til 12:15, and we had another small chunk of time to relax before lunch at 1. I took a short nap before lunch. For lunch we had rice, chicken, and peas and carrots. It was really good. All of the food here has been really good. I will try to get more pictures of some of our meals so you can all see how well they are feeding us here! It really is great. So now i think you're all caught up. I'm going to lay down for a nap after this. And then we will have class at 3:30, dinner at 6 and a time to talk as a group at 7.

Some prayer requests for me right now would be:

1. Comfort from God as I am really really missing Kirk and my family.

2. Strength and energy to get through this week!

3. This is a big one right now...I have had a headace on and off since i left the States, but last night it was really bad, so bad that i couldn't sleep because of the intensity of the pain. I lay in bed, after getting some medicine and talking with one of our leaders, just praying and asking God to help it to subside. I finally did fall asleep for a few hours. When i woke up it wasn't there, but i can feel the pain kind of on the edge of my mind right now as I type. Please just pray that God would give me the rest that I need and that He would take this headache away or give me the grace to handle it.

Zambian Sunset on Sunday night!

More Travel

After leaving Indy airport, the team and I traveled to Atlanta, GA. That flight lasted around an hour and a half and was pretty nice. I had a window seat and was able to look out at the scenery easily during the ride. The clouds were amazing during that flight, very fluffy and bright. I did not have my camera easily accessible, and therefore, did not get a picture of them. When we got to Atlanta, we had a couple hours to kill before our next flight so we used our time to get some dinner and relax before the next looong part of our journey! Our next flight would be about 15 hours long!!!

And it was long. My strategy for this flight was to try to stay awake as much as possible with the idea being that when we got to Johannesburg, South Africa, I would be exhausted and able to sleep through the night even with the 6 hour time difference. I kept myself occupied watching four of a host of free movies, listening to some good Country music and watching an episode of “What Not to Wear”. The movies were decent and they helped pass a couple hours at a time. It was a little disheartening though after watching my first movie when I looked at the time we had left and it was still 13 hours. So they passed some time but not as much as you would think. They had all three Lord of the Rings movies and those are long so maybe those will be some good ones for on the way home if they still have them available. Their movie selection overall was pretty good and they had several episodes from different TV shows that you could watch too. There were also games and a ton of CDs you could pick from to listen to from all sorts of genres. I did sleep a little on the plane but it was very difficult to get comfortable with three of us in a row and not much space. The first class seats had seats that laid out flat like a bed. I considered sneaking up there to see if there were any available quite a few times!

At last we all arrived in South Africa. When we got off the plane we went out and got a on a shuttle to take us to our hotel. We stayed at the Town Lodge. It was a very nice hotel, and we all got to take nice hot showers, after a long long day of travel!!! :) The rooms had two beds each so we were all split up into pairs. Despite my plan to stay up during the long flight so I would be exhausted and sleep well at the hotel, I did not sleep very well at all. My roommate and I both woke up at 3:15 South Africa time and were wide awake. I had a stuffy nose that was bothering me and keeping me awake. But around 4:00 we both fell asleep and got a good hour and a half of sleep before we had to get up and head back to the airport. For breakfast in Jo-burg we had bacon, eggs and french toast, as well as, fresh fruit, yogurt and muffins. It was wonderful! Then after breakfast we headed to the airport.

We got checked in at the airport and then had a little time to look around at some shops that were in the airport. Then we had a short hour and a half flight to Livingstone. We left at about 11:00 and landed in Zambia at 12:30. The line for customs took a while as there was only one line and many people on our plane. We made it through customs just fine though. Only two people from our group of 18 had their bags searched. Once we made it through customs, Maureen, a Zambian women who works with World Hope International and Debbie, a World Hope International staff member from the United States were there to greet us and take us to Choma. They had a bus that I think normally seats like 24 people or so but we had all of our luggage to fit in the bus as well. So we ended up having to put 5 people in seats that usually held 4. Overall, the ride wasn't too bad. There is one road from Livingstone to Choma and about half of it was paved. The part that was unpaved was just like a gravel dirt road and it was quite the bumpy ride. But we all made it. We stopped about half way to Choma in Zimba and were able to see the mission house there where we will be staying from some nights during our stay in Zambia. We saw the outside of the Zimba hospital where we will have some of our clincals. We also stopped at a small shopping center before leaving Livingstone. We got some water and had a chance to look in a few stores. The local grocery store in Zambia is called Spar, and they have just about anything you would need there. We got to our guest house in Zambia around 7:30 and then were served our first traditional Zambian meal. It consisted of chicken, ground corn meal that they cook called Nshima, green beans, a really good tomato type sauce, and salad. We also ate with our fingers which is the way Zambians eat their meals. I really enjoyed that first meal. We went to bed that night around 12:00 after having some time to check email and call family.

First Zambian meal! Mmmm good!

Day One

I have arrived in Indianapolis. Our plane is scheduled to leave at 2:45. I made it through security just fine and my bags weighed in at just over 90 lbs for both of them. Phew! After lots of weighing and repacking they made it through. Now just to get them at the other end when we arrive in South Africa. I am tired but am trying not to sleep at all until we get on our long flight from Atlanta to South Africa. It will be a 15 hour flight. The time difference will be 6 hrs ahead in Zambia. I did subscribe to Skype so that I can call any land line or mobile phone anywhere in the US. So that has been good. I have used it to call my Mom and Dad and Grandma so far and it works really well. So if you'd like me to try to call you sometime just email me your phone number at alicia.anne.cline@gmail.com. Just about 40 mins and we'll be boarding so for now I'm going to go and relax a little bit before getting on. Please check back often for new stories and updates as this incredible journey continues. I will try to update as much as I can so you can all stay in touch with me. Please pray for me also that God will open my heart to the things He has for me to do and that I would be willing and flexible to do whatever He asks

Our group in the Jackson Library with the "World".