Sunday (Day 2) in Africa

In the past, the Americans have gone into village churches in Lusaka, Zambia, but this year they decided to bring Zambian church to us. 100 Americans showing up at a village church pretty much overtakes the church, so Greer (head of Family Legacy)had a Zambian praise team come and Pastor Tedi preached. It was incredible! Completely amazing how you can worship God in a language you don't even understand. This was just a glimpse for us...seeing how Zambians trust and worship the Lord.

After church, we headed to the market to do some shopping. The bank ran out of money to exchange so we had to wait about an hour before we had any money to spend. These market vendors have absolutely nothing. They are willing to trade their handiwork for just about anything...money, gum, pens, candy, tshirts, sunglasses, hats, etc. My prized purchase is a wooden giraffe that I probably bought for around 10-15 dollars. It took this particular Zambian 6 days to make this by hand.

Here are some pictures of the market.




After our shopping adventure, we headed back to our villa to change clothes and then off to meet our Zambian partners (evangelists and apostles). Our Zambian evangelist is our main "partner" for the week. He/she assists with translation and just about everything else that needs to be done throughout the week. Our apostle is more of a back-up helper. He/she helps when we have our blessing or one-on-one time with the kids. One of our responsibilities during the week is to take each child individually and find out about their home life and any other details of their life that they're willing to share. We also use this time to share the good news of Christ and also to pray with them individually. More on my "blessing times" tomorrow.

Here we are...ready for our lives to be changed.
Sean (villamate from Texas), Molly (Carney's niece), Brian, Jack and Kathleen, me, Jill, Shannon and Shelbi
Graham is not in the picture...he was probably taking the picture.


Here's my evangelist, Mercy, and me praying. In Zambia, everything is covered in prayer before you even take one step. You pray before you start and you pray when you end.



Here's a snapshot of Mercy and me on Friday. I had been crying most of the day, good-byes are never easy.



Here's my apostle, Bertha. Same thing...the picture was taken on Friday and I had wept several times during the day.


The stories of my 14 girls are coming tomorrow. Thanks for being patient with my blog. I'm still trying to process everything and the best way for me to write it down is in logical order. Well, logical to me that is. Check back tomorrow.