Africa

We are home from our Africa Adventure! I hope most of you got the email I sent Saturday night letting you know of our safe arrival. We had such a wonderful time....God blessed us beyond our wildest dreams. And we felt all of your prayers each day in a profound way...we felt safe and protected the whole time. Thank you so much for lifting us up and partnering with us on this mission. I can't wait to share our pictures and tell you all the details!

But....

Since Luke has my laptop....and he's not here.....and I just imported all of our pics from the camera to the laptop last night....I can't really begin to share the photo journey with you just yet. So for the next few minutes, I'll just give you a little glimpse into our time there.

Expectations. These are something that can totally surprise and thrill you....or something that can deflate and have you down in the dumps. Sometimes I wish we didn't have expectations of people, of things. Just seems like it would make things much simpler sometimes. But nevertheless, God created us with them, so we might as well embrace them and make the best of it....turn them into something that surprises us with joy when they turn out, and something we can blow off as no big deal when they don't. Well, I had one expectation of what Africa would be like....and I was totally off. :)

The poverty was worse than I thought, the people kinder and more generous, the country much more modern in the cities, and the outlying villages much poorer than I imagined. I had anticipated being frightened, feeling unsafe or threatened....even in the foreign airports I had visions of guards with machine guns and people looking at us with hostile eyes. But there was none of that. The airport in Harare felt much like one of our airports with people coming and going, and staff helping you through customs. We never once felt in any danger. Now of course we were being smart and doing our part in all of that. But it was mostly, thankfully, uneventful. I had also expected that we would stick out like sore thumbs....white skin among a sea of dark skin. But again, this wasn't the case at all. There were people of every race all around us. It was nice to be among such a mix of God's children.

We stayed the first night in Harare at the TEAM guesthouse (The Evangelical Alliance Mission) and had a trip orientation...as well as grocery shopped for our time at Karanda. We left the next morning for our 3 hour trip by van out to "the bush". This is where my Africa trip really began. Driving out of the city into the beautiful foothills....seeing the acacia trees and thatched-roof huts, the local people walking on the side of the roads carrying wood or baskets of food on their heads, and realizing how very different this is from our world back home. We passed through several government roadblocks, but again they were much different than what I had expected. The officers just waved us right through when they saw Karanda Mission Hospital on the side of the van. God protected us and paved our way.

When we arrived at the "compound" I was amazed at how secure it was. Completely fenced in and with a guard at the gate. 150 bed hospital, guesthouse that had 8 bedrooms and one bunk area, a Nursing School, student dorms, a cafeteria, a chapel, a primary school for the staff children, and staff housing. It was a big place! The people we met here were poor and needy- the children tended to wear the same clothes day after day....but they all had shoes on their feet, a brick house with a kitchen, furniture, and a porcelein toilet. Once we met families from the outlying villages, we quickly realized that the folks who lived at Karanda were the "wealthy" ones.

We started each morning bright and early at 7am with a devotional at the chapel. Man, African people can sing! They would sing 2-3 songs each morning in their native language of Shona...and you should have heard all the beautiful harmonies! I have a few video clips that I will have to share. Then Luke and Dr. Sheets would round on the patients and decide what they were going to do for the day. The kids and I, along with the other team members, would tackle various tasks such as building a fence for the goats, painting chairs for the school, sewing curtains for the nursing dorms, hanging ceiling fans, sorting and recording inventory of all the medicines we brought, and sorting and distributing clothing, toys, and food to the needy and the orphans in the outlying villages. Each day was full and felt very rewarding as we got these jobs accomplished.

Another surprise to me was how quickly Logan and Faith Anna made friends in the community. From the day we arrived, they both just ran out and met the children....quickly becoming one of the gang. School let out at 1p each day for lunch. So after the kids had eaten, from 2p until 6p, they were running and playing with their new friends all over the grounds! It was wonderful to see that childlike acceptance....they never once told us they felt awkward or uncomfortable being the only light-skinned kids among about 35 dark ones. It was as if they really didn't even notice. Ah, I wish we as adults would lean toward those accepting tendencies, instead of oftentimes being so quick to judge! I guess that's why the Lord tells us to come to Him as little children. Logan made 3 good friends that he played with every day- Tinashe, Parker, and Nicky. Faith Anna led the little girls around skipping and singing made-up songs....she really bonded with three girls in particular as well- Patricia, Tinotenda, and Praise. They also got to see a baby delivered for the first time! It was one of those little miracles that I know they will never forget. What a privilige for a 6 and 8 year old to actually get to stand in a delivery room and watch a new life come into this world. The baby's name was Watidashi, which means God has loved us.

Well, I guess this blog has gotten long enough for tonight. As you can tell, I could go on and on! But I will hopefully get some pictures posted soon to go along with my stories.

God was so gracious to us! The kids were super-great travelers on our long journey....never once complained about any of the long plane flights, about having to sleep under mosquito nets, about having to filter all of their water, or wash their hands 20 times a day. The country of Zimbabwe turns the electricity off each night around 6pm to conserve power, and most nights the water was also turned off around the same time. Again, the kids never complained. I think they saw it as an adventure...which we all began to see it as eventually. :) After all, if you don't have your dinner cooked by 6pm, you just make peanut butter or tuna sandwiches and eat by candlelight. And with no water after dinner, you can't wash dishes....so you just sit around and play games by flashlight, or go out and look at the stars. Oh, the stars! I've never seen a night sky look more beautiful. It's so dark in that part of the world that you can see the Milky Way shining brightly. It's fun to see different stars in the southern hemisphere...we saw the Southern Cross....and lots of shooting stars.

Wait, didn't I say I was stopping for the night? :) Just too many wonderful stories to tell. More tomorrow. Sweet dreams...