We are back! 40/40 is over and we have returned to Nampula. Thank you so much for all of your prayer support! We really appreciate it and we know God was faithful to answer them! 40/40 was an excellent experience for us and we are so grateful that God blessed us with the opportunity to go. It was definitely not what we expected, but it turned out to be so much better than our expectations. Bear with us as we try and summarize our 5 week journey! Our journey began with us traveling from Nampula, Mozambique to Lusaka, Zambia. We stayed in Lusaka at a Baptist seminary dormitory for 13 days where we went out with our Zambian assistants (local pastors and members of the Baptist churches in Zambia) to “engage Africans”. This was a lot of fun as we were able to go out into the local communities and talk to them about several different aspects of their culture. We talked to them about health, medicine, missionaries, church, etc. This was very informative for us as we learned so much about how they live and how they think. It was also really neat for us because many of these encounters led to us being able to share the gospel with them. It was such a wonderful experience to share this Good News and other Bible stories side by side.
After only being there a couple of days, Jenni’s assistant became very ill and was hospitalized. Because he was ill on a weekend, there were no doctors to treat him. Jenni went to visit him and found him being treated for Malaria….but he did not have malaria. Her assistant had a severe stroke. Jenni felt so helpless. She tried so hard to convince the nurse there to reevaluate the patient’s diagnosis and treatment. Then she tried to have the family get him transferred, but that would go against “the culture” and cause further problems with relationships with the medical staff. A day later, Jenni’s assistant died. It was so sad. He left behind an 11 year old daughter. It really made us realize the desperate need for good medical care in this part of the world. We take it for granted in the US, that is for sure. So many people die here, because either they do not have access to a doctor, or they are completely misdiagnosed, or the physician doesn’t work on nights and weekends, or the people care more about what the medical staff would think of them if they got a second opinion than they do about their dying relative, or they simply cannot afford treatment. Whatever the reasons, the situations here break our hearts.
After 13 days in the city of Lusaka we headed out for bush camp for 13 days. We went to a rural town in eastern Zambia called Petauke, so we could experience the rural side of Africa. This was a lot of fun and a good experience as well for us. However, it was a big difference from life in the city to life in the villages. In our bush camp we faced some delightful challenges: we stayed in tents, pumped our own water at the well, used squatty potties, took some bucket baths, washed our clothes by hand, killed some gigantic spiders and scorpions, and listened to the “demon drums”, etc. It was kinda freaky. We were told that these drums were played loudly to worship the evil spirits. Every night we would hear drums and it always seemed like they were getting closer. We had to keep thinking that “greater is He who is in us than he that is in the world,” and pray that one day those same people could be drumming for Jesus and not evil spirits. Our time in the bush was definitely an unforgettable experience.
We didn’t really eat anything too bizarre during our time in Lusaka and the bush camp. We ate nshima every day, with a variety of other things. Nshima is an African staple and is eaten throughout most of Africa. It is a combination of ground corn meal and water and is eaten for nearly every meal, every day except breakfast. It isn’t terrible, but it isn’t exactly wonderful tasting either! There were some termites available in town, but thank goodness they were never offered to us so we didn’t have to partake. The strangest thing we ate was some capenta which are little dried fish with no meat (only bones, scales, and eyeballs!). It tasted like trout, only completely different. We ate these at the end of our time at 40/40 during our homestay. For our homestay, we stayed with a young Zambian couple and their 1 year old daughter (Here is a picture of Corey holding her.)
They live in a district town. This was a lot of fun for us as we got to experience how an average Zambian family lives. Jenni learned how to make nshima amongst other African delicacies, while she also taught them how to make some American dishes. She was taught how to cook with only coals, one pan, and no cooking utensils. We realized that people can live so simple. We were humbled and felt guilty for thinking that we “need” so many things to live. This homestay taught us that we don’t need as much as we think that we do.
We did have a funny experience that is just too good not share. While we were at our homestay, we got to experience both bucket baths and squatty potties which in themselves are kind of funny. Anyway, one day as we were taking a bucket bath, Corey set his hat upon the ledge which separates the squatty potty from the bucket bath. Then he accidentally knocked the hat over onto the squatty potty side. He couldn’t see where it landed, but only hoped that it didn’t fall into the 3 meter deep feces hole. Thankfully it had not fallen in, but instead it landed perfectly on the hole which was still pretty disgusting! We gave it a good wash though and Corey continues to wear it and represent the first place Utah Jazz everywhere we go.When we completed our 3 night homestay, we traveled to a resort for a few days to debrief our experiences. We were so happy to see steak and not nshima! After we finished with 40/40 we were blessed with the opportunity to visit Victoria Falls. If you’re ever in Zambia or Zimbabwe, we highly recommend visiting this magnificent piece of God’s creation. We will post some pictures and thoughts of this a little later. Also, we wanted to share with you all a note of praise and thanksgiving to God. While we were at 40/40 we found out that we will have some new supervisors, Eddie and Janice. This is a big answer to prayer as we have been without leadership for awhile. Eddie and Janice will be moving up to Nampula in February and we are so excited to have them as our new leaders. Now we are back on track planning medical clinics with a sports ministry. God is so amazing!
Here are some prayer requests: Please continue to pray for God’s leading and direction in our ministries. Please pray that God would help us to be disciplined in our walk with Him. Please pray for spiritual refreshment and safety as we travel to South Africa Dec27-Jan3 for a prayer retreat. Praise God that he was merciful to our stomachs during our time in Zambia. Other than a 2 day stomach flu, our stomachs did amazingly well.
God Bless You. We love and miss all of you so much and pray that you have a blessed Christmas!
