Pictures!!

The children at the orphan school. They come from the neighboring villages and are very vulnerable.

The orphan school at the mission.

Some of the kids at school - Mufuka, Jemimah, and Panda.

Our homes away from homes.
Clarissa's tent is on the left and Carlie's in on the right.

The access road to the Mutoya mission base. It's quite sandy and you need a 4x4 vehicle to drive it. The view in the background is what we get to look at everyday.

During our boat trip down the Zambezi River, all the people ran to the shore waving and shouting "Makua, makua," meaning white person.

On The Toot!

and so Chantal says the South African saying goes, on the toot means to be very busy and on the go which seems to be our everyday from sunup to sundown. but has been such a blessing to stay so busy in such a place!

Sunday we led both sunday school services so we did not get to see either service but as we heard the second service was in complete SiLozi and not translated like last week was super crazy awesome! Everyone had the nicest things to say about it. Jones, the man we helped with the bad leg, came for his first time. We chatted a bit with him and a few others after the services over some provided coffee and tea and even managed to learn some more of the local language. We waited after a while outside of the country lodge (where church is held for now) and heard the guards talking about mukua (so we knew they were talking about us) and waited for Mutinta an Onella, two girls from the youth group we meet with, to walk down. They finally arrived and they took us own to the town hospital through some streets and then to OK2 Restaurant where we sat and chatted a bit. They were having quite a bad day because one of their friends was found in a river in Koama on Friday who they had known since primary school. We ran over to buy some buisuits (cookies with creme) and then arrived back at country lodge just in time to watch Facing the Giants with the young adult homecell. After finding two taxis for the way back to base we stopped to fetch more buiscuits an while hanging out in LInas house, i ended up eating most of them and had quite a tummy ache the next morning. But that turned out to be a few days sickness.

Monday we went to the orphan school and then we were getting ready to start the first weeks of art class with ladies from church. But apparently I looked a little disheveled and Marinette and company suggested I take a nap which I welcomed. Clarissa stayed busy with the art class (which is for ladies of the church with no jobs and very little money) and then we went to the OK restaurant to have our final hang out time with the fellas. They went to Muwawa for most of the day but we all met up to go to eat. We had a lovely time and then loaded Chris and Ivan to Lusaka for their trip home. It was very sad to see them go, they provided much entertainent and great american company. I still didnt feel well so we declined for coffee an went to bed as soon as we arrived back on base at like 22 hours.

Tuesday it was quite weird not waking up the boys for breakfast or hearing them around the camp but I was still sick so I got up with Clarissa then retired back to the tent after Jill gave me some hydrate. Later she checked on me with buscuits, and then a few hours later with some jelly (jello). She was very kind to keep looking after me! It was lovely being looked after so kindly all the way in Zambia! Clarissa CRAZY kept busy ALL day. She ran her two older classes at the orphan school, then lunch all by her lonesome, then we took laundry up to Jess' which mostly she took care of, then went back to do the art classes again, then back up several times to hang up our laundry and put more in then hang up again. We went to jess' and Clarissa and her had veggie burgers loaded with so many things. We sat up with Chantal an chatted with her family for a time making assessmet charts for the next day but I had a bad headache so we retired early again about 22:30.

Wednesday we woke up to go about 30 minutes away to Namushekede orphan school with Chantal. We arrived and there was no teacher and few children so we went to visit the tiny cute market. The school was held in a church builing made of bamboo and straw. The teacher never arrived so Clarissa started assessing the children with Irene the interpreters help. They knew little to no conversational English so i walked around and we mostly just starred at eachother until one started drawing in the sand. So I got down with her an drew letters and pointed for her to do so and soon enough all the other children were gathered writting in the sand copying the letters and numbers i was making then I just said a letter or number and they were draw it. I cant believe I had a whole school day just in the sand. By the time Chantal got back from her meeting the other kids had gotten out from other primary schools around the village and heard there were mukua so they also came to watch. One informed us that the teacher had not been there for the past 3 days so that is why there were so few children an also that the person who makes their porraige had also not been there since the previous Friday. Apart from this upset, this school is a commuity project made so that if all the mukua left the school would not collapse, but we do work along side them to provide some support and manegerial help. We arrived back and prepared for art class again but most of that time I ended up finally connecting on the phone with MY MUM! then caught a ride to the leadership meeting with zander and linda. The power is still out at the community hall so most of the meeting was held by two lantern lights. All of the missionarys who live on the base were invited to the van collers for bry dinner after the meeting of lasangua, boravorst, steakish, and butterrolls (of which i ate quite too much because all I had eated was a few crackers the past days).

Thursday we woke up and im actually still a bit sick but I cant stand just sitting around doing nothing so i went to school and i think the movement actually helped a bit and by lunch I was fuly prepared to gorge myself. I caught a ride with Shontell (ive been spelling it wrong this whole time) to shoprite and picked up some healthy food for me and the woman so we can finally start getting some good stuff in us so we can stay upbeat. While we were there, some other americans came in too and i couldnt help but to stare. We said we were real zambians now cuz we just stopped an watched the new mukuas shop around. haha. Then we helped Jill and the ladies do another art class of making beads out of newspaper an making beautiful paintings on cloth. The profits of these will go to the village of hope orphan community. We are beginning to grow quite fond of seeing them and their children everyday and see them create and laughing when they called us our Lozi names Longuwey and Enungey. Juliet an declan have also joined us to make some art while its here. Then I went uphill and we are going to keep lihannas cats fed and grass watered while she and the others are away in Fuo (i opened my big mouth the Jess and we will be watering her sand grass too, haha). Clarissa finished the bindings for the needed books while i lamenated some more (which we have been doing in our 'spare time' after lunch before art classes for a weeks time). These giant flip books will be heading out to the way out bush where people do not know how to read or even know what a pen is. So they will be left with them and used as the village Bible as of sorts because they are just pictures of different stories of the Bible. We headed to Jess' then to cut some more art stuff that will help the people remember what she has told them because they cant just open up their Bible to remember the stories since they cant read. While clarissa and james finished typing up exams for the pastors at the training center, I watched jess make our supper. Everything it consisted of was something i had never had; maggi noodles (similar to ramaan), sweet chili sauce, pizza herbs, milk and mayo dressing, baby marrow, butternut, and then strong peach juice. They were taking so long so she just kept adding toppings. It was funny of note!

The pastors at the training center are leaving tomorrow for their own villages, most of which are hours away. It will be so quite without them having class and breakfast and lunch and dinner and sleeping all around us. We interviewed each of them in between lamenating and whatever else on tuesday and got to know then quite a bit better. One of them had 7 children and another has 9! They also gave us names, Mbyoti (blessings) for Clarissa and Sepo (hope) for me. They keep asking us when we will come back..

I am very excited to be giving the orphan school children donated beanie hats in the morning because when they come in it is very early and very chilly and they are mostly almost shivering because they have little cover. Also Lihanna gave us the body soap, laundry detergent, and vaseline that we give them at the end of every month. Tomorrow will be like Christmas! It is crazy but these kids are almost taking over my mind. I missed them too much to stay away another day. Tuesay when i didnt show i was heading down to get some water and one of my students was climbing the hill to leave and saw me, came running saying something in Lozi, jumped up for a hug and waved his picture he colored at me, and it pretty much made my day. Then Monday when it was free play time Mukubuta who has difficulty doing most things on task or anything school related that we encourage, like even coloring or counting to 5, came to sit on my lap, and just free drew in my notebook which she always refuses to do. then turned my notebook over and without me saying anything started counting the dots all the way up to 20 which we were sure she couldnt past 8! I was so surprised i yelled for teacher Margret to come and give her some praise. Even though today she wouldnt not listen to anything i asked. ohhh kids. :)

Right now we are busy making 140 invitations for a ladies get together July 4th (be praying that many show up and loving fellowship is had). Later we will be making about 50 mens invitations for the same day with the theme of 'men as heads of the household' with the thought of bringing many in with that but then showing them they most also be servants as well (also be praying many show up and learning is had). Tomorrow we will hopefully finish some namecards we actually havent started yet and clean out and prepare all the tents for the van Collers home church Table View team coming in onn Saturday from Capetown.

yeah.. so... very much so on the toot. but incredible thankful for it!
God is working some crazy things in Western Province!

thanks for the prayers.
love!

Carlie

Beautiful views. Amazing people.

So its officially been a week plus some since we have arrived in Zambia but it feels like weve been apart of this project for years. It is so easy to fit into the peoples lives and feel immediately like a family here. Monday we went to the harbour and went on a boat ride up one of the estuarys of the Zambezi with Linda, Ivan, the 4 person team from Capetown and guided by Pastor Teddy from a nearby village. We always feel like celebrities when we go anywhere, but especially riding up the middle of the river the people would all wave and the children would chase the boat from shore shouting 'Mukua! Mukua!' (which is a nice term for 'white'). We drove to the palace where the king of the Lozi people resides during the dry season. We walked through the museum which explained a little of the Lozi culture and the parade that takes place during the transfer of the king in which the people have to turn their back when he passes by. There is also a rumor we heard that the king holds a donkeys tail at all times and whoever is the holder of the tail is the king.

Tuesday we went to the orphan school from 8 in the morning until 13 hours (1 o'clock) then Lubasi took us into the town in Mongu to meet with Vivian who helps lead the youth group at Hope Church. We visited her in her office in the NAPSA building and threw ideas around about what to do with the youth. We decided that each month there will be a party with cake and drinks for those whose birhtday it was, and we actually just finished making a chocolate sponge cake for this afternoon; and we will be creating a dance to the 'Everyday' praise song to perform on a Sunday. Then Lubasi took us roaming around the town and we had cold drinks for an hour talking about his future plans at Cyclone, which is something people do a lot for hang out time. We walked a while down some street to meet Pastor Alex who had influenced him a lot and then down another street to see his church and meet his daughter. We called our regular taxi driver and when we arrived back at Mutoya the electricity had gone out again all over the base so we were invited to join for a dinner over the fire at the bottom with the Capetown team. Oom Pete and his wife made us borovorst which means 'farmers sausage' in Africaans (one the langauges in South Africa). I was a bit afraid at first but it was so delicious I went back for seconds on a roll with chutney. It was so much fun to just hang out with some of the missionaries who live here and share stories.

Wednesday we went to the orphan school again and were on our own for 2 hours while the regular teachers attended a meeting and my kindergarden Kudus made shakers out of leftover bubble bottles and rocks. Then after our usual lunch of Provita crackers, honey, peanut butter and jam and half an apple we helped Jess hammer nails into pipes that were going to be filled with rice and made into rain sticks for the art projects that Clarissa's grade 1 swallows create the next day. We attended the leadership meeting at communuity hall in town which had about 30 members from the church. Paul taught on the cycle that friends and church members go through when building relationships and ownership. This was the first night we had to make dinner on our own. We through some pasta and herbs together and heated up some tomato paste for Clarissa, Ivan and myself while we watched the Passion movie they played for the pastor training center students. Then we came up to Marinettes and met the new Tableview Capetown team of Allister and his wife Jill and made invitations for a party we were throwing for one of the girls at school. After a while of laughing and chatting, Chris from Arkansas finally arrived. He is a junior at UCA, which just so happens to be the same school that Ivan is a senior at. Small world!

Thursday we woke up again to the sound of the pastors harmonizing 'Kemulana' and went to the orphan school and my group made drums out of the used tin cans and plastic bags (notice that this weeks theme is sound?), then had our usual lunch without the boys because they went to weld and fix cars and other such man stuff. We caught a ride into town with Allister and Dave who were going to get the wood for the new jungle gym they are building for the school children! We met up with Josephine who we met the previous week at prayer meeting. After chatting a while and eating African poloni we walked and rode back to her home which consisted of some connecting cement rooms with a tin roof full of doves. She bought us cold drinks and left and we chatted with her 18 year old son Steve about his life. Then he escorted us on our second ever minibus ride to the corner before Shoprite. Then we walked down to shoprite where he had gone to. He felt bad because he misunderstood where we wanted to go so he escorted us around the store, pushed our cart, unloaded our bags and then carried them. We bought him a soda and he arranged our minibus ride back to Mutoya and even protected us from the crazy guy who hangs around Shoprite. We met up with Lihanna, put our bags away then headed out early with her to do her nurse duties with someone in town who has had a swollen leg coming and going for 13 years now. None of his previous attempts for help worked so now he doesnt even clean and protect it, so she dressed the swollen but deteriorated leg and gave him deworming medicine because it was too expensive for him to buy. The we gave him a ride to where we have church at the community lodge. We attended the prayer meeting and prayed for all of the churches in the provinces in Western Zambia of which there are quite a few but some are weak and still need lots of help which is why the people here do so many week long outreaches to the different villages. The four of us Americans with Lubasi joining ate at Lihanna's a delicious Africaans dish that started with a 'b'. We chatted over coffee-hotchocolate mix and watched a tiny bit of the Bourne identity but everyone was falling asleep so we retired to our tents for the night. Chris and Ivan already work so well with eachother and are full of jokes (my favorite is the one about throwing lizzards on people) and laughter.

Friday we almost didnt have the party because birthday girl, Queen, has been sick for 3 days, but she showed up a little after school started so Marinette quickly baked a cake while we hurried to wrap her present and decorate the tent school with balloons and signs. The kids played musical chairs and limbo before we sat them down and the pink marshmello coconut cake arrived just in time. Queen had obviously never opened a present before, even turning 5, because she had no idea what to do so we and one fo the girl missionary children, Juliet, helped her and then put the new necklace and rings on her. Friday is sports day so we had some competing loudness songs like 'This is the Day' and 'We love Jesus, yes we do, we love Jesus, how 'bout you' which was so amazing to hear shouted over the surrounding villages, then they just played around the rest of the day. We chatted with the new couple, then journaled and emailed, then Melonie (who cooks all of the pastors meals) taught me how to make shima which Clarissa and I ate with some leftover soup. I finally took a shower after a few days of being tackled into the sand by the kids. Later we figured out how to make crape-like pancakes and tomato paste mince because the boys decided to ditch the idea of cooking hamburgers over the fire. They had got smores makings earlier so they made a fire while we cooked in the allpurpose kitchen. We sat by the fire with Lubasi joining later and eat mince pancakes, cinnoman sugar pancakes, and then a butt load of smores. We worshiped a bit and then had prayer for us as a team. It was so lovely speaking out and praising God overtop of the villagers next door who were making a racket as well like usual. I think we all want to start doing this every night. We all chatted for a bit afterwards and the boys ended up moving cots in together because their tents were so big alone. Oh boys and their slumber parties. :)

Saturday is a lot of needed rest day. Slept in till 8:30 then ate breakfast together and after some preparation finally started baking the cake for the youth today which smells wonderful and now were going to get some leftover mince and pasta lunch!
Pictures possibly coming soon.

The community here is just outstanding. Wow again to you God!

Carlie and Clarissa

Hakuna-Matata!

as told by one of our friends, the wonderful phrase from Lion King is actually in the local SiLozi language and does mean 'no worries' and they use it quite often! Meeting all of the missionary couples that live in the Mutoya compound has been such a blessing. Each brings their unique gifts to the project. Paul pastors and his wife Marinette markets for the project and raises their two kids; Zander heads and builds the well projects in the rural villages and his wife Linda cares for incoming teams; Dave heads building projects and his wife Chantal is on the worship team, schooling, helps community projects nearby and caring for her three kids; James preaches, heads bible school and his wife Jess teaches art and helps wiht the orphan school and both of them head the young-adult home cell group; Lihanna is the nurse and helps medically; Laubasi does everything including leading the youth group, is on the worship team, translating for the pastor training and doing all kinds of running around and networking; and Steven and Margret are the teachers for the orphan school. The team that resides here is so wonderful and helpful and cheerful and connected and so full of the Spirit. It is such a blessing to see them work together to build up this community in Mongu.

All of them will head out to different villages spordically to spread the gospel for about a week at a time. James preached this morning about 30 minutes away in Muwawa, a team came back from about 6 hours away, and a team at the end of the month (hopefully including us) will travel 15 hours to Fua. Clarissa and I are falling right into place here and feel like we have been here for forever. We help teach different ages at the orphan school in the morning, attend both Hope church services (which were full of energy and passion) and help lead the sunday school, attend the youth group and the young adult home cell. Each has its own surprises and blessings from the local people. Hopefully we will start meeting townspeople and start going there more to meet them in their homes.

We have been quite spoiled as far as food goes. We are supposed to cook for ourselves but have only made sandwhiches for lunch the past two afternoons. We are usually chatting during lunches or dinners and are invited. Marinette invited us for homemade 'pizza' with her lovely family before they went to finish a video and we watched a movie with jess while her kids slept. We has wraps with Jess and James the other night and chatted about everthing and then ended up singing childrens songs for hours tryin to think of new ideas for sunday school. Then tonight we got a surprise last minute invite from Linda and Zander for pancakes and mince along with Ivan who stayed behind from the previous Chi Alpha team. The bugs arent so bad but we still have yet to see animals besides cows on the flood plain and cats and dogs running around in our compound. The view from the road or the van Collers house is one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen. The night sky as well is too gorgeous for words. Hopefully we will remember to get our camera out one of these days to capture it for yall!

I love it here. Seriously woah. and yay God for sending us!
Carlie

WE HAVE ARRIVED!

On Monday, June 8 Carlie and I met up at Dulles Airport. Both of our parents and Adam waved us off as we walked through security. From Dulles we flew on a baby-filled airplane to London. On the flight we were immediately submerged into the English culture as all the flight attendants were British (we lost it when one asked us for our "rubbish"). After arriving in London, it took us an hour to figure out how to leave the airport. However we did eventually find the tube and left to explore London. As it turns out London is not nearly as big as one would assume. It took us merely an hour to visit Buckingham Palace (we saw the guards through the gates), Westminister Abbey, and Big Ben. We also ate some pancakes (after exchanging money to pounds) overlooking the River Thames and the Congress building and spoke to Constabile Chris. We were both exhausted so we headed back to the airport and slept. From London we had an 8-hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya and then from there a 3-hour flight to Lusaka, Zambia. We actually saw Mt. Kilamanjaro from our airplane window. It was really easy getting through customs and security and London and we were immediately greeted by our cab driver, Boisy. He was gracious enough to help us get money changed to Kwacha and then drove us to the bus station. Zambians are extremely helpful and friendly and so we were swarmed by 6-7 bus station workers as soon as we arrived and almost led Carlie away to a different bus. Boisy helped us purchase our tickets and made sure that we were sitting in our seats before he left. He also let us borrow his phone to call Marinette which was great to finally hear her voice. We finally left the bus station and headed to Mongu after an hour of being solicited by all the Zambians roaming around. The bus was full of people (we were the only white people on the bus) and it made several stops along the way (we were never quite sure if we were at Mongu yet). Zambia is a beautiful country to say the least. Unfortunately we didn't see any animals while traveling. The bus ride took about 7 hours and we arrove in Mongu at 10:00pm (it was really dark when we finally got here). Paul met us at the bus station and we drove 10-15 minutes to Mutoya, the mission compound. Marinette fed us some curry beef and rice dinner and Jess showed us our accomadations. We both have a tent to sleep in and we both have cots to sleep on (what a surprise, Hallelujah!). Actually there are 3 goats here that have made their homes on our porches. We were able to sleep horizontally for the first time in 3 days, unfortunately we slept in and were late for our first breakfast date. Today, Thursday, we have been busy meeting the different missionary couples who work here and they have told us all that they do. I think we will be very busy helping with their orphan school and with their children's ministries. People are genuinely friendly and helpful. We also drove in to town to buy our food. This place has far exceeded our expectations and we are excited to see what the next 6 week hold for us. We will hopefully be able to shower for the first time since leaving sometime this afternoon.

Just a note, I didn't experience any motion sickness in all the looong days of traveling. My only sickness has come from being congested and my stomach being upset.

Clarissa, with many details by Carlie

Night Before Takeoff

More things could still use some planning and confirmation but we are going to trust that they will turn out well all in good time! We are excited to be heading over to Europe for a sec then off to Zambia. I am pumped to finally get to meet the couple we have been conversing with for the past 4 months... they have put up with so many rushed and worried questions in the recent weeks and have been so encouraging. I cant believe we will be in Africa in just two short days; a dream of mine since middle school and commitment God's Plan all finally stirring into motion!
destination set.
community supported.
money gathered.
bags packed.
now just to get my parents to let us get on the plane:)
start praying now... okaaay and now... alright now is good too.

stay courageous!
Carlie