Last Day of Camp

June 26th, 2009
Today was the last day of Camp Hope and it felt like such a blessing from God to be there and witness it. Today we passed out more than 250 pairs of shoes to all the campers; shoes that we received from two girls from the Teen Mania trip and their church. It was amazing to see the children’s faces light up when stepped into the room of bright and shiny shoes, and then to realize that they could take a pair home! One boy, while helping him try on a pair of new sneakers, jumped up and shouted “fresh, fresh!” and did a dance of joy. Some children had shoes were broken, had holes in them, too small for them to wear anymore, and some worn out beyond belief. Some kids had no shoes at all and they wore their new shoes out of the tent! Later on, while some of the kids were playing football, I watched other children switch from their old shoes to their new ones and dance joyfully.
I also got the change to love on a boy who never got to attend Camp Hope this week, but was there everyday. Everyday when I walked around from group to group, I would see him listening to bible studies, playing football with them, or just watching them from afar. I always stopped and greeted him, shook his hand, even took his picture one day and showed him. But the language barrier was a problem so there wasn’t much more I could do with him except play. On the last day, I was wandering around the field as the sun was setting when he found me. He wrapped his arms around my waist when I said “hello” and then took my hand. I started pointing at the sunset and said “pretty” and he replied in njanji which I think was the word for pretty. Then I pointed to the moon and asked, “what’s that?” and he said “muez”. We continued to name the stars, the sky, the sun and anything else we could find; all the time he wouldn’t let go of my hand. When I finally had to go back to My Father’s House, he wouldn’t let go of my hand. He walked back with me almost to the house. It was hard for me to explain that it was getting dark, and I had to go home, especially since I wanted to get to know him better. He eventually understood that he was supposed to return to his house, and went his own way down the road. It was amazing to bond with a child, even though we didn’t speak the same language.

Illegal?

July 2nd, 2009
So the past couple of days have been really trying for us interns. We were supposed to have left for Livingstone yesterday, but we had to go and renew our visas before we left because we had only applied for a 30-day visa when we first arrived here in May. With the car packed with all of our stuff for Livingstone, we headed to the immigration office. After waiting in a line for about 20-30 min, they told us that there was a problem with our visas, we couldn’t renew them, but had to get a business permit to stay in the country, but the business permit was going to cost us a whole lot more than planned! So they told us to go to another office further into town the next morning. After searching forever for the office in downtown Lusaka, we got there and they told us the same thing: that we would have to pay about $400 each for a business visa to stay in the country, plus a late fee for being late in renewing our visas. It was all really frustrating because we thought all we would have to do was get our passport re-stamped when we went to the immigration office. We pulled all the money that we were going to use for our Livingstone trip together to pay for the visas, and we still aren’t sure if we are going to get to go to Livingstone now, because there might not be enough money in our budgets anymore. That would be disappointing, since we were supposed to see Victoria Falls and go on a safari, but I feel like God has a plan for us. For example, most of us girls have been getting sick in our stomachs from something we ate, and I stayed in my bed all day yesterday after we got back from the immigration office. It wouldn’t have been good if I had gotten sick on the 8-hour bus ride to Livingstone, so I thank God for timing! But as of now, I am officially an illegal immigrant in Zambia, with my passport locked up in an immigration office in downtown Lusaka, waiting to be processed so we can get business permits.