WHAT just happened?!?! (10 years in Zambia!)

There are so many ways this blog could go. Things learned, things loved, things hated, things lost, things regained, perspectives changed, lives improved, love endured…it seems so superficial and kind of impossible to try and reflect on our 10 years here.  Should I recount each year and major milestones in our lives? The lowest and highest points of our lives?  The few times I have questioned, why are we even in this 'God-forsaken' Place?  Or, should I make a sweet video of pictures of us (white) people surrounded by all the needy (black) people, giving credence to the “white savior complex” that has been discussed in recent years?  Or, maybe I should just paste a smile on my face, fold my hands in my lap and quietly and humbly say the platitudes of, “ oh, it’s not really so hard to give up and endure here, because we are just ‘praising and loving Jesus?’”

Here's the thing...I do love Jesus. I do want to praise Him. But life in Zambia has not been easy.  These 10 years have been the most grueling of our lives.  Not without joy, not without love and not without happiness, BUT our patience, endurance and ultimately our faith has been tried, it has been tested. The fact that we are still here in this place and STILL loving each other even more, as a family IS a testimony to the Grace of God.  

Our first vehicle here was a 1998 Toyota Prado. It was bought for a ridiculously high amount partly because it was imported from South Africa by way of Tanzania, by way of Japan. The vehicle is solid.  It’s like a tank. It has taken us everywhere in this country and has kept us safe for 10 years. But, it has been through the wringer!  It has been a great family vehicle because it fit our whole family. Not necessarily comfortably, but there were 8 seatbelts; one of the 2 things we specified when ordering the car. It had to have seatbelts AND air conditioning. The Prado has hauled our kids back and forth to school, friends houses, activities, parties, movies, church and the stores.  It has carried many many suitcases – either visitors coming in or for ourselves going and coming from the USA. It has gone to the markets, and held many live chickens. MANY!  The Prado has driven through or around thousands and thousands of potholes on the road over the last 10 years, taking the hit each and every time.  It has traveled on safari many times, with our kids hanging out the window and sitting on top of the vehicle. It has also been sideways in a ditch when the road was washing away in a rainstorm. We were all standing outside in the rain while our vehicle was filling up with water. And, onlookers were stopping by to take pictures of us all, standing there. 

It remained steady during our unexpected mountain climb over real rocks, sandpits, a few boulders and actual burning logs. – Side note: We realized a few villagers pulled logs into the path sometimes burning as well so that the car would have to stop and then you’d have to find someone to help you move them out of the way, of which you would then “appreciate (i.e. PAY) them”.  What these villagers didn’t know is that my husband would call his older sons out of the car to help him and they would move it themselves! All of this was happening on route to what was supposed to be a de-stressing and relaxing family camping trip at Lake Tanganyika. The Prado has carried supplies for countless projects around the house, for community projects as well as off-roading in the bush to check out where we bought land and hope to build our own house some day. But the Prado is showing its wear and is extremely beat up. Dents and banged up places, holes and screws where siding has been replaced, scrapes on the vehicle, alterations have been made. Zambia has been rough on it, BUT it is still running. Still making it down the road.

 THIS IS US

So many times the last few years as I have looked at the state of the car, I see us.  We just sold it this week so maybe that has me more reflective. It feels a bit like a milestone.  Sometimes I am at a loss to explain why we are still here, why we even WANT to be here when things can be so incredibly hard.  Family and friends still don’t understand it. I don’t even understand it at times.

Is it that life here seems MORE real?

Is it that once we stepped away from our own self-absorbed lives, where the main goal was to hunker down and protect our children and ourselves from the “World” at large and we actually came up close and personal with real need and real human suffering that we knew that we couldn’t go back?

-Certainly we could have had that realization in America, many people do and make a great impact where they are in their own communities, but for us that happened here, in Africa.

Is it because we already established ourselves here and in an unexplainable way it feels like HOME?

Is it that the people we can so easily help and impact here, have become a secondary purpose that gives more meaning to our lives?

Is it the fact that our children have grown up vastly different than they would have and we are glad for that difference?

Is it the gratitude that is expressed for simple things that remind us of why we should ourselves be more grateful? Is that what pulls us?

Whenever you meet another expat, there is an unspoken sizing up of each other based on how many years they have lived here.  Judgments are made, and eligibility for friendships are determined all based on the answer to that innocent question, “oh how long have you been here in Zambia?” and “are you planning on staying?” Sometimes the person answering estimates based on wanting it to be longer because you know there is more street cred for that. Whether it’s the Peace Corp workers, Embassy employees or Missionaries, there is generally a 3 year cycle. At some point in those 3 years you think ok, I have made it, I can now understand this culture, get around the city comfortably, and not feel taken advantage of every time. But, then contracts end, “callings” on your life change, kids needs whether academically, medically or spiritually all compel to going ‘home’ and returning to America.  Those that stay past the 10 year mark seem to really be the ones who have not just changed their address but the entirety of their life. And those are the ones that you feel like have really ‘made it. ‘

Sometimes the newbies coming in don’t always understand what it was like living here before development.  (As I am certain I don’t understand what it was like to live here 20 years ago) Before there was availability of cheese and gelato. Before I could find good pasta or chocolate chips. Long before Woolworth’s brought in their food stores, there was Food Lover’s Market and the upscale Shoprite. The era of Shopping Malls being built everywhere in the capital city didn’t exist. And the Chinese had yet to come in and bring their China Malls, For the Love of Home and E Dargon (which we still think is a misspelling of dragon?) stores where now you can buy most any cheapy tacky thing that you want.  Coffee shops were rare, there was the one in town Coffee Talk on Cairo Road and Mimosa at Arcades. That was all. And way long before anywhere had free Wi-Fi and the country had escalators!

In 10 years, Zambia has developed.

But for all the development, there still are injustices though. For all the coffee shops there still are children living on the streets. For all the gelato and Chinese products there is still corruption and theft on so many levels that actually hurt the country. For the movie theaters that have been built and the 4G networks that have come into the country, there are still hundreds of churches teaching a false gospel that say if you just had more faith you wouldn’t be sick, or if you just give us money then God will bless you with a new job or healing.

And for all the roads that have been built for the last 3 years all over this country, making it easier to get from one place to another, there are still people that don’t know their HIV status passing it on to others and there are still way too many children, women and men dying because of poor medical care, lack of care or lack of money to gain access to that care.

Maybe that in itself is the answer.

10 years in and we are still here.

Maybe that is reason enough. 

Maybe it’s the little things and the big things all mixed up together.

-The singing of people driving by packed into the back of a truck standing together

-The smile of the man receiving an orange and a “God bless you” as he lays in his hospital bed

-The wide eyes of a child who has not seen you before peeking out from behind the mother as you walk through the compounds

-The ability of our children to not only interact with others not at all like them, but at times to want to help them

-The fact that one wants to work overseas in the foreign service in part because of her experiences growing up in Zambia, and that another wrote an essay for college applications titled, “Had I stayed in America”, recounting how grateful he was for his childhood in Africa.

-The woman at the market whose face lights up when I attempt a small conversation in Nyanja.

-The random t-shirt someone is wearing from the used clothing barrels that will remind you of something from another time.  This past week it was a T-shirt from a Trace Adkins Concert. I was sitting frustrated in traffic and just looked over and started smiling.

-Driving out of town and seeing the simplicity in the huts and clay buildings and the goats wandering the side of the road which reminds you to just stop and take a breath

-The beauty of the Zambezi River

-The elephants, hippos and giraffes. Seeing them in their real environment never gets old

-The smell preceding the first rain.

-And the first rain. It truly is glorious. So much tension and heat and frustration and angst seem to build up over months and that first real heavy rain comes and you feel so refreshed you just soak it in.

     We spent New Years Eve at a Safari lodge in Livingstone.  The clientele of the place mostly seemed to be everyone that has ever DREAMED of coming to Africa. Jetting in to see Victoria Falls, going on an awesome safari, maybe even doing a “village experience” where you can see how the villagers live. And just like that, a dream can be realized and off they go back to their lives in their own countries.  Everything was new and exciting for them, and when the DJ asked for song requests at the NYE party just after the stroke of midnight and we entered a new decade, the song requested was “I bless the rains down in Africa.”  We looked around at the Zambian staff and the few other African families also staying at the hotel and hesitated but then jumped right in with the song, singing and dancing. It’s a very emotionally stirring song, and to be there on the banks of the Zambezi River where you can see the Mosi-O-Tunya, (the Smoke that Thunders, coming off the Falls) you can't help but think all is right in the world and man, Africa is surely an awesome place!   It was fun to get caught up in it for a moment but at the end of the day, for us it was just another song on another night in a country that in a strange way has become “ours”.  

     I traveled a lot to the USA this past year. Each time I landed in Zambia, and stepped off the plane, climbed down the stairs, walked across the tarmac, felt the heat slap me in the face and smelled the dirt of the earth, I knew I was home.

A Hospital story

Drops of dried blood trail the sidewalk outside where I am walking. Sad lonely people sit waiting to hear news of their loved ones. A body completely covered with a sheet and a shrouded blanket rolls passed me on a bed as I move along the outside corridors. There’s no warning.  There is no preparation for what you will see and experience in this place.  The overall feeling I have gotten the few times I have visited the country’s main government hospital in the last 10 years, is just sadness and despair.  Or maybe despair isn’t the right word, because I think at times despair can drive you to action or it can drive you to do something. But this, it’s a resignation. Left to itself to think, well what more can be done? I guess this is what it has to be?

Many of the patients at UTH the University Teaching Hospital are there because they cannot afford to go anywhere else. Their only hope for help and healing is there, in this hospital where the poverty of the country shows itself so clearly.

For the last 3 years this place has been on my heart. So much so that at the beginning of the year one of my goals for 2019 was to begin visiting patients at the hospital. The year didn’t start off like I had hoped and so I just now in August found myself thinking I really need to try to find a way to go there.

I had tried to get connected via phone with different people to tell me HOW to go about helping. There are no candy stripe positions or volunteer desks where sweet old ladies with white hair, or teenagers in said pink striped uniforms can give out information and a smile to help those in need.

So, after waiting too long, especially when something is on your heart - one day I was driving by the hospital and just decided today was the day to start “trying”. 

That very week, a post my cousin had put on her FB account encouraged me, it said,  “Be someone who makes someone else look forward to tomorrow”.  

And I was reminded, “yes”, I can be that someone.

So I drove into the massive confusing complex of nowhere to park at the hospital and found a guard who was willing to give me a spot for “the lady”. I parked and began to walk around the hospital. It’s almost impossible to describe the hospital to a foreigners mind… but much of it is outdoors and lots of courtyards. There are lots of people and even more doctors and nurses and wanna-be doctors and nurses milling about.  There is no designated area for the random white woman who wants to help to go and sign in. So I walked around and around. I saw an administration office and thought about it but didn’t go in. Then I walked a second time the entirety of the hospital campus, trying to get up the courage to just walk into an office and start talking. I was nervous. I am not sure why, I think mostly because I knew this wasn’t a typical thing and also I feel often misunderstood in the Zambian cultural context. Its nothing at this point that I can do, but it is there.  So I literally was speaking to myself, “Come on Megan, you can do this. You are strong.  You are brave. Come on…”

Finally I heeded my own advice and walked into the administration wing and knocked on a random office door and explained what I wanted. The gentleman then referred me to another office, public relations.  There I met a nice lady who was happy to talk to me and in fact had a specific person that had needed help.  So I got the proper permissions and wrote the appropriate letters and after that I was given the ok to go to one of the wards and pass out fruit and toiletries and give assistance.

And so the awkward phase of it began.  ME walking around while everyone else is staring at me especially the staff coming up and wanting to see what’s going on and why am I here, etc. But, the good thing was that I was introduced to a young man Jonathon who has been in the hospital for the last 5 months. His younger sister Given is there staying with him at the hospital. They are double orphans and have no other family coming to help them. He is oxygen dependent and so he has had to stay there until an oxygen concentrator machine could be purchased for him. So I started visiting him each week. And this was exactly what I needed to feel comfortable to then go around to all the other patients in the ward on the given day of the week passing out fruit.

On one of my recent visits with Jonathon a man 3 beds over from them in the ward was calling for me to come. He had no strength to even lift his head or his arms but was beckoning me to go by his bedside. I had seen him a few weeks earlier and had given him fruit and briefly spoken to him and knew he was in bad shape. His stomach was very bloated and there in the bed laid a man with extreme malnourishment. Kwashiokor.

Since the time I was a young child watching TV, like everyone else in the Western world, I had seen the videos of starving children in Africa. Bloated bellies, pronounced ribcages, tight skin and lethargy. I had never seen an adult like this, let alone had any interaction with someone. But now right in front of me was a man begging for help. For food.

The hospital provides a soya porridge for breakfast and then nshima and beans for lunch.  Many patients have food brought in to them by the “bedsitter” the person who is allowed to stay at the hospital with the patient the entire time. But this man, Robbie could not eat the food that the hospital provided and he had no one staying with him and taking care of him.  His huge belly over the weeks was seeming to decrease a bit as the fluid was being drained often from his stomach. 

Draining fluid seems to be a very common practice at the hospital, as about every 8-10 patients I visit will have a drainage tube coming out of their side, flowing into an open basin or bucket underneath or to the side of their bed.  So for the past several weeks he just lay on his bed with a single drainage tube coming out of his stomach.

Languishing. 

When he called me over begging for food, I have never felt more clearly the passage of scripture where Jesus says, “I was hungry and you fed me.” So I went to the cafeteria bought him some vegetables and some food and tried to ask him a bit more about his situation and what he could eat.  One of the nurses later came back to me to say that he needed a low protein diet. So when I left the hospital I told him next time I came I would bring him some food.

I thought about him the next several days, and when I couldn’t sleep at night and he was on my mind I started researching Malnourishment- more specifically Kwashiokor. I tried to see what other foods to bring him and so when I went to the hospital on Tuesday I was weighed down with a backpack full of food for him and the fruit for all the other patients in the ward. I showed him the things I brought and offered to organize it in his bedside cabinet. I opened it up and cockroaches were crawling around inside of it. A cup of porridge sat on the top of it with about 10 dead flies in it. I warned him not to drink it anymore, that he needed to throw it out.

From his sunken in eyes, he looked at me and said thank you. I told him that this food was really from God. He was using me but it was ultimately Him that was giving it.

Though the temperature was about 95degrees outside and his bed lay by the window, (windows are kept open as there is no air conditioning and the room definitely needs ventilation) he was covered up in a blanket and was not doing well. He kept telling me that they had brought some medicines and fluid but they couldn’t get the cannula in his arm because he had no blood so they couldn’t give him anything. As he talked to me a fly landed on his face, just like the children in the TV ads- and he couldn’t even wipe it away. I moved to swipe it away from his hollow cheek. 

I finished my visits and before leaving he told a nurse to come bring me back to his bedside. He was asking for help to buy a $3 medicine. So I walked off the hospital campus across the street to the chemist to buy him his medicine.

I brought it back and found an orange in my bag and gave it to him. He smiled and said thank you- I have no one staying here to help me.

Since I last saw him on Tuesday, I found out he passed away yesterday.

Alone.

No one was there with him.

My heart aches. 

I don’t know anything. I don’t know the backstory, or why at the end of his life there was no one with him. I don’t even know his official diagnosis.

But He died alone.

That makes me very sad.

The same week 3 other patients died, 2 of whom I had several interactions with and was seeking to give help to. If I am honest, it has left me feeling so emotionally drained and raw. I don’t even know how to respond.

The encouragement both the kids and James have told me is that at least for this particular man, in his last days, he received kindness.

And that thought,

today Sunday evening, in the wake of a total personal emotional breakdown Saturday morning exhausted and spent, crying more than I have in a while due to life but most especially Zambia hardships of these terrible weeks we have had lately (with no electricity for 12-16 hours a day, water problems and excessive heat)…  

That thought that if I look away from myself and my problems and hardships, I can clearly see some “purpose.” That even a cup of cold water given to this man, was done for Christ.

Bad Grades and Awesome Fulfillment

My worst grade ever in college was on a paper I did for World Politics...or something like that. The class was required for graduation and obviously did not make a big impact upon me as I can’t even remember the specific name of the class.  My major was Child and Family Studies with an emphasis on Child Development.  I was in my senior year and I could care less about World Politics and World Relations. I had found my beloved, we were already married and I was counting down the days until I finished college and we could start a family. Literally, as I was pregnant (intentionally!) during my last semester in college.  

We were told to pick a topic for this paper, so being the child development focused person I was, I chose to write a paper on UNICEF.  Out of all the branches of the UN, being a white privileged young woman who couldn’t wait to have her own children I thought I could most identify with the ICEF part of the organization. The International Children’s Education Fund.  So in between my practicum for the other classes I was taking, and my real life preparing meals, budgeting as newlyweds and working out interpersonal communication skills, I researched for my paper on UNICEF. 

I read, studied, and most of all thought about the children and families across the world and I wrote the paper.  My self-evaluation, when I turned it in, was, “I did well!” 

 My teacher however did not think the same.   

He was a short older man descendent from some type of Middle Eastern, Indian, or maybe it was Lebanese background. I couldn’t really tell back then, anyone outside America was simply NOT American. He had wild longer gray hair and even wilder eyebrows. --Though I really can’t fault him for the wild eyebrows. I come from a lineage of good, thick, albeit bushy if left to themselves, eyebrows :) 

His evaluation of my paper was that he gave me a D.  

An actual D, in bright red ink and quite large on the top of my paper! 

From what I remember the reasoning was that I made the paper too emotional, too passionate. He wanted a more technical paper that stayed on the intellectual level that could be discussed and debated. Functionality and Policies. 

He didn’t want so much feelings on children that don’t have access to proper schools or even to a decent education. He didn’t actually want me to think about the girls that have to skip school for a week when they have their periods because they don’t have access to proper sanitary products or even bathrooms. He didn’t really want me to think too hard and feel too much about children that have no water at homes. Children that have no toilets. Children that are exposed to Cholera and Malaria. 

I guess in the end, the paper was more of an emotive research paper than a scholarly one and he graded me accordingly.   A big fat D. I was really disappointed. Truth be told, not because I was actually going to do anything after college that was going to need me to have a knowledge of UNICEF, or World Politics, but because my fairly good grades and my image didn’t have room for a D.  Oh well. I ranted about it for a few days, packed my college life up in a small box and started my family life. 

I never thought about that D again. 

Until last week. 

Fast-forward 20 years and I am researching online how to teach children about proper sanitation and using the toilets. I come across an excellent resource - 80 pages that is exactly perfect for teaching children in SubSaharan Africa. Illustrations, visual aids, understanding of the culture and the organization promoting this material ? 

UNICEF

I am still smiling now, a week later at the pure irony of that situation. 

We just completed a sanitation project for a school that was closed due to cholera and not having running water and toilets. Children that never have been able to use a toilet or have running water, or use a shower now have access to those things! That is HUGE. 

I was teaching 13 and 17 year old kids as well as 3 year olds, how to wash their hands with running water and how to use a toilet and flush it. Kids that at home have to carry water from a community pump every single day and sometimes twice a day. Now at school all they have to do is turn on the faucet. When I think of that, I am amazed. 

The following is from the water.org website 

Water connects every aspect of life. Access to safe water and sanitation can quickly turn problems into potential –unlocking education, work opportunities, and improved health for women, children and families across the world. Today, 1 in 9 people lack access to safe water; 1 in 3 people lack access to a toilet. More people have a mobile phone than a toilet. We can change this. Let’s work together to make the power of water available to all.

We did work together to make it available to a small mission school and church in a shanty town in Lusaka. WE, the donors and supporters, helped to give the gift of water and sanitation to people on the other side of the world. 

I am still laughing about the D.  Who ever would have thought? Certainly not me. 

The fact that I could be involved in the very thing that I passionately wrote about and then forgot about all those years ago, is just so awesome and fulfilling. And I don’t use those words lightly or often, but it really is. 

Update, Sugar and A Healthy Focus

Wow, It’s been a whole year since I have posted or updated anything on the blog. 

Sometimes I think about writing but then don’t ever find the time or make the time for it. 

I had hoped this year I would have more time but here we are, already in May! 

I closed my bakery at the end of last year. That was the best move that I stressed over and contemplated for so long. In the end, our products were still loved and successful but I had too many employees and cash flow was a challenge with businesses on payment plans. Which all = too much stress.  In the end my work permit was up and to renew it would have been a difficult thing given that I was owning my own business so I would technically need an investors permit which was the very thing that James was struggling through all of 2017 to get. (Talk about Stress!)  Thankfully he got his permit about a month before my permit, which had him and the kids listed on, expired. So the Lord was working things out!  As I was deciding what to do I realized I wanted my “legacy” to be what I do in the lives of my kids and not being that stressed out mom all the time. That and how I can help others.  

I have been so thankful to have more time at home to oversee the kids homeschooling and just to be managing the home better once again. It also has freed up time for the orphan work I do with HOPE, which was a very good thing at the beginning of this year as Cholera hit Lusaka hard and schools and businesses closed. The effects were far reaching and the sanitation project has been very time consuming so I have been thankful to have time for that as well.  As I scrolled through old posts just now, I realized we had the first whole year with no problems with our water supply AND the electricity blackouts that were terrible for so long, are now stabilized. SO a lot of good changes have happened in that regard. 

On the home front, Sarah just finished her second year of college and is half way through. Ian is in his last year of high school and looking at colleges to attend in Aug 2019. His school schedule got off track switching between curriculums as well (American Homeschool, Zambian School, International school with British Curriculum, Zambian School, finally back to American Curriculum) so that in theory he would be going this year 2018 and then Emma 2020 and Caleb 2022. See a nice, every 2 years pattern?  Well, Because we learned from the challenges with switching curriculums Emma and Caleb all started into high school back in the American System, Caleb even a bit earlier. Kind of confusing but the point of it all is that now the next 3 kids will be leaving in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Every year! I don’t know how well this momma is going to handle that. The hardest part is living so far away from America when the kids are going back there for school. 

Everything else is going on well. Since closing the cakery, which had unlimited supply of sweets and treats and a net gain of about 20 pounds over the 4 years of its operation, we are getting healthier again and that has been good. Sadly, I am learning its more about the amount of food in your intake then the amount of exercise. As I was exercising consistently for those above mentioned 4 years, but somehow those cinnamon rolls and daily lattes and red velvet cupcakes couldn’t compete with the exercise. :)  I would honestly rather spend 2 - 3 hours in the gym every day and be able to eat (oh and drink!) whatever I wanted then have to put the kabash on some of those things. But the learning experience has been a good one of discipline as well.  And on that note...Ok all these diets and eating plans that are the fads right now??? Keto, Banting, Paleo, THM, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Dairy Free, Whole 30...I mean what and why? 

But we actually did try one. James went back to the States in March with Caleb and so Emma and I did a “30 day reset”. It was No Gluten, No Dairy, No Added Sugar, No Processed Anything and No Alcohol, and oh also No Happiness - Eating Plan.  I learned a few things from it. 

But first, the reasons that I was even willing to try this were: 

-At the end of the Holiday Extravaganza (which for us is the whole month Sarah is home, Middle of Dec and then culminating with our anniversary at the end of January, where we eat and drink and are merry)  I found out I was at my post pregnancy weight with my last baby. As in, he was born and I went home from the hospital and now 12 years later I find myself back at the same place...Not a place I wanted to stay. 

-My daughter wanted me to try it and ended up being a great encourager! 

-My best friend was on a crazy no happiness diet of her own for medical reasons trying to figure out some histamine issues, 

So I guess you can say the stars aligned and the guys were out of town and we tried it. 

We bought super expensive almond milk, gluten free flour, stevia, coconut oil and a few other things that only in the last 2 years are we now able to find in Zambia. We made our own applesauce to use in place of oil as well and utilized our garden and had salads almost every day.  What I learned is this: 

-You can do anything for 30 days especially if you have the support of others

-Dairy is far harder to “live” without than gluten (ok except when it comes to pasta) 

-Sugar and Oil is so unnecessarily used in so many things.  (Like oil on raisins?) 

-We do a fairly decent job on not eating processed foods since I do like to bake and cook and we don’t have all the convenience foods available to us. 

-Hummus!!!   We started making our own hummus and it is so good and all the kids loved it and now we have hummus and grilled veggie wraps as a lunch menu each week. They all agree the best thing to come from it was Hummus! 

My 2 biggest “take homes” 

-Use sugar, but use it purposely! 

Don’t just put it on and in everything. Sugar in juice, sugar in ketchup, sugar in pasta sauce, sugar in bread, sugar in yogurt, etc. It really is too much.  Rather make something really good with sugar, on purpose. Cookies, a Cake.  It’s not evil or of the devil, but if you are going to use it, then USE IT on purpose!  

-For all the gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, alcohol free 

I actually lost the same amount of weight while on that type of diet, as I did the month before and the month after, on eating regular food reasonably and purposefully mindful of eating smaller portions. 

Anyway, I am blessed to have food. To have good food. In a country that has many people going hungry every day, my “extra” weight is actually seen as a sign of good health and wealth even. I currently have no medical condition that warrants me having to abstain from certain foods which again is also a blessing. I know for many people that is not the case. So I will take the lessons learned, try to continue on in a healthy life of balance and enjoying the things we can enjoy and keep it all in perspective. Wether I lose the last 5 pounds or if I keep it, I want my focus and outlook on life to be the healthiest. I think for all the "health crazed" culture, let's not forget to keep a healthy focus of your life.

Cut throat kitchen - third world edition!

We got DSTV for a month, which happens about twice or three times a year. 

The favored shows are the cooking shows ( among the kids...its not my influence, in fact I DONT like watching them too much, reminds me of work) and then the Amazing Race. 

This past week we have had ALOT of fun and good ideas for those tv shows to be set in Zambia.  Today, we bring you  Cutthroat kitchen - Third World Edition! 

-20 minutes before your meal is done they shut off the electricity. 

Now try to make your meal! 

 -10 minutes later there’s a knock on your door and visitors have just dropped by. 

Now you need to accommodate your meal to feed 5 extra people! 

-For the dessert course you decide on simple no bake cookies that can be made on a gas stovetop, by candle light if need be.  You pour out your flour into your measurement and find that worms are covered in your flour. You sift them out and go to get the sugar only to find that a rat has been gnawing on the sack and has gotten into the sugar. 

-You have enough time to run to the grocery store to pick up more sugar but you realize that they in fact don’t have any sugar in stock. ANY SUGAR. Do you get that? The store doesn’t have sugar...In fact the next 3 grocery stores that you run in to look for, don’t have any. 

-You head back to the cut throat kitchen in a hurry, you are prepared to start fresh on a new recipe. But in the time that it took you to run to the grocery store, the rats have in fact come into your kitchen and left their droppings all over the very counter that you are about to cook on. You reach for the bleach and cleaning supplies, scrub hard and go to wash your hands at the sink, so you can get back to cooking. It is then that you realize there is no water. Not just low pressure, but NO WATER.  The judges were kind enough to reserve some in buckets in the store room and “surprise you” with that token gift. You pull your buckets out to your kitchen splashing water along the way and hurriedly wash your hands. 

-You change your recipe yet again and go to get the UNopened pasteurized 2 liter of milk that is well within it’s expiration date. In fact you bought it yesterday so it most definitely still should be fresh. You pour out lumps into your bowl. It is spoiled. 

You remember the boxed milk in the back corner on the shelf, because in a pinch it can still work well and the taste in the recipe will be indistinguishable. So you open the LONG LIFE milk in a box. That too is spoiled. You then decide to chuck it all out the window, feed the dogs and start over. 

The recipe you decide on?  Sour milk/ buttermilk pancakes...

Throw some chocolate chips in it, and it will feed a crowd. Top with honey since there is no sugar to make your homemade maple flavored syrup. 

Serve it to the judges and smile.  

Que the somewhat emotional yet triumphant music...

The cut throat kitchen session ends. 

The crowd cheers and applauds you. 

The judges are inspired by your ability to change your plan under pressure.You responded so quickly with the worms and the rats. The ingredients were stacked against you. The electricity went out and there was no water. But you didn’t quit. You didn’t give up. So, You win. Not because your pancakes were that awesome. But really, who doesn’t love chocolate chip pancakes?! 

But you won because you endured. 

You are standing tall with a smile on your face.  The judges tell you to look around and see your competitors. You see the man bowed out at the first loss of electricity. He couldn’t even function. And the woman? Do you even think she got past the unexpected visitors and the rats? Not a chance. 

Your prize for winning?

Nothing. A pat on the back. "Good for you. Number 1" 

See, you would have gotten a big hefty check but when the money was wired into the zambian account, the kwacha fell and it wasn't worth much. Still, it would have been something to put in your pocket but someone else saw the opportunity to put it in their pocket and by the time the judges transportation costs and their lunch money were taken out, there was nothing left for you.  

"Welcome to the third world"   

:) 

What it looks like

A few months ago, after James sat down from his preaching at LGWM and everyone said their Amens, Pastor Phiri looked at me and asked me to say something to the church. He said he was asking me because I was "enduring" as he put it, so many things over the weeks trying to help them. 

I smiled, thinking “enduring” is a word I would use for someone that is having a hard time.  Life’s just rough at the moment, their circumstances are hard and all they can do is “endure”. I feel like it is a word that needs to be reserved for something important, real hardships...lump it in with hanging on by a thread, and then you pretty much have my understanding of “you’re enduring”. 

I prepared to speak, but in the back of my mind I pictured many other people and families enduring right now...But what he was referring to, was one day when I came out to his church to get supplies for building materials. We were driving around and had to check on prices at several different places downtown and had to heckle with people even over parking places and prices of items. We went to Buseko and had to walk through the mud and rocks to the builder, and as Phiri said, I had insults being said to me. On that one I knew in general  when people are saying things, but I don’t know specifics because they always say things in Nyanja - most likely just inappropriate things which were more embarrassing for the guys with me than it was for me because I didn't know what they were saying. We then had to go back to the other side of town talking to a few different welders about a gate for the church property. 

It was just a long day. 

So I stood up and told them that it is funny he mentioned those things because after that day as we were driving around and the air conditioning wasn't working in the car and it was dusty and hot and I was hungry. (Because those last 2 always factor into the comfort scale!)  I was thinking to myself, THIS is what helping orphans and needy people is like. It’s not the stuff that makes it into the tv commercials or advertisements about orphan care. It typically doesn’t even come up in the letters written home to supporters. 

What helping people looks like is...

Doing what needs to be done, no matter what it is or how comfortable it is.

It’s sweatiness. 

It’s smells...lot’s of smells

It’s dust

It’s heat

It’s complaints and being taken advantage 

It’s being expected to just give handout after handout. 

It’s finding the balance between helping and empowering someone to do for themselves and giving them a gift and doing for them. 

It’s rarely sitting on the floor on a carpet or chitenge with needy children circled around you and gathered in your arms reading books and singing songs... ( insert pictures of flowers in your hair and laughter all around - if this was the case this would be my favorite part!)  

It’s disappointment and heartbreak when kids drop out of school for what they think is a “better life” only to come back years later knowing they made a mistake.

It’s wrestling through what to do when a girl gets pregnant and their own family couldn’t even provide enough food for them to eat or pay for their education and now this “child” is going to have a baby. 

Helping looks like, caring more about other people than your own comforts. 

So I told the people gathered in the church that day,

Sometimes we may have our own ideas of what we want to do to serve God.

But it doesn’t always work out that way.  

Many times it looks totally different because it is not exactly what God wants from us. 

So hot long days running around with what may seem like pointless errands and tasks, keeping up with receipts and money might be exactly what helping people looks like. 

We have to be open to whatever it is, even or maybe I should say, especially when it isn't what our own expectations were... 

What helping people looks like is... a willing heart, to do anything that needs to be done, for others. And when our heart is willing, and when we are thinking of others, the personally inconvenient and uncomfortable parts don’t even matter and can't even be said to have been "endured". 

*This post is from several months ago that I just now got around to writing. 

Look for the next post soon on more “exciting” / “upbeat”  encouraging news of what helping is also like...  But you had to first read this one and experience it with me this way, before the other.  :)