I am a blessed child

This is the post for Sunday, just now getting it up because of electricity and internet difficulties.

I think one of my favorite things in Zambia has to be the singing (after the babies at the Haven of course). I love Sundays here because they are FULL of singing. The church service this morning was wonderful, the speaker reminded us to think carefully about the meaning behind the Lord’s Supper. The communion part of their service is filled with singing and scripture readings which are helpful to me in staying focused on what’s truly taking place. Of course I don’t know the words to the songs they sing in Tongan but it doesn’t matter because I know the words are from the heart. Because Mrs.Merrit and her eldest daughter Jennifer are back this Sunday there were lots of kiddos at church from the Havens. Jennifer leads a children’s Bible class in the court yard of the school and it is wonderful! I have some great videos of the children singing Bible school songs in both English and Tongan. Jennifer taught a bible story and then asked if we had any songs we’d like to lead. Four of our group got up and lead Deep and Wide and The Hippo song while the rest of us spread out amongst the kids and demonstrated the hand movements.
We had a smorgashbord of leftovers for lunch and it was all wonderful as usual. Then it was time for the traditional Sunday afternoon nap. I did some reading and dozing before I finally got a good solid 1 hour nap. You wouldn’t believe the noise I woke up to, RAIN!! Yes RAIN! During the dry season! It started off as a quiet tick tick on our tin roof before the bottom dropped out of a full blown thunderstorm! I couldn’t resist sitting on the porch to read and watch the rain come down, the lightening streak the sky and the wind blowing through the tall grass. I just kept waiting for a herd of elephants to come trumpeting across the front yard! Haha Webster the night watchman has assured me that that won’t happen but hey a girl can dream right?!
Church tonight was an awesome experience as well. The singing was spectacular although the speaker was a little harder to understand tonight because of a thick accent, every 7 words or so was about all I could pick out but I did understand that the only way others are going to see Jesus is for us to be Jesus to them. Apparently some of the kids from the secondary school took the lesson to heart and there were about 12 prayer requests and 4 wanting to be baptized after the service. We were dismissed from church to walk over to the Hamby house for the baptisms in the back yard in a small watering trough. I’m pretty sure most every student was there to welcome the new brothers and sisters into Christ’s family.
Philippians 4:4-5 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”

All dressed with no place to go

The morning brought a slight shift in the routine I’ve settled into. Rachel wasn’t feeling well so I filled in her spot working with Caroline and Jaime in the feeding group. Which means I didn’t get to spend my morning with “The Lost Boys”, but they didn’t seem to mind so I tried not to let it hurt my feelings either. I worked with Darcy and Meagan on sitting up and holding their heads up. Caroline has taught us that feeding and swallowing in babies is very much a holistic sort of function and strong muscles are the key. I also got to hold and love on the twins, Kelsey and Kelly some. They are still trying to recover from the stomach bug so they were pretty slow moving today. (Fingers crossed that we don’t all get round two of that terrible experience) Mrs. Kathy Merrit was back at the Haven today. She and her husband Roy are the missionaries who manage much of the goings on around here. She’s spent most of the week at the hospital with a sweet baby named Memory who had some heart surgery. Upon her arrival she checked in on all the kiddos and was so sad to hear that the babies and our group had been sick. I asked her if she’d gotten to see the newest baby (Joe) she said that she just had and that she was thinking of naming him Nathan or Hunter…haha so now I don’t know what his name is...I called him Nathan Hunter Joe all afternoon, maybe we can get all that worked out tomorrow but anything’s better than “Problem”.
This afternoon I handed out the lovely little dresses that sweet Reagan Grubbs made for her 4-H project. They are sweet little sack dresses that tie on the shoulders. The Aunties were thrilled and there were just enough dresses for each of the little girls at Haven 1. Even ones small enough for Kelsey and Kelly, they looked darling in them!! I took lots of pictures and I will post them as soon as I have internet available that makes it possible to upload pictures. After helping everyone get bathed and the girls in their new dresses it was time to get the boys out and let them romp. I put Jack, Elias, and Bester on their tummies to work on pushing up and crawling. Elias is making the most progress; he even rolled over by himself!!! We had a bit of a dance party off that little move haha!!
Well I’m gonna wrap this up and hit the hay. Haven’t been sleeping well the last few nights, so hopefully my Tylenol PM will help me to get some rest and not feel the lovely bars on this bunk bed. Goodnight!!

Crab Crawling

Today at Haven 1 was pretty rough. About half of the kids in every room are suffering from the stomach bug. Cranky, crying, hurting tummy babies are hard to deal with when you just got done feeling like that yourself. Poor little Elaine could not be soothed. I rocked her for what felt like hours this morning while her fever broke and she cried herself to sleep. Luckily the two smallest ones Hamilton and new little Joe (whose new name stuck thank goodness) are not sick and both are eating well and looking good. Caroline has done an amazing job this week, Hamilton is alert and his cheeks are even beginning to look chubby! The Aunties are thrilled and so are we. The "Lost Boys" all seem to be feeling pretty well too and I had all of them out and about running around most of the morning. They are hilarious!
This afternoon Elias needed a little attention so I got him out with the boys and put him and Jack on their bellies to work on this whole crawling deal. Jack did much better pushing up today and didn't get mad until Ross the scavenger yanked the little plush puppy dog he was playing with out of his hand. Elias was really happy to be on his belly and had a great time scooting around the floor on his belly...only problem...he goes backwards and sideways just like a little scurrying crab. I also helped with bathing again today. It was Ida that came to me this time "Sarah, come help me pleaseeeee" she said with the sweetest smile on her face. (I wish you could hear how they roll the 'r' in my name) So she washed babies and I diapered lotion and clothed. I'm getting faster but I also try to give each one just a little attention before sitting them back in a bouncy seat or crib.
Our afternoon at the Haven was cut short due to a scheduled tour of the Namwianga radio station. It’s the most powerful station in Zambia and home of Austin the D.J. who is the voice of a well known radio comedy character. They play Christian music, sermons and lessons. The station is very small and located about 100 yards from our back door in a building that sort of resembles a “temporary” office or classroom. It is 3 small rooms, the battery room (for when the electricity goes out here…almost daily), the room housing the D.J.’s booth, and a recording room. The mission is very proud of it and we were glad to see it and sign the guest book.

Moonbow

After finishing at the Haven around lunch time we packed up the Khaki Jackie for an interesting drive to Livingstone. The roads are very nice for about half the drive, but they haven’t finished the entire road project so 15 kilometer “detours” down dirt roads are common. So our 120 kilometer drive took close to 3 hours. I can’t begin to tell you how cramped we were with all our overnight bags and how asleep our rear ends were after the bumpy ride but we arrived at the Protea Hotel in one piece. We checked in then had a little down time before dinner. We were free to choose from several places in the little shopping center down the street from our hotel. Jaime, Lacey, Kaylee and I decided the burger joing “Steers” looked ok. Even though I wasn’t super hungry I managed to eat most of my fries and half my burger. (This should have been a sign to me about things to come) After dinner we went to explore the grocery store in the shopping center, you’d have thought we’d never seen one the way we all went up and down the aisles, I bought a water and a Sprite for later. I also purchased some baby wipes for the Haven, they ran out this week so a few packages will be needed until the giant shipping container that Harding sent over gets here in a week or so. After leaving the grocery store we had about an hour to hang out before leaving to go to the falls around 8:30. During this time I noted to my roommate, Jaime, that I wasn’t feeling great and I thought the greasy hamburger was not being kind to me but I pulled it together because I had to go see the “moonbow”.
Livingstone is the tourist capital for Zambia because it is home to Victoria Falls, one of the “7 Natural Wonders of the World” and rightly so. There are only a few places in the world where one can witness a “moonbow” and Victoria Falls is one of them. During a few select times a year here in Zambia, when the skies are clear and there’s a full moon a moonbow is formed above the falls (Seeing one was our main purpose for the trip to Livingstone). Now one may say, what does a moonbow look like? Well like a rainbow, but in shades of gray mainly. It is one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen. How awesome is our God to create such amazing wonders. I got some really great pictures of it thanks to my nice camera, I wish I could post them for you tonight but alas here at Namwianga picture uploading is not possible.
Well there are several trails all around the Falls that lead to different views, at our third stop to take pictures etc. I began to feel very very sick and I said goodbye to my supper. I felt much better after that and assumed all was well. But I would be sick again before the end of the night. Since no one else seemed ill I thought it was just me reacting to more grease then I’ve had in a few weeks. As soon as we got back to the hotel I got ready for bed, took a Pepcid and proceeded to enjoy the nice bed at the Protea.
The next morning Meaghann said that she got sick during the night too, I was automatically afraid that we might have picked up some food poisoning but I was feeling fine. Next Marja, Jaime, and Ian all complained of upset stomachs…uhoh…we didn’t all eat at the same restaurant so we’ve come to the conclusion that our little projectile vomiter at the Haven must have passed her virus on to us because all of us had been around her for significant amounts of time. Our drive back from Livingstone was not the most pleasant ever even though only Ian was truly ill during the drive. Stomach virus+ Africa= no fun. We are all mostly recovered tonight although I have not attempted anything stronger than plain rice on my tummy. Hopefully all are well enough to spend time at the Haven tomorrow; mainly we do not want to spread anything we have especially to Haven 3.

"The Lost Boys"

First I will fill you in on what happened on Wednesday. We started off at The Haven; Caroline (a feeding specialist from Nashville, TN) is working with several of the infants that are struggling with eating. This tends to be common among babies that are medically fragile and even more so among those in orphanages. Her work is tedious but it's rewarding to see these little guys eating well and looking alert. So she and the other students immediately head to that room in the Haven and I go across the hall to the boys’ room, I lovingly refer to them as, "The Lost Boys". There are four precious little ones in this room, Peter, Jack, Shawn, and Ross. Ross always wears a grin and he's the only one of the 4 that can walk although they are all old enough to at least be pulling up. Shawn wears a constant face of worry unless he is in his bed, where he seems the most content. Peter is a chunky little dude who has an easy smile and a full set of teeth. Jack is the one that concerns me most, he will barely even roll over, something a baby half his age is generally capable of (he can sit up unsupported which gives me hope). So my first chore of the morning was to get them all in dry diapers and out of their cribs and in the floor to play. Ross was out of the room like a shot, headed to the common area for toys. He's a scavenger and always comes back with a toy in one hand and something he's not supposed to have in the other, like...4 pieces of broom straw. He's wearing a grin like he's the greatest hunter around. The weather is beautiful here so I decided we should go out and swing on the back porch. After securing each in a swing we probably ended up swinging for close to an hour. Ross and Peter being the only two that truly seemed to enjoy our outside adventure.
Next I took the boys into another room, it's the home of Bester and Elias (twins), Jana, Courtney, Elaine and Miller. These guys are all just barely old enough to sit up so I put them in bouncy seats and arranged "The Lost Boys" on the floor so we could do some singing. Thank you Mrs. Donna for preparing me thru helping with cradle roll class. We sang, God Made the Big Round Sun, Jesus Loves Me, If You're Happy and You Know It and I asked each little one several times, Who made you? and then told them GOD DID!! Jana was sooo cute imitating all the hand motions and even attempting to say GOD DID!
Throughout the morning I had seen several unfamiliar ladies talking with the Aunties, and then Dr.Weaver said that she thought one of the babies mothers had died in the night and Dr.Tullos had taken one of the men at the mission in to town to make some arrangements and sign some papers. Well actually it wasn't one of the current Haven resident’s mothers that died. It was a mother that died in childbirth and her little one is the newest member of Haven 1. He's tiny and precious. I asked the Aunties what his name was, which they told me...in Tongan so I asked what it meant. Beatrice said, "It means, Problem". I looked at her in shock and said, "No Ma'am! We are not calling him Problem, I think he looks like... Joe. Yes, Joe!" Beatrice agreed that we could call him Joe. I hope the name sticks; no way can this sweet little one be a problem.
We didn't go back to the Haven Wednesday afternoon because we had a half day planned to drive down to Livingstone and see the moonbow at Victoria Falls. I'll write about that adventure in a separate post.

Rocking Elaine

Day 2 of being at The Haven brought lots of baby rocking. When I first arrived the babies had just been given bottles so I just picked up one and headed to the rocking chair. Miller is a tiny little guy that has the face of a grown man. He's very rigid and is not used to being held much so it's sort of like holding a 2x4, but he will smile and respond if only given a little encouragment. The other members of our group at settling into a nice routine of language classes, enrichment, and dealing with feeding issues. I have been trying very hard to form a good raport with the Aunties because as Dr.Weaver warned us they are very standoffish at first and by no means do we want to overstep their regular routine. That's why today after lunch I was so excited to hear my name called by Beatrice. She's the Auntie that takes care of the room thats home to the youngest babies. She speaks English well and has a welcoming smile so I had talked with her and expressed my want to help. Well while I was rocking Elaine, a precious little doe-eyed baby girl, I hear "Sarah!, Come!" so I hopped out of the rocking chair and headed towards the bathroom, where it was time for Elaines bath and I was promptly handed Meagan wrapped in a towel post-bath. Beatrice instructed me on what clothes to put on here and told me that it was my job to lotion, powder, diaper, and clothe each little one as she got them out of the tub. YAY!!! Sweet clean happy babies! Even after the vigourous washing they get I'm pretty sure I managed a smile out of each one. I'm positive that I don't accomplish the task as quickly as one of the Aunties might but I got them all done and sitting up in their bouncy seats and was quite happy with the results :) I then proceeded to help Beatrice change the bed linens and do some straightening up. I think that good things will be happening now that I've proved that I can handle whatever Auntie Beatrice throws my way.

Progressive Dinner

The Haven is a beautiful place, not just because there are paintings of Curious George and Winnie the Pooh on the walls and not because the little playground in the courtyard is full of colorful swings but because the children there are beautiful souls who so badly need just that little extra touch of attention to be able to thrive. Again I will let it be known that the Aunties do a wonderful job with meeting the day to day needs of feeding, changing, and bathing the 60 or so little ones that occupy the 3 houses, but there simply are not enough hands or hours in the day to give each one the individual hugging, holding, and loving they so desperately need. So today I started at Haven 1, the house that has the smallest babies and those who are relatively “healthy”. Auntie Beatrice put me straight to work feeding some of the smallest ones, Hamilton is approximately 2 months old and weighs all of about 4 lbs. He’s tiny and we are all so scared for his well being. He doesn’t eat much and often can’t keep down what he does eat. In the states he would definitely still be in the NICU but here he’s in a room with 5 other tiny ones and he’s shown no special treatment. So my job, hold a baby, feed a baby, fresh diaper a baby, hold them some more and then move on to the next. I hate putting one down to pick up the next but I can’t stand to see the twins, Kelsey and Kelly laying there as I hold Hamilton knowing they need the attention just as badly.
So as I struggle to split my attention between so many I’ve learned a few things. I move pretty quickly when a baby projectile vomits, I do gag when changing stinky cloth diapers, you can pick up a Zambian child by 1 arm like the Aunties do and it won’t hurt them a bit, and even though I think its plenty warm its winter here and Zambian babies want to be bundled up like Eskimos.
After this long day at the Haven I got to come back to the B&E house and try for a shower. We have a pretty good schedule worked out so that all of us can get at least a lukewarm shower. After several days of either cold baths or “baby wipe” baths I can’t begin to tell you how amazing a lukewarm shower is. Leonard had a grilled cheese and fresh garden tomato dinner made for us, but little did we know we would eat 2 dinners tonight. The mission decided to have a welcoming party for us and they fixed a feast for us, sang to us in Tongan, and honored us with a “Nice Cake” (yup that was written on the top in icing a special trait of Leonard’s world famous cakes). It was a wonderful experience and gave many of us chill bumps and brought tears to our eyes as these lovely people showed us their appreciation.

Pop Tarts

HI! Well today started with breakfast on our own here at the B&E house. Our cook, Leonard, has Sundays off so it was up to us to rustle up cereal, fruit, toast or whatever else we could find. Worship service here on the mission started at 9 am Zambian time...So that means it started when the majority of people got there and others continued to trail in for another 30 to 45 minutes. The service was mostly conducted in English with a few Tonga songs thrown in for good measure. They sing many songs that most of grew up singing in the church so we are able to sing along even without song books to such tunes as Joy to the World and What a friend we have in Jesus. Although the melodies of some are slightly altered from our versions we have really enjoyed learning them the Zambian way. Some of the kiddos from The Haven got to come to church so most of us had a baby in our lap for the entire 2 and a half hour service. Those kiddos can eat more goldfish and cheerios than any other toddlers I've ever seen. Most of them were very well behaved and entertained themselves well with the hair bands on our wrists and our bibles. Dr.Weaver had the most energetic little guy but she handled him like a champ. After service we headed back to the Hamby house to heat up leftovers for lunch, we're all so thankful for Leonard's wonderful cooking. After lunch we all decided a short rest was in order. We worshiped here on the mission again tonight at 7 and some special singing by the students here followed the service at the mission. All of the songs were in Tonga but we enjoyed listening to their beautiful harmonies. For the last hour or so we've been getting prepared for our busy week that starts tomorrow with language classes for the Haven kids, of course we did all of this by candle light because the electricity around here is just not reliable. A few other things that we’ve found to be unreliable include hot water and o yea just plain water. Apparently there is some sort of pump issue and although the water here is wonderful and totally safe to drink some days it just doesn’t want to make the long trip from the well into our faucets. Showers are coveted and warm showers even more so. We all try to go with the military style of water on water off in between soaping up and rinsing off so that everyone has a shot at lukewarm water at least. Let me just say… my hair looks lovely! Haha! Thank goodness it’s really quite cool here during this lovely Zambian winter.

The Haven

Sorry the posts are sort of few and far between. Our group is learning that the internet and electricity are no guarantee here at Namwianga. We have settled into our house here on the mission and it is really quite lovely by Zambian standards. There are some creepy crawly wall spiders and other strange bugs that we either steer clear of or find the closest flip flop to squish them. Our group is getting along very well and filling the lulls in our time at night with Zumba work outs and board games. So far the schedule for each day is breakfast at 8:30 followed by a trip to town or the George Benson college, lunch at 1, afternoons are spent at The Haven. This is 3 houses full of babies from newborn to toddling. One house is specifically for children that are AIDS/HIV exposed. The other house is for the younger babies and the final house is the toddler house. Starting Monday the rest of the group will be working on language enrichment classes and swallowing/feeding issues. Since I'm not taking the grad school hours I get to bounce from house to house helping the "Aunties" with whatever needs to be done. Today while at The Haven for the first extended period of time we learned that these kiddos just simply love to be held. The Aunties do a wonderful job taking care of so many little ones physical needs but there simply aren't enough hands for holding all these sweet little ones. At one point this afternoon all 7 of us had atleast 3 babies in our laps. They are quite content just to sit their resting their sweet little heads against our chests, but it is pretty funny to see the jealousy between them. I was holding a little boy named Sam, and a girl who's name i cant recall but they kept pushing each other away. Sharing a meal is fine, sharing some attention does not go over well. I took some beautiful pictures of them and as soon as there is more reliable internet I will do my best to upload some.

Insect Repellant

I guess I missed this little tid bit last night due to pure exhaustion but I'll share it now. Our hotel is very very nice. I have a feeling that these are the nicest accommodations we will be in the entire trip. It is so nice here at the Protea Hotel in Lusaka, Zambia that they offer every amenity a lovely breakfast, awesome restaurants where we ate last night, all the essentials in the bathroom such as soap, shampoo, lotion and INSECT REPELLANT!!!! You know you're in Africa when the hotel offers you insect repellant!!!

Zambia!

Most of you know, I'm a well seasoned world traveler with such far off destinations as Australia and Italy under my belt, but did you know that even those trips can't compare to the 3 day adventure it takes to get to Zambia, Africa! Sunday evening we flew out of Memphis, to Atlanta a fairly uneventful experience minus the one scare that the airline was only going to let us take 1 checked bag each! HA! Dr. Dean B. Weave set them straight :)
Being the HU Department that we are of course the first stop in the ATL airport was for food, in Terminal T, our flight was leaving out of Terminal E..the complete opposite ends of the airport. But On The Border was totally worth the "Home Alone" style sprint thru the airport after receiving a text from B.Weave saying "RUN to E31 RUN!!!"
We finally arrived in D.C. only to find that our hotels shuttles stopped running at 11 and it was 12:30, then our luggage came out on the belt only to find that our one extra bag with equipment in it had been mauled by the belt. B. Weave, being the champion traveler she is handled it all with ease. We all loaded into Taxi's 24 suitcases in tow for 5 hours of rest before heading off Monday morning to Zambia via, Rome, Addis Abebba, Zimbabwe, and finally Lusaka, Zambia. The flight from Zimbabwe to Lusaka was probably the worst due to the lack of belief in air conditioning and deodorant within the African nation.
Our arrival in Zambia was met with the usual headache, late luggage for over half of our group. We had a quick switchover at Addis Abebba, Ethiopia and not everyones stuff made it. They tell us that it should be here tomorrow or the next day for sure... **Fingers Crossed for the girls that don't have all or any of their luggage** For once mine all showed up and luckily some of the girls had stuck stuff in my extra suitecase so they atleast have deo and tooth brushes!
Our hotel is very nice and I'm pretty sure that after 3 days of non stop travel the shower I just took was one of the best I've ever had. We're 7 hours ahead of Arkansas and even though its only 8:30 pm Tuesday night I am exhaaausstteeddd.

Fro Yo, and not the ice cream place

Well folks, I AM A COLLEGE GRADUATE! yay!!! Saturday morning marked the day of my freedom from college life, and my move back into my parents house! haha! Graduation was long but I'm very glad that Dr.Ganus was the speaker. He did a great job and kept it short which was awesome since there were about 550 of us walking across the stage. In my usual fashion I couldn't just walk across stage without incidence. As I prepared to go up the stairs and receive my diploma I noted to a friend that I should have used bobby pins to keep my lovely hat on my lovely curls...but alas I did not because I was running late getting ready as usual. (Maybe I thought my hair would act sort of like velcro and just hold my hat on!) I did well walking towards Dr.Burks even shaking hands and receiving my empty diploma cover (diploma to be mailed in about 6 weeks) but as I turned to walk off the stage...well my hat just popped right off my fro-ish hair..that's right..the whole place got to witness my hat go flying off and bouncing across the stage! ha! I gracefully scooped it up and proceeded down the stairs. Not quite as exciting as the time there was a proposal at HU graduation, but I did receive several text messages eluding to my hat issues. O well what's a major life event without a good story right?! (The image above was taken moments after I stepped off the stage by the lovely Brittany Denton.)