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!