Sunday morning Japhet delivered Beth and Jennifer to the Golden Pillow Lodge for breakfast with the team and then John, World Vision’s Driver who would be our skillful driver and interpreter during our time in the field, picked us up for church.
What a blessing to worship cross-culturally! We were warmly received and even recognized some of the people we’d met at this same church during our last WaterAfrica trip. The service was filled with wonderful music led a wide variety of church members, including “two songs by three brothers” using their remarkable homemade guitars. A young lady sitting in front of us passed back a note partway through the music – it was translation for the songs. She continued to do this for us for the rest of the music. We talked to her after the service – her name is Mary. She’s a second year teaching student doing a term of secondary ed student teaching at Jembo High School. She was orphaned as a child and raised by her uncle. We were all impressed by her fluency, self-assuredness and level of education. She said she is married – her husband is also a teacher, but we didn’t meet him.
The district superintendent gave the message in English with Tonga translation. There was an awful lot of congregation participation in the service and the speakers usually worked back and forth between the two languages very fluidly. After nearly 4 hours the service ended and we we were ushered out right after the pastor. We shook hands with EVERYONE else as they exited the building. Some of them seemed delighted and practiced their English greetings. Others barely made eye contact. We were like magnets for the kids, particularly after we took a couple pictures.
One theme for these early days was to intentionally slow the itinerary a bit in order to observe and partcipate in the every day lives of the people in Choma – a perspective we’ve lacked on previous trips. Because our morning had turned to late-afternoon by the time we got back to the hotel we didn’t have time for our planned visit to the Choma Museum. BUT some of us were delighted to find a soccer game in play just adjacent to the hotel so Beth and Jennifer walked over first and were humored to find themselves the only female soccer fans present. (However, there WAS a female linesman.) Two young men sitting on the edge of the field provided commentary, including the opinion that “both teams are useless.” Bill, Diane and Sharron came to watch later in the game while Ann stayed back to watch birds. Altogether it turned out to be a wonderful Sunday in Zambia.
After dinner Fred Mazumba, World Vision’s ADP (Area Development Program) manager in Sinazongwe stopped by with his family. Fred joined us for Walk4Water5 and what fun it was to meet him again in his own country and to greet his wife and children!
Also that evening Angela, the Hamaundu ADP manager stopped by briefly. Hamaundu is the ADP that WaterAfrica has partnered with as we follow World Vision’s WASH program in Zambia. Our financial donations go to WASH projects throughout Zambia (ZWASH) but our relationship with Hamanundu allows us a specific connection with an ADP, and a lens through which we can see how WASH is implemented in World Vision’s development work – Much like the way the child sponsorship model connects a sponsor to a child.
