Sunshine and dirty feet

Every day so far here in Zambia has been a new adventure, nothing is the same two days in a row. Except for the sunshine and the dirty feet. we have both those things daily :) the first week here in Africa has been full of lots of lectures and meetings and orientations. i will admit that i am happy to finally be through with all of the formalities and moving on to actually going out and "doing" something..or, as Prof. Leslie says, going out and "being" something to the people of Zambia. Sometimes just being is more important than doing. But, we have already got to experience a lot of Zambia already. For instance, we have had the opportunity to visit downtown and go to the grocery store and marketplace twice so far. it's an incredible experience that's hard to describe...but if i had to compare it to something, my initial thought was that it looked a little like the fair. It's lots of booths wall to wall with dirt roads and floors...there is soo much garbage all over the ground, primarily pop bottles and food wrappers and paper..a lot like the fair. People are selling food such as fruit, veggies, and kapenta (little salty dried fish). The Zambians don't seem to even notice the massive swarms of flies and other flying insects that are landing on and crawling all over and through the food they are buying and selling. Speaking of insects, we have had quite a few of our own interesting encounters here in our very own home this past week. I was able to personally kill a poisonous spider (yikes) along with lots of other flying buzzing bugs about the size of my pinky finger. they come in at night because of the lights...we've learned to turn them off early and double check all the windows are sealed- it's helped a little. We also found a snake up against our doorstep on Wednesday morning...but don't worry, our volunteer missionary friend Beth dropped a bounder on it, consequently killing it very quickly :) church in Zambia is nothing short of incredible. even though i don't speak much Tonga, and therefore cannot understand many of the songs we sing, their voices are beautiful and they way they worship, singing and dancing, with such reckless abandon really leaves something to be desired back home (at least for myselft) in fact, it's been quite a growing experience already and i am finding that i can have so much more freedom in my worship, which is such a revitalizing revelation! :) the kids are precious. there is just no way around it. they have no inhibitions...they love to reach out and grab your hand just to walk along together, or reach up and start playing with your hair just out of the blue (blonde straight hair is fastinating to them...haha..lucky me!) sometimes it's hard to know what to talk to them about. You want to ask where they go to school and what grade they are in, but you're afraid that they will answer that they have never been able to afford school, or that they used to go to school, but their sponser dropped them and so they were kicked out of school for lack of funds. You want to ask about their families, their siblings and parents, but you're afraid that they will answer that they have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS or that they have lost multiple siblings to a bad case of malaria. however, you would never guess that these kids are living in such tragity-stricken circumstances based on their quick smiles and bright happy singing voices. they are always singing about how they are blessed, how God is good and faithful and loving. perhaps in some ways, they understand the character of God better than i do yet. but i'm quickly learning! please keep our team in prayer as many of the girls, including myself, have been really sick the past few days with GI problems and feverish stuff...we think it's just a bug going around rather than something in the food since only about half the girls have been sick and not the whole team. i am personally on the upswing, praise God. Being sick is no fun, whether you're in the US or in Zambia...i guess it's just one of those universal things :P Today is the first day that half the team gets to go out and do some work with the community- they are visiting 20 village sites to deliver "mealy meal," which is like corn flower, and some other food supplies. the other half of the team is going tomorrow to 20 other sites to do the same. i am in the second group, so for today, i'm just catching up on some homework...and maybe catching some rays as well?? :) haha...we'll see, the sun's a little different here, more powerful! also, please keep in prayer that something will work out for me to find a new computer and for it's safe delivery to Zambia. My own laptop was accidently broken by a friend on our third night in Zambia. it was pretty devastating to me at first, but i feel like God has already taught me so much about trusting him even when i don't understand why certain things are happening, as well as just finding joy in him despite our current circumstances. For these reasons, i wouldn't trade what happened, but i'm still praying that something will work out for my schoolwork's sake! :) Well..time to give back this computer to the friend i'm borrowing it from. hope everyone's doing great..i miss you all and can't wait to see you at thanksgiving! God bless!

Britt