Homemade Bread, Dinner served, and New Friends

 

When we left to go to the states there was a team from Delaware here.  One of the members of that team – Katie – is staying until August 15.  She has been using the skills she gained in fashion design and sewing, to train Rose, one of the housemothers, and Mary Zulu, wife of Pastor Zulu in sewing and using patterns. 

 

While we were away, Elizabeth, from MN arrived for 6 weeks.  Although we had met her before we didn't really know her.  She is working on a Masters degree in public health and looking for ways that she can help us with setting up a clinic and also grant writing. 

 

These 2 young adults had never met before but they are becoming wonderful friends.  They had made curtains for some of our windows while we were away.  They made 2 evening meals for us our first 2 days back.  And today – Saturday – they have been busy baking delicious bread and apple banana bread.

 

Tonight a team of 7 arrive from our church in MD.  These will be old friends, not new ones.  But August will be filled with meeting and hosting more volunteers, many of them folks we have never met before.  In the month of August we will have folks from MN, MD, and MI come to share their gifts, love the children, and experience God's heart for orphans in this crisis in Africa.  We pray they go back with hearts changed and a commitment to share what they have learned and experienced with others in the US.

Change in a month

 

For the last month, Benedict, Sena, and I have been in the states for family visits and for the celebration of our daughter Jessica to Kevin Stan.  It was a great time and a beautiful wedding.  So we have returned to our Village of Hope.  Although we have only been gone one month, we still see changes. 

 

Two ducks – both gifts from grandmothers of our children – are now part of our menagerie.  They are quite attractive black and white ones.   Although it is cooler weather, it is also dryer.  Everything seems so brown and kind of dead looking, except for Miriam's flowers, especially compared to all the green we saw in the US as we traveled several thousand miles by car.

 

One of the biggest and most wonderful change is Roman.  He was the boy who arrived so filled with anger.  What a smiling, friendly, outgoing boy he has become.  It also seems that he is trying so hard to speak English to me.  He and Terrance, who both arrived about the same time, seemed the most joyful to greet us.  It was a joy to come back and see that change.

I Can Make a Difference:  Written by Victoria Moore
   (This essay was submitted to a competition for national PTA.  She made it to states and then to Nationals.)

Some people might wonder what difference an 11 year old could make when it comes to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, leaving hundreds of thousands of precious children as orphans.  With my family, we agreed to spend 17 days in Zambia, Africa taking school supplies, running a Vacation Bible School, and helping to construct and paint new cottages for these homeless kids.  I went over to make a difference to the sick, poverty-stricken orphans, but I think it actually changed me more.

Several months before leaving, 6-South, my section from Bel Air Middle School, partnered with me to collect school supplies and books for the village school near by where we would be working.  I had learned these 300 children have five students sharing each desk in a block school building without electricity or running water.  Poverty is so great that kids don't even own their own pencil!  I thought I could make a difference in that school so we collected so many supplies they couldn't begin to fit in eight large suitcases.  These generous donations have to be shipped in a large container along with many boxes of books to start a library in a school that doesn't even own one book.  We also provided fun games, crafts and a colorful parachute for VBS.  The students were thrilled beyond words because they had never before handles scissors, colored markers, or even seen a parachute, things I took for granted for years.

This is an area where I saw children wearing the same stained clothes every single day, and they have no idea what Christmas or birthday presents are.  The sincere thankfulness for our efforts was sometimes shocking.  It was so rewarding to hand each student their own toothbrush and toothpaste donated by our local Harford County dentists and orthodontists.  There was so much excitement and smiles over a gift as simple as receiving their first toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste!

One day we were on the 40 minute walk back to our lodging.  We had decided to move around like the locals, which meant walking everywhere.  We could have ridden in a vehicle, but we didn't want to look like pampered foreign visitors so we walked frequently to be accepted by the local people.  On our way back, we passed a tribal village where the children rarely see people with white skin.  When we walked by they came out screaming "Musungo, musungo" which means, "White people, white people!"  They were smiling and pointing at us.

Our small group stopped walking and took time to start playing and trying to communicate in English with some of the teenagers.  English is the official language of Zambia, but there are many tribal languages in the bush.  My brother, Brendan, had a soccer ball and started playing "football" (as most of the world calls soccer) with the bare-footed guys.  Shoes are too expensive for anyone in this village.  I spent the 15 minutes with the young children teaching them a song in English with hand motions and then a game of Duck, Duck, Goose.  They were quiet and stared at me like I was a very important person.  They learned very quickly with lots of smiles.  We all enjoyed meeting each other, but realized it was time for our dinner.  My brother retrieved his soccer ball as we started walking away, but they were following us.  Brendan then turned towards them and tossed one of the boys his soccer ball and hand motioned for them to keep it.

With the joy of every birthday and Christmas surprise compressed into that moment, the boy's eyes got huge as all of the kids started screaming, laughing and running back to their village holding this gift in the air.  You see, they were talented soccer players, but their "ball" had been plastic garbage bags rolled together tied with twine.  They had never had a real soccer ball before, so the joy was amazing.  The jumping, screaming and laughing continued for a long time as they disappeared into the straw walls of the village.

I stood there, frozen in time for several minutes with my family.  Most of us had tears streaming down our cheeks as we realized what a difference we had made to a group of forgotten children.  Such appreciation over one used soccer ball, shared by a whole village of about 100 kids, was convicting to me.  We receive I-PODS and cell phones as gifts and don't have near the gratitude.  It's so easy to make a difference in this area of the world.

Because of my brother's soccer ball, it opened a relationship with this village.  We actually became invited guests within the tall grass walls of this private tribe, a feat which is unusual for non-Zambians, especially muzungos.  During our stay, we helped a boy named Dyson with an ugly burn, a little girl with an ear so infected it was bulging, and another fearful girl crawling around like an animal with damaged legs who was terrified when we got near her hut.  Our family pharmacist had donated a box full of antibiotics, creams and vitamins to use, so we shared those needed medicines, healthy snacks and more importantly, hugs.  By the end of two weeks, they knew us by name and loved us as much as we had grown to love them.

I mainly worked with the younger kids and babies, sometimes just holding and rocking them.  In this area, where AIDS has wiped out their parents, kids are raising kids.  For the babies I held, rocked and sang to, it might have been the most love they had felt in their short lifetime so far.  It was so hard to let them go.  I really want our family to adopt a couple of these orphans and bring them home to America to give them a fair chance at life.  It really wouldn't be that hard to make a major impact in the world if every family that could afford it would adopt an orphan.  There's so much love tht could be tapped into and a lot of empty spare bedrooms that could be put to great use!

I believe I made a difference this summer half way across the world in a country called Zambia, Africa.  I made new friends and have a strong desire to go back again in 2008 instead of time on a cruise ship like we had every other year.  I want to collect more school supplies, teach a few more songs and games, paint cottages being constructed, and even clean up oxen poop from the yard like I was assigned one morning.  (Not my favorite task for sure.)  I truly want to make a difference. . . and I think I am well on the way.  Will you join me?