PIC

Me and the My Father's House kids...they're such goofballs at night!

Realities

I feel that I need to share some of the harsh realities that I have come to know about Zambia and its culture. The hardest lesson learned is this: we can’t help everybody. Everyone needs more food, water, coal, clothing, shoes, money…and we don’t always have the resources to supply them with all that they need. A couple of days ago, there was no water in Mutendere (providence where we live) and we were sitting on a bus outside of the Every Orphan’s Hope office. The security guard, David was giving people water in a hose. We watched him fill a couple of buckets full of water, but then he started shooing the people away and watering the plants and the ground. We all got confused as to why he wasn’t generous with the water. One of the EOH staff, Ester, asked David why he stopped, and that’s when he pointed behind us. We spotted a huge crowd of people with water buckets filling the road behind us, all walking towards the EOH office. They all looked so tired and so desperate. David said that he didn’t have enough water to give to everybody, so he had to stop giving it out.

It’s hard to understand that a Zambian might have to walk for an hour to get water for his/her family for a day. They don’t complain, because that’s their life and they don’t know anything else. I guess that is why it’s so important to give these people the love of Jesus in their lives. He is the only way that we can truly help these people. 

            What’s also hard to understand is the hierarchy of respect in Zambia. The men always come first. Then women and children come last. In American society, children are always regarded as first priority because they are helpless without adults. But here, it’s mind boggling sometimes to see how their culture works. Last Sunday we had a grand opening for the children living in My Father’s House in Chongwe. The big celebration was set up with a tent and chairs, and a mat outside. Big important head men in the village, as well as businessmen, and the head chief of the village was invited to participate in the ceremony, so they were all invited to sit in the chairs in the tent. The children sat outside. The ceremony was wonderful, the children got to sing, dance, and give some testimonies about how they use to live before coming to My Father’s House. Throughout all the speeches that the people made, the emphasis of the ceremony was celebrating the children. When it came time to serve snacks and food to the crowd, it was planned for the children to get food first. But the headmen and the businessmen jumping in line first, grabbing all the sodas and grabbing seconds so there was barely any food left for the children. The women got in line next, and then the children, who the ceremony was for, finally got some food. It’s heartbreaking though to see, that even when you are celebrating children in the name of God, that the Zambian culture will always be observed. So I guess I have to realize that it’s not our job to change their culture, but just to change their hearts toward God and God’s children.

More Camp

June 23rd/24th

Well, after sleeping in a tent the first night of camp, most of the interns wanted to come back to Lusaka for the night. While camp is amazing to participate in, we aren’t needed at night in Chongwe, and it’s nice to get away for a bit, have some quiet time, get a shower, and be ready for the next day. Today at camp I got to sort out over 300 shoes that two missionaries and their church donated to the kids. It was a wonderful gift! But after going through all the shoes, we realized that there wasn’t an even number of shoe sizes, which means that if we give the shoes out during camp, some of the kids won’t get shoes in the right size. So after unpacking the shoes and sorting them into sizes, we had to re-pack the shoes according to size and put them away again. We will be able to give the shoes away, but if we tried to give them out during camp, one child could go home with shoes that don’t fit them, so they would be useless.

I also had an unnerving experience the other day at camp that made me realize that not everyone in Zambia is perfect, even if they are picked to work for an organization like Every Orphan’s Hope. I had the job of going around from group to group and giving out nametags to all the children. So I came to this group of 11-12 year old girls, and their Zambian partner/ translator had a baby with her. Her baby was no more than a year old, it could sit up but that was most of what it could do. While I was writing down some of the girls’ names, the Zambian partner put her baby up on a small hill so she could go and help translate. The little baby, not crying or whining, lifted up his/her arms for the mom to hold him/her. The Zambian woman then slapped her little baby hard across the face multiple times. . I went to Mama, told her what happened, and Mama stormed outside to talk to the Zambian woman, and let her know that slapping her baby in front of the girls wasn’t appropriate. All the girls in the group, as well as the Teen Mania girls, saw it happen. I was stunned along with the Teen Mania girls, but the Zambian girls barely batted an extra eyelash. It must be common for them to see women punishing their children harshly like that. Children come last in the Zambian culture. Men are honored first, then women, then children. So it’s not uncommon for a Zambian to abuse their child. 

First Day of Camp

June 22nd

Today was extremely busy but amazing! We were up by 6am and drove out to Chongwe from Lusaka. The site where camp is located is mapped out like this: there is a road, and on the right side of the road there is a school and a huge field. Then on the other side of the road is a hill and then down the hill are the four My Father’s Houses, where we set up all the Teen Mania kids to camp, the praise and worship, the registration table, the t-shirts, etc… So when we got there, we came in from the back entrance, away from the school and the hill. I played with some of the kids in My Father’s House, and then I looked up the hill and saw some kids watching us. I started walking up the hill to greet the kids, and when I got to the top, hundreds of kids all over the road and the field were staring back at me. Some were engaged in playing games, talking, etc, but when I showed up at the top of the hill, they all stopped and watched. It was definitely a moment when I had to look to God for guidance, as I walked through the throng of children shaking their hands and smiling down at them.

Later on that day, while we were waiting to put the kids into groups for camp, me and two other interns, Grant and Chelsea, were instructed to keep the kids together and away from the Teen Mania group until they could be grouped properly. I tried to keep the kids occupied by talking to them, singing, even playing a game, but they were so many, and it was over whelming to try and give enough attention to each and every one of them. Before I knew it, at least 10 kids hands and arms were clutching my waist and tons of little faces were staring up at me, desperate for attention and to be loved. I felt like I was being pulled so many ways emotionally, because there was no way I was going to be able to give each kid the love they need and deserve. The best part of the morning was that once we started grouping up the teenagers with their kids, all the kids were loved and given the special attention they needed. They all started grouping off and kids were running to the Teen Mania group to hold their hands and smiling at them. As an intern, we don’t get to teach a group of orphans, we get to help all the short-term missionaries connect with the kids, and we make sure everything runs smoothly. Even though doing administration work during camp means that I don’t get to develop relationships with the kids, I still get to witness God’s work by seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces when they meet their Teen Mania teachers. It was also amazing to watch these teens experience what I got to experience with the children 5 years ago. 

My Father's Houses Opening

Today was amazing! We had the grand opening of the My Father's Houses in Chongwe. Bob and Mary (missionaries for EOH), Gary and his family, the bishop from Grace Church, Barclays' representatives (bank), and head men of the lands, and the head Chief Bunda Bunda of all of Chongwe cam to witness the official opening of the homes. It was touching to hear the story of how they picked out the land, once called "the dumping place", and transformed it into a work of God. Mama told us stories of how Satan tried to stop the building of the homes in Chongwe. The workers called one evening saying they couldn't keep staying on the property because their generators (for lights) wasn't working, and they couldn't sleep because it felt like hands choking their throats everytime they fell asleep. But Mama encouraged them to persevere, and the structure got built.
Some of the children came up and gave testimonies of where they used to live before My Father's House and the majority of the children were passed around from family to family or lived in un-livable conditions. It was amazing to see the what the work of God is doing in these children's lives through Every Orphan's Hope. After the ceremony, we just staying around and sang, danced, and played with the children. Two little girls clung to me the entire afternoon. I picked them up, tickled them, played with them, and just held their hands. It made me realize that if God's purpose for me here is to do nothing but love on these girls, then I can do that. This was the first day that I've really been able to connect with the kids. Right before we had to leave, we were all sitting around with the kids and they were teaching us Njanji, asking us when we were coming back, etc. It was really touching to see how much they needed to be loved, talked to, played with, prayed for, everything. I really pray that God works in these children, and that He uses Teen Mania to make an impact on the children's hearts.

Devotion

I feel like I need to share a devotion that I had this morning. I was reading Psalm 118: 13-14:
" I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation."
Over the past couple of day, tensions have run high: tensions between us interns and tensions within the EOH staff, due to the high stress of planning camp and the opening of the Chongwe My Father's Houses. Yesterday I got so frustrated and upset at everything that was going on around me that I felt defeated. I felt worn out, finished, and started praying for God to show me his purpose for me here in Zambia. The Lord then answered by prayers through a friend who talked me out of my misery. That was the momeny when I realized that I can't rely on myself to do what God intends for me to do here. The Lord is my strength, which means that I have to totally rely on him. When power does out, water runs out, and food runs out, I have to remember who sustains me, and who will provide for me always. The Lord is my song. He will keep me positive and keep my heart going, and no one else. It's almost shameful and amazing to think that God had to break me down, physically and emotionally, before I could surrender my own will to Him, and follow His will for me in Zambia.
Thank you so much again for your prayers and your support. I ask that you pray for everything to run smoothly next week for Camp Hope, and so that we can make an impact in the lives of children from all over Chongwe. May the Lord bless you and keep you safe!
~Jessie

Pictures...

Also, blogger isn't able to upload my pictures to this website. So if you would like to see some pictures, please go to my facebook page. (just go to facebook.com and search jessica showers) and my pictures have some Zambia photos.
If you would like to read a blog that is being written by another intern on my team, Sophie, you can go to http://sophiesshoes.blogspot.com. It might give you a different perspective on our experiences here in Zambia.
Thanks and God bless!
~Jessie

Update

Ok so power and internet has been flucuating over the past couple of days and it just came back on (yippie!!) so I will try and give you a you a quick run-down on what me and the other interns have been busy with.
I just got back from my 5 day trip to Kabwe where I got to see my family's sponsor child, Annette. She was so happy to see me and called me her sister and my parents "mom" and "dad". It was so touching to get to talk to her, especially since she was sick with malaria they day that I went to visit her. She had stomach pains and sores on her body, but she was still willing to stand up and take a picture with me. She loved unwrapping the present that my parents bought for her, especially the pen. :-) Altogether, me and my other intern Katie saw 34 children over the course of 4 days. It was a lot of fun to get to know our Zambian coordinators and to learn a bit about the Zambian culture as well. For instance, Zambian hospitality is very important. We went into one woman's house and she was so honored by our visit, that she cooked us lunch! It was a LOT of food too, and everytime the Zambians saw that my plate was empty, they would put another huge mound of food on my plate, and it was disrespectful not to eat it! We also had to walk for an hour and and half to get to where we were staying one night! That was more walking than I ever remember doing haha! So we got back to Lusaka safely, and this week we are planning and preparing for the first Camp Hope of the summer in Chongwe. The Teen Mania group arrives on Friday, and Gary Schnieder (the founder of Every Orphan's Hope) arrives with his family on Thursday. So it's going to be very exciting this upcoming weekend and week. I will try to upload photos as the internet allows, so please be patient!
May God bless you and keep you safe!
~Jessie

Girls and Chitangues

Today was a relaxing day for me. There was only one OVC coordinator who was available to take us interns around Kalingalinga, so only three people went to visit the children. Me, Grant, Jessica K, and Chelsea stayed behind and washed clothes, cleaned out the fridge, and sweeped the floors in the houses. Then we decided to go get some food up at the grocery store, walked to the grocery store, got some ice cream, and did some shopping along the way. We found a nice local bakery to buy some french bread, and got a watermelon on the way home.

Later on in the day we got another opportunity to visit My Father's House. The children were a bit shy at first, but still eager to play with us. We played Uno for a little while, then some singing and clapping games, and then Jessica K, who is a teacher in Canada, brought some child books that her class had donated. The kids LOVED the books. They were all eager to read them or have one of us read the stories to them. I spent most of the 4 hours that we were there reading to girls, helping them read themselves, and then listening to them read me stories. It was a lot of fun and really made me realize how different all the kids are on the academic level. Some children could read extremely well, while others I could sound out the word, and they would still struggle a lot with how to say it.

Kids and Coordinators

Wednesday June 3, 2009

Today was a good but very long day. Last night, Katie (one of the interns on my team) got a terrible nosebleed and she had to be taken to the clinic nearby. After bringing her back from the clinic, she had one more nosebleed during the night so Paul (one of our leaders) decided that Katie shouldn’t go out into the field with us today. So 6 of us went to meet the OVC Coordinators in Chawama again today. We went through section B of Chawama village today, and the houses were much more spread out, so we had to do a lot of walking. We must have walked over 6 miles today in the hot sun, greeting Zambians along the way. We were able to visit 7 children, ages ranging from 5-17. Some of the kids are very shy and we have a hard time opening them up, but I think about how I would feel if I was a kid and a group of strangers came into my house and starting asking me invading questions, I would be pretty hesitant to answer also.
After going through Chawama, Martha, the director of Every Orphan’s Hope, invited all of the interns over to dinner for the night. We got to eat delicious steak, salad, and Zambian beans. Afterwards, Martha got to talk to us about the whole process of sponsoring a child for Every Orphan’s Hope, the challenges that the ministry is facing right now in the face of a changing economy, currency rates, etc, and how it’s hard to properly distribute the money just because of how much need there is in the communities. It breaks my heart to know that there are so many children who require so much need, and Every Orphan’s Hope doesn’t have the money or the means yet to help everyone that needs it. All the OVC Coordinators are working for Every Orphan’s Hope completely as volunteers. They work because they have a heart for the children in the communities and they love to do God’s work. I have tremendous respect for the coordinators who donate their time, energy, and their money to the ministry and to helping us get around the villages.

Thursday June 4, 2009

Praise God that we haven’t had any power outage in the past day! They said that the power generator that broke has been fixed, so we should be getting consistent power from now on. :-D We had the chance to meet all the OVC Coordinators from Lusaka, Chibebe, Kabwe, Kitwe, Musonda Falls, Livingstone, and Kafue today. The coordinators got to give everyone an update on how the children that they look after are progressing and growing. The biggest issue seemed not to be getting the children food, but the children money for school tuition. The Zambians believe that if you put the child through school and teach them enough, then they can get a good job and the food issue won’t be an issue anymore. The most important part about getting to know and help these kids, is to minister to the kids and tell them about Jesus. I also found out today that I will be going to Kabwe for 5 days next week, and I got to meet the coordinators from Kabwe. All the coordinators are very nice and excited to meet us. After hearing some of the testimonies from the children in different areas, it makes me think that if the sponsored children are having this much trouble getting by, the un-sponsored children are having an even worse time. That is why we need to continue to be an advocate for these children so that they can get sponsored!

Seeing the orphans

Tuesday June 2, 2009

8:30am
Yesterday we faced our first great challenge of the possibility of not having power for days at a time. It seems that a power generator in Zambia is broken and so the poorer areas (like where we live) will not get power. It was a very stressful time and frustrating for all of us who wanted to contact our family, but couldn’t get internet to let them know that we were okay. After about 4 hours, the group decided to stop worrying about the issue and give it to God. So we all stopped and prayed about it, lit some candles after dark, and sang praise songs until it was time to go eat. We went to Abundant Life Church, where the cook, Patricia, graciously offered to cook us dinner at late notice. The meal was hot and delicious and we got to eat shima for the first time being here in Zambia. The Abundant Life house was actually the place that I stayed for a while in Zambia 5 years ago. Many memories came back from the first time I came to Zambia while we were eating. We also got to go to the market to buy chitangues (sheets of fabric that Zambians wrap around their waists for skirts, or use them to carry their babies on their back), and ride the buses that are available in Lusaka for the first time. The buses are small, van-sized buses that they usually pack as many people as possible into. It was a little bit cramped but a lot of fun! Today we will be going to sponsored orphan’s homes to get an update on how they are going. Please pray for all of us interns that God will after us and allow us to show His love to these children!
4:30pm
We attempted to visit 5 kids today: Priscilla, Sarah, Melvin, Joseph and Hilda. While Sarah and Melvin weren’t home today, all the other kids were there and I got the opportunity to talk to them, their guardians, and the neighbors living around them. It’s amazing how large and vast these towns are, and most people live in nothing but a small stone house with humble furniture. Most children that we talked to were not in school because their guardians couldn’t afford to pay for the tuition, uniforms, and shoes. Joseph really made an impression on my heart. He’s 16 years old, had just come back from a funeral to speak to us, and was extremely kind to us. He told me that he wasn’t in school because his aunt couldn’t afford it, but he his dream was to study law and become a lawyer. After writing a letter to his sponsors and taking pictures with us, he walked us out of his little neighborhood and thanked us again for coming. All these children are so sweet and so happy in spite of their circumstances that it makes me really appreciate what I have in my life already and how I should be just as happy as these children and more.
PS-> I’ve been having technical difficulties trying to upload photos to this page, so I will being trying to upload it to another site and then posting the link here. If you are facebook friends with me, go to my page (search Jessica Showers) and I have already uploaded photos there.
Psalms 25:4-5 “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

Church in Zambia

Sunday, May 31, 2009
This morning we were taken to a Martha’s (the director of Every Orphan’s Hope) church called Northmead Assemblies of God. The church was very familiar to Western churches in many ways: we watched the pastor preformed 8 baby dedications for different children, we sang western songs (such as “Here I am to Worship”) and we said the benediction. In other ways though, the church seemed so much more alive than other churches that I have been to in the past. Right when we stepped into the church, people were already there in fervent prayer and a man up at the front was speaking, it seemed, half in English and half in his own language (most likely called Nyanja) and didn’t stop praying out loud until the choir had arrived and music started playing. People sang with all their hearts during worship, and when the pastor prayed, everyone prayed out loud all at once, throwing their hands into the air or kneeling on the ground. Seeing their dedication to the worship of their mighty God, makes me realize how spiritually wealthy the people of Zambia are. It made me realize how difficult it is to put our entire trust in Him. I easily fall into the habit of relying on my own rationale and I forget to consult God in everything I do. When you are always provided with the necessities to keep you happy, relying on God for everything you do becomes so much harder. The pastor also announced our presence, asked us to stand up, and the choir then sang a song of welcome to us. The pastor then spoke through the verses in Ephesians 1 about how everything we do must be first consulted and reflected over through prayer. Also, the pastor stressed how prayer symbolizes your commitment to God and your dependence on Him. Overall I was really inspired by the visit.
In the afternoon, we got the opportunity to visit the My Father’s House Orphans home that is located just down the street from were we are staying. The children were eager to greet us and as soon as we brought out a ball, a bat, and a battered up volleyball, we spent hours playing games with them. I played soccer (aka football) with the boys for at least an hour or so. Some of the kids had sandals, ripped up sneakers, and some with no shoes at all. But none of the children noticed while they were playing. They barely have anything, but their joy over just playing with us and playing with each other was amazing.
I would like to take a moment to share a story about an orphan that Paul and Kim Lueders told us about. A teenage girl came to Camp Hope in 2007 with a very surly attitude. She would get in fights with other kids, tear up crowns, and sometimes refuse to participate. Paul Leuders finally took her aside and asked her about her story. She told him that she was a double orphan (both parents died of AIDS) and she was handed off to her aunt and uncle. Her aunt and uncle then used her as an indentured servant, with nothing but leftovers or nothing at all to eat at night. If she refused to work and do chores for them, they would tie her up and beat her with a wire hanger. She said that she was beaten regularly. When Paul heard this, he automatically went to talk to another coordinator with Every Orphan’s Hope, and made sure that this girl never had to go back to that home again. Every Orphan’s Hope found a spot open in one of the orphan homes, and that little girl never had to go back to her abusive home. Today, when walking back to our home, we ran into some of the mothers of the orphan homes, and this little girl was with them. She hugged every single one of us fiercely and joyfully.