Ladies of the Light

On Saturday, the Ladies of the Chisamba Dutch Reformed church hosted a tea.  There were 11 of us from the Village of Hope who attended at the invitation of Erna, one of our teachers and the wife of the pastor.  The teachers, housemothers, aunties, Kimberly, visitors and couple of others went.  It was held at Fringilla and was a lovely event, held on the verandah of one of the buildings there.  Each plate had a variety of foods that might be appropriate for Bible times.  Down the middle of the table were fruits and nuts and other things to eat.  The speaker was a pediatrician who lives in the community but is from South Africa.  In the last year she has had uterine and cervical cancer, surgery and chemo.  She was a very lovely and articulate young woman.  There was music and special numbers.

Ladies were invited to dress up as women of the Bible.  I just wore one of the dresses I had been given in Ghana and took a tambourine.  I was "Miriam" who led the children of Israel in song after crossing the Red Sea.

It was a lovely morning on a beautiful day.

Giant Leaps Forward Every Term

 

It has been a little over a year since we began teaching the children here at our Village. What has evolved is the living out of our principles for teaching/learning of our School of Hope.  As we begin Term 2 of 2009, I look back on the giant steps we have made as each term began.

 

Term 1 – 2008:   We began teaching in the middle of this term with volunteers and using the living areas of the houses where the children lived.

 

Term 2 – 2008:   We hired 2 Zambian teachers and continued using the houses for classrooms, adding the large newly built room of the Guest House – now our living room. We had 3 teaching spaces that we rotated between.

 

Term 3 -2008:  We moved to the 2 classrooms at the Community Center.  There was a rough cement floor, bookshelves, and tables and benches, not painted, and no walls high up so sound traveled easily between rooms.   I set up a "Director's desk" in the big meeting room that was filled with hundreds of boxes and other things that had come over on the first container to arrive.

 

Term 1 – 2009:  The big room was finally cleared out.  The 2 classrooms were painted and the walls extended between the different rooms.  The floors in the classrooms were finished.  We expanded to use the Meeting room, but it was not painted, and had rough cement floor.  (The problem with the unfinished floors is that there is always dust and it is difficult to keep clean.)  We hired a new Zambian teacher and one left, giving us still 2 teachers.  We hired a mentor teacher, experienced for 16 years teaching in South Africa.

We were up to 24 students by the end of the term.

 

Term 2 - 2009:  We are in the process of preparing for this term.  The large room has a finished floor and the walls are all nicely painted.  We have 4 more large bookshelves.  We are using one of the classrooms for an office and have 3 bookshelves loaded with our "library," teacher resources, and supplies.  There are 2 bookshelves in the big room, and 1 in the other classroom.  We have added some desks and chairs for one room. 

 

So it is always exciting to see the children's faces as they see what has been done.  Classes will start next Monday.

 

 

 

Update:  Matilda

 

It seems to be time for an update on Matilda, the 9 yo (more the size of a 5yo) who was dying of spinal TB when we stepped in to help.  At the beginning of April she came to our house (the guest house where the Schwartz family lives) so that we could tend to the wound she had from a very bad burn on her leg.   During the last 5 weeks, she has been in our home, the wound is almost totally healed.  A ministry in Lusaka has given her a shiny red wheel chair, just her size, and free physical therapy to help strengthen her legs for walking and to prevent future fractures in her hip, legs, and knees.  She knows how to cook on our stove and makes her own eggs (a favorite), shema, and relish.

 

On Sunday, Matilda's mother came to visit.  We made the offer to either continue to have Matilda live in our Village of Hope where we could continue to help with the PT, or to have someone come to their home 2x a day to do the exercises with her and to take her 1x a week to Lusaka for her treatments if she thought Matilda should come home.  Her mother, Alice, said she was very grateful for all that we have done for Matilda and that she is not able to manage her.  She accepted our offer for her to remain here at the village.

 

So our plan is to have her be the first child in the next house, and begin work with the new housemother who will arrive on Monday.  Today Mr. Phiri, who lives in the same Nyrienda village where Matilda's mother lives, saw her outside coloring with some of her friends.  He said what a big improvement there has been in her since she has been here.  He said it was so good that she had come. 

 

So once again God has led in areas we had not considered.  Now we have a child with a major disability who is part of this family.  All the children love pushing her in the wheelchair and having her around.  It sensitizes them to the needs of those with disabilities. 

 

I think the big challenge (and you can pray for us) will be Matilda's strong will.  Her will has helped her survive, but it also can be used when she doesn't want to do what she doesn't want to do.  When school starts next week, she is going to have to fit into a schedule like she has never done before.  But I'm expecting great things to happen!

 

Love Note

 

A couple of days ago, Isaac came to my door.  With his shy smile he handed me a homemade envelope with a message inside.  This was what it said:

"I love Auntie Kathleen.

Auntie Kathleen loves

    me too

God told Auntie Kathleen

   to make the Village

of Hope. That the kids

            can learn.

God we bless you and Ben"

 

The page was decorated with hearts and crosses.  What a wonderful love note and blessing to me!

A Beautiful Zambian Day turned hazardous

I never thought I would see it in Zambia.  Although we had been having big lightening storms in the late afternoon for a couple of days, the storm that blew through yesterday was quite something.  Heavy downpours, pea size hail and so much wind!   The roof on the public toilets by the road completely blew off, metal, wood and everything.  It blew off and hit one of our electrical poles, knocking it down so we don't have electricity at the market.  However,  Mr. Tembo our electrician, said that if the pole hadn't been there it would have taken out the market.  Our front yard became a pond again and in low lying areas there was still a lot of water this morning.  Of course, since no one expects rain now, a lot of stuff that was left out got wet.  I don't think any of those things were damaged, though.  Apparently the meterologists say we could have rain until Friday.  Today has been beautiful with blue skies.

Weekly Church Services Begin

 

Today we began our weekly church services.  Now all of the children and mothers and aunties will be able to attend services every week.  We also had 5 of the contract builders who attended.  I had asked the 4 oldest girls to help lead the singing.  It was a joy to pray with them and began to teach them what it means to lead worship and how it should be done.  Pastor Emmanuel's oldest son played the keyboard and I played the guitar.  Kamau brought the sermon.  It was a joyful time and the message was on Joy.  It is a blessing seeing the children singing and praising and praying.

One Year Later:

 

It was about 1 year ago that we moved into the guest house.  And this week I finally finished all the curtains for the house, and hung some things I had wanted around.  Also the verandah has turned from dirt to cement so that is very nice.  In this year the house has been a great blessing to many, many people.  We are grateful that the Lord has provided such a great place for gathering and meeting and eating.

 

It was also a year ago that the team came from Wisconsin and built the Community Center.  It has been used as a staging area for the contents of a container, a meeting place, our school, and today we began weekly Sunday morning services.  It will be exciting to see the ways it will be used in the future for all kinds of things.