go read psalm 107

well, it's thursday morning of the strangest week i've had in zambia yet. one of the summer staff girls ended up in a zambian hospital overnight (praise the Lord she is doing much better), another summer satff-er almost got deported this morning due to some passport confusion and that's only summer staff. over at camp we saw a precious 5 year old girl with HIV, one sweet boy with leprosy, another girl who was born without a private part and can't control her urine. she is 15 years old. the logistics of trying to help some of these children is a bit overwhelming and i feel that prayer is often my only answer. that, and putting the stories out there and hoping people will be affected by what they hear/read and maybe be moved to some sort of action. i'm not going to lie and say that this week has been glorious or that it has been easy. it has been plain frustrating. there is one exception to the frustration though. the girl my family sponsors, ireed, i was able to go and visit a few weeks ago. to be honest, i was really upset with the whole visit. while i was with her, i found out her father had passed away 3 weeks earlier. though i knew her father was abusive, i was still thinking of this situation in an american context where death is viewed as a tragedy. his passing i believe was a gift from God. also while talking with ireed, i learned that even though she was supposed to be attending chitanda basic school, her father basically has been refusing her education and forcing her to attend the same community she attended 2 years ago when i met her. the school system in zambia is a bit of a challenge, so i will explain it. you have 3 types/levels of schooling. community(lowest), government(medial), private(best). the community level is pitiful and is often simply a way for the locals to make some cash. there can be up to 200 children to one "teacher" with this "teacher" only having up to a 7th grade education themself. school only last about two hours a day and kids are often abused. community school is a joke of an education to be completely honest. this is the level of school that my little girl's father was forcing her to continue to attend even though through her sponsorship she could afford up to the best education offered in zambia. the second level of education in zambia is government which is broken up either by primary school (grades 1-7) or basic school (grades 1-9). government schools are a large step up from community schools with generally good teachers and about 5 hours of school per day. the top level is private school. family legacy provides their own private schools called "lifeway christian academies" that are reserved for sponsored children. ireed's father refused to let her attend the wonderful matero LCA where she would learn to read and write and become a well-educated member of zambian society. he even refused government school, the second level of education. ireed has been left with the lowest level of community school. i also know that mwitendwa, the community school she has been attending, is particularly awful. a few days ago, some of family legacy's zambian staff went to ireed's house to go and speak with her mother about ireed attending an LCA. so far, she has said she is willing to allow her to attend the matero LCA! they are meeting with her again within the next few days just to be sure, but if things continue to go as planned, ireed should be attending the matero LCA within the next week or so! this is a huge answer to prayer due to the fact that her mother is also abusive therefore, i thought she might feel the same as her deceased husband about ireed's education. the Lord is good and He provides. who knew death could be used for good. He makes all things new. ireed will be at camp next week as well! i will see her on monday. initially, she wasn't going to be able to come to camp because everyone thought she was attending government school and we can't pull the kids out of government school for a whole week. since she isn't, she gets to come to camp and i will get to see her precious face for a whole week. again, GOD IS GOOD. if you don't believe that yet, you should. amidst all the HIV, leprosy, satanism, what have you i can tell you even more strongly than ever that He is good.  psalm 107:1 give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love endures forever.

ruth means "friend"

ruth on the left and thelma on the right :)

today was just one of those days where i don’t know where to start. I am overcome with joy, filled with sadness, completely disgusted and praising the Lord all at once. to start off, in a previous blog I mentioned where the name “chikondi” originated. at camp life 2010, there were three girls who were not in my group at camp, but would come and give me hugs and talk to me. they gave me the Zambian name “chikondi” meaning “love” in Nyanja. I never knew anything about them, not even their names but I always felt special that they had given me a name that symbolizes the very essence of God because God IS love. I held on to that, even naming my blog after the name they had given me, as you can see. now, fast forward to camp life 2012. today, I am lining up girls to get their pictures taken and the line was unfortunately long so, I began talking with some 15 or 16 year old girls while they waited in line. we ended up talking for maybe 20 or 30 minutes and the girl, who I later learned was named ruth, asked me if I had ever been given a Zambian name. I began to tell her the story of the 3 girls at camp life 2010 who gave me the name chikondi. she interrupted me to tell me that that was her and the girl, Thelma standing in line next to her who had given me the named chikondi. (I’m not sure where the 3rd was) I almost started crying as they began to recount the entire story to me from 2 years ago. these girls have now been coming to camp life since 2006 and are continuing to grow in the Lord. they are absolutely beautiful, so intelligent and speak wonderful English. the girls go through the line and take their pictures and I don’t see them again until the “big group session” a few hours later, which is where all 1000 zambian orphans at camp for the week meet up to hear a message, sing, dance and watch a skit. (needless to say it is absolute wonderful madness) after the big group session, ruth comes and finds me somehow in the tangle of children and hands me what is likely her one and only stuffed animal. she says to me “auntie chikondi, I want you to have this.” I kept asking her “are you sure? are you sure?” and she just kept saying “yes.” quite possibly one of the most selfless acts I have ever witnessed, especially once I found out more about this precious girl. about an hour later, me and another summer staff-er, Rebecca, were sent to help in the prayer and blessing room, which is where children with extenuating circumstances are sent for extra prayer time. we prayed over child after child, heard horrifying story after horrifying story and then lastly I look up to see my sweet ruth walking in. I was instantly nervous because the stories that come into that room specifically are very painful and some of the worst at camp. the Zambian accompanying ruth begins telling us about her life. we find out that this 15 year olds mother and 4 siblings were killed by a witch doctor shortly after, ruth also watched her very best friend get her throat slit by a witch doctor. last year, ruth was kidnapped by another witch doctor where who knows what was done to her. by the grace of God, ruth was returned home and is still alive today. Ruth loves the Lord but is constantly tormented by the witch doctors in her community and lives in fear that they will kill her. this is her reality day in and day out. I sit here writing this trying to process this girls life in the best way I can and my faith is increased. this girl who has been tormented and literally could be murdered at any moment just for choosing Jesus Christ so selflessly gave me, an American, who is completely financially stable compared to where she is coming from, most likely one of her only possessions. of all things, a stuffed animal. an item of comfort when you are scared alone in your room at night as a child which, is likely every night of her young life. Jesus Christ is alive and well and I saw Him today. He revealed Himself to me through a 15 year old girl who has a faith a thousand times stronger than mine. she is living the gospel. she has nothing but still gives. thank you jesus, for ruth. on to part 2 of today. going back to lining girls up to take pictures, there was one group of 10 girls that came through the line. when asked the 2 zambians leading the group where their American partner was they told me that it was a “zambian only” group meaning that there was basically not enough American volunteers to go around and so this group did not get an American counselor. the Zambian leaders told me that the girls had been pretty sad about not having an American counselor and had been praying that the Lord would give them one. Rebecca (another summer staff-er who I mentioned earlier) and I were working on organizing picture taking together and both happened to be standing there listening to this. Rebecca and I both don’t have groups this week due to the fact that we are on summer staff and so we primarily focus on more “behind the scenes” stuff and make sure camp runs smoothly.  Rebecca and I aren’t exactly allowed to have a “real” group but we told them that we could both be their adopted americans and we would come visit them and hang out with them at camp when possible. they were so excited and would not stop hugging us. I told them to see how good God is that He gave them not only the 1 american counselor that they had been praying for but 2! honestly, these girls are so special to me already. I can tell the Zambians working with them have enjoyed having me and Rebecca come and play with them and are keeping us updated on their situations. while we were in the picture line, one of the Zambian leaders took one of the girls from the group aside with me and told her to take off her jacket and show me her arm. the girls name is agness. she is 10 years old and has 2 infected wounds the size of a baseball on her elbow. I don’t exactly know how to describe what I saw, but I have a weak stomach and just thinking about it makes me nauseous . I told her that I would later come and find her to take her to the nurses tent. a few hours later, I did just that. I started wandering around camp past the 91 groups that weren’t my girls. group number 64. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I see approximately 10 small children charging at full speed towards me. they literally tackle me and I fall to the ground. these girls 100 percent have my heart. I barely know their names but I love them each so much. I find agness and take her to the nurses tent. my friend, laura, who is the camp nurse reports the wound to some head camp life staff who end up deciding to take agness to the hospital. it is literally that bad. what we believe happened is that she fell and fractured her arm/elbow and scraped it up pretty bad. no one ever took her to the doctor and the scrapes began to get infected. Agness’s family decided to take her to a “local clinic” aka a witch doctor who clearly tampered with the wound. It is now healing very strangely because we are pretty sure the witch doctor put some sort of herb into the wound which simply infected it worse. the witch doctor also decided to make two larger holes in the wound to “drain the puss” which has only grown the wound to a much larger size. sweet agness just sat in complete silence and sat staring straight ahead while the nurse cleaned her wound with hydrogen peroxide. I watched agness as silent tears began to fall down her checks but she never once complained. I gave her some tootsie rolls, advil and prayer and took her to the big group session where shde began to cheer up. I am praying for agness tonight as she is weighing heavily on my heart. a few hours later, all of the summer staff-ers began inventorying large boxes of shoes when a staff member walked up and asked for 2 volunteers to go into the prayer and blessing tent. Rebecca and I were chosen to go. keep in mind that I was with rebecca randomly when we met “or group” of girls in the picture line. as we were walking over, the staff member started to tell us about a group of ten girls that were currently in the prayer and blessing room that had many problems. Rebecca and I were both a bit nervous as we had never worked in the prayer and blessing room before and it can be rather intense. we walked in to the room and OUR GROUP of 10 girls was the group of 10 that the staff member had been talking about. they were all in there together and they all needed prayer. It was so cool that we got to prayer for our girls and that it happened to be me and Rebecca together again. God is intelligent and arranges situations in such a unique way. I was literally blown away by everything that happened today. lastly, to give and update on ireed, seeing her on Saturday was so wonderful. she is so grown up now and will turn 12 on july 7. also, she can read!! she read psalm 5 beautifully to me out loud. unfortunately, there has been a lot of tragedy recently taking place in ireed’s life. 3 weeks ago, her father passed away and a few days later her grandmother committed suicide. It is now 6 children to one mother. Ireed’s mother is abusive and the whole situation will probably be escalated now that she is the sole provider of the family. I literally sobbed the whole time I sat in their house. I just felt so broken. I had to sit there and look at her mother in their small 2 room house.we dropped off about 2 months’ worth of food and then ireed came with us to do some other food drops. we had a wonderful time talking in the car and I realized how much I had missed my little girl. I can’t really keep writing about this or the tears will start again. I have never been in a situation where I feel so helpless. I know that my baby is in a terrible, potentially life-threatening situation and there is nothing I can do to stop it. the Lord is teaching me to trust Him with my child. I like to fix things and fix peoples problems. this time I can’t. I am an insignificant human and God is God. He is stronger. Ireed’s mother is an insignificant human. God is God. He is stronger. God can intercede in a way that I can’t. He can change the heart of an angry child-beating woman and He can protect my baby from the pain that her own mother’s hits bring. I trust You with Ireed, Lord. that is all I can do and that is what He has been teaching me these days. I am pretty sure that wins the record for world’s longest blog post but I had a lot to say and I am mostly just trying to process. writing everything out really helps me to think clearly. the sad thing is, is that is currently 2,024 words long and that still isn’t enough. there are details left out, moments forgotten and emotions cut short.

 what it all comes down to, is that God is good. today He gave me exactly what I needed and He is sustaining me. the other night I was really upset about Ireed’s situation and randomly flipped open my Bible and began to read. God spoke directly to me. the LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. psalm 146:9

my day in misisi

here’s to my first blog post in Zambia! CAMP LIFE WEEK 1 IS COMPLETE!! average number of hours of sleep per night = 4. number of nature valley granola bars eaten = 11. number of roaches I have killed in my villa = 3. number of children filled with the joy of the Lord today leaving camp = 1022. making the lack of sleep, granola bars, and even the roaches completely worth it. It is 11:18 PM on Friday night in Zambia right now but they go off army time so really it is 23:18. It has been nice not having to deal with AM and PM.  yesterday, i  was able to go into a compound called “misisi”. in nyanja  (the language spoken in lusaka, Zambia) the word “sisi” means hair and “mi” marks the possessive. therefore, “misisi” can mean “anyone’s hair”. I was proud of myself because i figured that out with my linguistic skills and checked with a local Zambian and was correct. so, shout out to professor chris sams! I’ve been learning in linguistics ;) anyways, moving past my linguistic moment. misisi was crazy. the word compound simply refers to what you may think of as a village, neighborhood or community. this week at camp life was the first time in camp life’s history that misisi kids have ever come to camp. misisi is a very dark area that is hard to reach. we have never even been able to get in there until this week. I was among the very first group of americans bused into misisi. likely, the first time these people had seen a large bus driving through the streets of their compound let alone a bus full of muzungus (white people). While we drove through the streets child after child shouted “MUZUNGU, MUZUNGU!!” I have been to a few other compounds in lusaka but this one was the most horrifying I have seen. directly after exiting the bus I turned the corner around a one room house to smile at a little girl and I look up to see about a football field size swamp of sewage with mounds of trash lining the edges. I focused on the little girl to get my mind off of what I had just seen, which was hard considering the thought that this 2 year old lives steps away from this deathly lake of sewage.  I said goodbye to her and her family and re-joined the group.  some local children started gathering around the muzungus and my friend laura brought me up to one young girl sitting on the outskirts of the group alone. she smelled awful and had something crusty all around her mouth but I instantly loved her. I looked at her and she looked up at me with her arms up. I picked her up and held on to her. I started asking her “ndiwe ndani?” which means “what is your name?” and she just kept grunting at me. I was a bit confused but just kind of smiled and went on with her in my arms while she hugged me like she was never going to let go. I quickly noticed that when I was with her the other kids wouldn’t touch me or really get near me. I started noticing their whispers to each other and picked up on her name in their conversations. from what Nyanja I know and the look on everina’s face the comments weren’t friendly. this girl was an outcast. for a minute I thought of putting her down and playing with some other kids, being selfish and getting more attention. instead I decided to try and feel how everina felt for a little while and be an outcast with her. I continued to hold her and tried to make her feel as special as I possibly could. her teacher came up to greet me and informed me that everina could not speak. she told me that she once got very sick and since then could not speak. I took her over to one of the Zambians that works for family legacy and asked if we could pray for her. we did and though nothing miraculous happened in that moment I am continuing to pray for her and that she can speak again. include sweet everina in your prayers. I have never seen a child so desperately in need of love living with such a constant lack of it. God is the ultimate healer and I believe in a miracle for everina, even though I may not be there to witness it firsthand. furthermore, as we walked through misisi there were piles and piles of trash with hundreds upon thousands of flies enjoying each pile. the kids often barefoot walking through piles of mystery garbage that may contain who knows what, a nail? a piece of glass? an old knife? there was one point I legitimately thought I was going to throw up. around me were hundreds of beautiful, precious,wonderful children smiling up at me trying to impress me with their best English and then just 3 feet further down was accident upon accident waiting to happen. that was the first time in a long time I have been truly disgusted by someone’s living conditions. as much as I wish I could fix everything, I also know that God has a plan and He loves those precious children more than I do. I trust Him with misisi. other than misisi, camp was wonderful. Being on summer staff is probably the single most tiring role I have ever played. the Lord is teaching me all sorts of things. things different than what I expected. He is teaching me how to be a servant in the ways that I am not naturally gifted and though that may not be as enjoyable for me at times I am learning such valuable things. the other summer staff girls are excellent. we have really bonded and get along like sisters. I couldn’t have asked for a better group. I know that was really long but thank you for reading <3 who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. romans 8:34

i will be posting about my time with my baby ireed hopefully later today depending on internet access and time but i hope you have enjoyed reading this! :)  your prayers are much appreciated!