Do I look like I’m in Africa?

“Do I look like I’m in Africa?” –Frances

I dunno, what do you mean?

“I mean, I’m writing a book about it, so I need a lot of pictures that make me look like I’m in Africa”

I think you succeeded.

 .................................................................................................

I walked out of my room to find Frances asking: “I want something delicious for breakfast, what do people normally eat?”

We ate cinnamon toast for breakfast.

Delicious.

We dressed in African Dresses, handmade for me when I was in Cameroon.  I love getting dressed up for church!

At 9:30, seven of us embarked for the Dignitary’s funeral.  We walked into a home full of sleeping women.  They were on wooden mats on a concrete floor.  Not soft.  There were so many people packed in that we were surely sitting on someone’s “bed” matt from the night before.

Mr. Sarra began talking to the ladies in English, comforting them for their loss.  Henry translated for the ladies in Lamba.  Lorna translated for the 2 deaf guys in Zambian Sign language.  Frances and I just sat there. 

We left shortly after.  I still don’t really know who died.

………………………………………………………………………

We arrived at a different Church, Maisiti Baptist Church.  Most churches here are made in the same way:  cinderblock walls covered in cement and paint.  Tin roof.  A few windows.  Wooden church pews.  No air con.  No lights.  Nothing fancy.

But just plain beautiful.

We had 2 singing groups perform today.  They were both fabulous Broadway-quality singers.  I loved their uniforms.  Especially the black skirts because they were all obviously different, yet they still looked very unified. 

[groups]

The whole time the groups were singing (in Bimba, not English so I had NO idea what they were singing) I kept looking at the precious kids sitting in front of us.  I got a photo of their heads in the second picture.

I love cute kids!!

I got distracted during the announcements that were all in Bimba.  I had no idea what they were saying.  Oh well.

Mr. Sarra, our supervisor’s husband, preached today on Psalm 49.  Thank goodness he’s an American and he preached in English.  Henry translated to Bimba again and Mrs. Sarra translated to Sign Language.  I translated it into my journal.  Mr. Sarra kept jumping around to Ecclesiastes and Luke and then back to Ecclesiastes.  But the message was good:

Don’t work to achieve things, work hard for God.  We must work for food, but we shouldn’t work just to acquire worldly possessions that perish.  We should work to make God known in whatever job we have.  We will have to answer for what we do. 

He used a lot of solid examples from Ecclesiastes.  Solomon was wise and rich and he realized all his wealth and nice things wasn’t important.  It made me think: what am I working for?  Where is my heart when I work?  Trying to attain nice things?  Or trying to attain God’s Glory?

It was interesting to see that even in a developing country where people have SO little, we all still need to be reminded of what matters in life.  It’s so easy to get caught up “wanting things.”

After church we sat around for a while.  Frances and I played with the kids.  They didn’t speak English yet because they weren’t old enough for school.  We played “ring around the rosie” and by the 3^rd time, the kids were falling down and laughing.  So fun!  Then we played follow the leader. 

We also took our picture with a window because Frances thought it was neat.  Don't we look super fancy?

After game time, we had lunch.  And not just any lunch, a feast!!

We ate a HUGE lunch, full of Nshima (cornmeal, which is the same as the corn fufu/ NjamaNjama that they ate in Cameroon) and chicken and cabbage and rice and beans.

We also had some sweet orange kool-aid like drink.  We bought some this afternoon.  It was fabulous! (especially when all you drink is water!)

It was delicious, and it was our first experience eating "traditional" food.  We loved it.  You mush up the white cornmeal (Nshima) into a ball and then make a scoop out of it to scoop up beans and cabbage and sauce.  Our hands were covered in food, but it was SO worth it!!

[my plate]

But we were so full.  I learned the word "full" in sign language (along with an assortment of other words: respect, Christ, them, they, fish, village, and the motion for "I'm so full, bumping up and down on this dirt road is not fun!")

I took a huge nap and then Frances and I walked down to Joseph’s store.  We, well more Frances, needed more cookies.  And we wanted to buy that amazing orange juice drink.

And we found a huge tree on our way back that made it all worth walking for.  I have no idea how this tree got to be so big, but we had fun taking pictures with it.

[monster tree!]

We LOVE the sunset here and we feel we are going to be quite disappointed in the sunsets when we return to America.  The only thing missing here is a glass of wine and our sunsets would be perfect!  Our cameras can't capture the vidid colors and power of God's painted skies.

But we tried:

[sunsets]

After returning home we ate a huge dinner.

 We have leftovers from dinner though, so I'm thankful.  We have mac and cheese, ham, and collard greens.  I don't like ham in America, but she cooked this ham with pineapple and cherries and it made some kind of carmelized sauce and was delicious.  I'd eat ham if it always tasted like that!  I didn't like the collard greens much.  They weren't actually collard greens, they were some kind of greens here called "rape."  People eat them all the time.  I think it reminded me too much of bitter leaf that I ate in Cameroon.  Yuck.

We were very thankful for the food and the fellowship today!

Well, it’s off to bed!  We have outreach clinic tomorrow, and we’ve heard there will be a lot of people there!  I hope so!