BEATING THE DRUM
Hallo dear friends and family!
No, we have not been eaten by lions or trampled by elephants! Nor have we forgotten about our blog! We are “Beating the Drum” in Zambia and life for us has been kind of crazy (and internet slow), but we are doing good!
It feels like we are doing a mini World Race / African Race of our own! We started our travels in Cape Town (SA) visiting Kriek’s family. During this time Jumbo flew to Swaziland where he had a good meeting with the board of Bulembu. We left Cape Town for Jeffreysbay, Eastern Cape, where we spent the weekend with friends while also doing some AIM related work things. After this we visited Jumbo’s parents for a few days in Kuruman, Northern Cape; left and then attended the Beat the Drum conference outside of Pretoria. We had to leave before the end of the conference to pick up two AIM Ambassador teams at the airport and take them to Swaziland. (Some of our friends sent us a package from the States with the teams and we were really excited to receive our package.) We also spent the night with friends in Swaziland and we enjoyed spending time with them and their boys.
And then on Saturday, July 1st, we flew to Zambia to join the Beat the Drum teams. We were not really planning on coming to Zambia, but the Lord’s plans are not our plans and
serving Him is always an adventure; so here we are! But it feels good and right to be back in Africa. It even feels good to drive from town to town while trying to dodge huge potholes. (Life is also slow here and there is nothing you can do about it! Like for instance today: We had an order for 50 sliced bread at the bakery and we arranged to pick it up at 10am. When we got there at 11:30 am, they said our bread was ready, but we still had to wait for 30 minutes and then they could only give us 40 bread!)
We have two bases from where we are working. One is in Livingstone (very near to the Victoria Waterfalls) an the other one is in Choma. Right now we are at Choma and next week we will be moving to the Livingstone base. (We haven’t been to the Falls yet, but we will go on Saturday and we are really excited!) One of the advantages of this program is that it unites multi nations in the fight against this nation killer:HIV/Aids. Teams consist of young people from America, South Africa, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Ucraine, Canada, Malawi and Angola. So exciting!
Monday and Tuesday were used to prepare the teams for their visits to the schools and training them in the curriculum. Tuesday night we ended our training off by celebrating with our American team members their Independence Day and also the independence of all the countries represented. We had smores and some fireworks! Wednesday morning was the big morning! We all got up very early to leave for schools and to be on time. Teams go to different schools and show the Beat the Drum movie. (For all that don’t know; the Beat the Drum movie is an awesome movie that touches your life while it also opens your eyes to the reality of HIV/Aids and the lies about HIV/Aids.) After the movie teams hand out workbooks to the students, talk to them in small groups, work through the book and challenge the students to abstain from sexual activity. We really want the students to follow Biblical principles for sexually pure lives and by doing this the power of HIV/Aids will be broken.
Some of the students laugh at the movie and at the idea of abstaining. They have been doing wrong for so long that it seems foolish to them to change now. But to many of the students this is not just a movie; this movie portrays their lives. It is with these students that you sit down to talk to and to pray with and to give the Message of Hope.
We are excited to see what the Lord is going to do during the rest of the time in the lives of the Zambians as well as the team members.
Greetings from a friendly, but dusty Zambia!
PS Please continue to pray for our visa situation. We have no new news on visas yet; we are still waiting for Jumbo’s new passport.
