Northern Province

As many of you already know, most of my valuables were stolen before our trip to the northern parts of Zambia. The whole ordeal did not seem to bother me at all while we were on our trip. Now that I have arrived back at the mission, it is extremely frustrating to not have some of the material possessions I am used to. I am fine without a computer; however, all of my pictures and documents are on there. It is not the computer itself, but the things that were stored. Although I recovered most things on my external hard drive, I lost several documents and pictures. Having to rewrite papers for my classes and update this blog without a computer will be a very frustrating task. I pray that God will give me patience with the people around me and the thief that was low enough to steal from a visitor. People in the group are supportive and willing to let me borrow their things; however, I hate mooching off of others and I hate asking for help. The internet rarely works and if it does, my account is expired. So we will see how this works out.

There is much to be said about our trip north, but unfortunately I have a lot to catch up on and time is not on my side. Most of the trip consisted of traveling and awful roads in an old yellow school bus. Regardless of all of the rough travel, everyone had an excellent time on the trip. I spent most of my time on the bumpy ride reading. I read The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis, Peace with God by Billy Graham, and The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

After traveling two days we eventually reach Mumena, which is in the northwestern area of Zambia. Mumena is truly a wonderful place with wonderful people. Bryan Davis and his family head off a team of missionaries that are very inspirational to each of us in the HIZ group. Bryan gave three lectures to us while we stayed at Mumena; each was two or three hours long. I am very impressed with the theology and methods that this team of missionaries has developed in only five years at Mumena. Before coming to Zambia, Bryan worked with inner city gangsters in Tennessee and in Cape Town, South Africa. Bryan’s ability to teach the gospel to anyone is quite impressive to me. Bryan’s team does a very good job of letting the indigenous people do the work, and allowing everything to be self-sustainable.

On Sunday, we visited the largest refugee camp in the world. At one point this camp had the largest population, but now it is simply geographic. There are 90,000 refugees, mostly from the Congo and Rwanda (genocide). I was asked to speak for 30 minutes on creation, but kept it closer to 20 minutes. I was quite nervous when I got up to speak in from of all 90,000 of the refugees; this was quite an adrenaline rush. Just kidding. I spoke in front of a local congregation that included maybe 100 people. Regardless, the service went well and the congregation loved having us. I spoke to the refugees about hope. I said that God created all of us for a reason and that God does not forget anyone. I said that God created us not only to glorify him, but because he wants us as his children. I said that God created us and that we were destined to be a part of his royal family. For lunch we had nsima, snima, and more nsima. Out of respect we decided to eat all of the snima that we were served. Each of the guys in our group ended up eating around 14 handfuls of nsima. I could barely walk.

Many things happened that I have no time to mention; I look forward to sharing more with all of you later. On our way back to Kalomo, we stopped in Lusaka to visit Zambikes. Zambikes was started by a man named Dustin, who is very skilled in International Business. Although Dustin does not have his MBA, he has successfully started three businesses in Zambia that benefit the local community. Dustin runs Zambikes, a pig farm, and a Mexican restaurant; all three provide many jobs for the local Zambians.

Zambikes is a business in order to make profit, but the main reasoning is to make a difference in the lives of Zambians. Zambikes allow locals to own great quality “bush” bikes that allow them to get from A to B. Zambikes also provides over 1000 Zambulances throughout the country. Zambulances are boxes big enough to fit a mattress and can be pulled on the back of a bicycle.

After eating at Dustin’s Mexican restaurant we stayed at a camp site in Eureka. On the drive in we noticed many Zebra off to the side (an animal that we had yet to see, even on the safaris). So obviously, the guys began to walk the trails as soon as we settled at camp. As we were entering the bush, a guide stopped us and told us to go back to the campsite. He informed us that buffalo and other animals are nearby and that to be out at night is very dangerous. We told him OK, and continued our journey once he disappeared. Normally we would have walked a short ways and came back, but now that we were taking a risk, things became very exciting. Throughout our walk we ran across several animals and hundreds of antelope. After walking about 30 minutes into the bush, we finally located two Zebra among a group of antelope. The antelope were spooked and ran; however, the Zebra trotted slowly while staring at us. Quintyn, Heath, and I were eventually able to get about 20 yards away from the Zebra.