kickoff

Don't mind if I do get a little sappy sap up in this post. Today is the first Gamecocks game of the season, away at Vandy, and even 6,000 miles away there's excitement running through my veins. Football season. American football season, I should say. There's nothing quite like it. Tailgates, friends, music, food, memories, laughs & cheers. Community. Good stuff. There's gameday anticipation even over here in Zambia, as I (obsessively) had to wear some garnet & black to support my guys even though they'll have no idea. I think that diploma was just the start to making me one proud Gamecock.

Here's a little throwback photo from when I first fell in love with Gamecock football: the first game of my freshman year. Feels like ages ago, yet it must've been a real good day if I made this best friend on this certain day too. Morgan, thanks for that bonding over the burrito and for standing with me in a crazy student section when we were the only one who managed to have tickets out of all of our friends. Good thing huh?

So for two of the great things in my life, best friends & Gamecock football, I am oh so thankful today.

visiting

A friend of mine here told me that if you plan to come for 3 months, plan to be sick at least one of them. I laughed it off. Until I started getting sick a lot.

Here I am, day 6 out of the one month I’ve been here that I’ve spent sick and on the couch. This morning I woke up pretty late to a missed call and text message from Elina, CiH woman, friend, in-country director, asking where I live because she was going to come visit me. This wasn’t a question or an offer if she could come, she was going to come, and she was going to bring 3 other CiH women with her, Doreen, Tresa and Pauline, to check in on me.

In a culture where I’ve talked to too many women about their husbands dying 7 days after a bug bite, I’m sure the women were more nervous than I was about the severity of a sinus infection, but the care is the topic of discussion.

These 4 women left their homes, their familiarity, to come to a strange neighborhood of excess, steel gates, electric fences, and guard dogs. They risked to love. They entered the unknown to visit. This visit wasn’t dumping a pan of lasagna off and leaving. It wasn’t even a visit with an agenda. The visit wasn’t a noun but a verb. It was 4 women coming into my house, enjoying lunch with me, chatting with me, sharing their culture with me, loving me, translating for me, and ending our time with and incredible prayer for me and for this household. Sure they didn’t have to drink weird smoothies and eat my American PB&J sandwiches with me, but they did because they loved. Sacrificial love. Love that inspires action. Love that encourages, protects, provides. Little did they know, or maybe they did, but Jesus used them mightily this morning. These 4 women, entering into my pain, my isolation, my pajama-wearing self, my messy house, did so out of love. This is visiting. This is a glimpse of what Jesus does for us all every hour of every day. Two women cleaned my kitchen, one woman showed me how to properly wrap myself in Zambian chitenge. How incredible. They served, the prayed, they encouraged. They didn’t say “I love you” but I felt it more than I have in weeks, being squeezed tight by our Savior. The church isn’t divided by the haves and have-nots. It’s not divided by language or culture. The church is global, it’s all people coming together with Jesus in common, the love that drives them to do crazy things like this.

This causes me to rethink our “visiting” in the States, usually built on convenience, disguised self-promotion, and comfort. Visiting doesn’t usually fit into our schedules. It’s not usually easy. But neither was Jesus dying so that we could live.

So the next time we think we have something to give this culture or to teach them, I would beg us to stop and see what this culture, what the people of Jesus here, have to show us.

Today, I’m thankful for visiting. Whether it’s from those 4 incredible women, or it’s from the Lord when I’m alone here, I’m so grateful to see more of Jesus in the visiting: the messy, beautiful, inspiring kind.

James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Today, I’m thankful for James 1:27. To see the extravagant love of the Father that drives us to love, to visit others, to sacrifice, to seek holiness, because that’s where joy and peace are found.

vulnerable

First off, apologies for the lack of blogging lately. Internet is sketch. And things have been pretty busy. If I could just record my entire life here, all 500 emotions I experience on the daily, I would just post that instead. But this will have to do. And probably for your benefit, as those emotions get kinda crazy over here.

Mark, my brother, left just over a week ago. I moved into a precious cottage by myself that I’m renting from a friend who is spending a few months in the states. Clothed in Hope just had it’s first full week of production, and the women received their first profits from the items they made. I became obsessed with and watched the first 2 seasons of Downton Abbey (judge if you want, but watch it first). I’ve met new people, I’ve taken myself to the new shopping mall for a few hours of normalcy. It’s been a week and a half of adjusting to a brand new lifestyle in a third-world country 6,000 miles and 6 hours from home, by myself. An interesting time to say the least.

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s rewind last Monday and Tuesday. Mark and I decided to celebrate an amazing first couple of weeks with a overnight to a safari lodge at the Kafue National Park in the east. We were welcomed with great food, a wonderful chalet on the Kafue River, listening to hippos fight each other as we slept, and enjoyed silence, something we didn’t realize we missed/needed so badly. After going so hard every day, rest was necessary. Monday night I had to turn in early after not feeling so great and turns out I got a nasty bit of food poisoning, making for an interesting 6am safari game drive on Tuesday morning. I’ll save the details, but one thing I managed to hear from our game drive that stuck with me was a detail about the Kudu, a big antelope kinda thing.

He explained this weird mating process of the male Kudu with his ladies (obviously irrelevant), and how after he’s finished his mating season, he spends the rest of the year completely alone. No Kudu bros or babies running around him. What stuck was that it’s known that the Kudu is the most vulnerable animal in the entire park. Not the slow, pudgy bush pig, but the big and strong Kudu. Because he’s alone.

(You'll have to google the Kudu if you want to see him, because going on hour 2 of uploading one photo just wasn't working out.)

My intention in this post is not to invite y’all to a full-fledged pity party, but to share with you where I honestly am. Without Mark here and living in a place to my own is so different. It makes me a Kudu- vulnerable. I don’t have my herd of friends right here to listen to the bad days, laugh with the good ones, or even to call with this time difference and technology woes. There is risk to this vulnerability. Trips to the market, even with Elina, are exhausting with people always calling out to me as the oddity I am in the middle of an African market. The simple errand is quite the ordeal. I’ve faced emotions in depths I didn’t know I was capable of feeling over this last week, but I’ve also experienced a peace I shouldn’t feel.

Yes safety is important. I don’t go out after dark. I have a driver when I go far. I have 2 phones. I don’t carry much cash. And the list goes on. But there are some things I just can’t avoid. I can’t change the color of my skin and I can’t dye my hair for life. I can’t make someone magically appear. I can’t afford a bodyguard. That’s just how it is. But I don’t think me being in this “vulnerable” state is a surprise to God. Maybe to me, okay definitely to me at times, but not to Him.

Sometimes I get so comfortable in my own routine, in safety, in comfort, that I put in some earplugs and go on my merry way, in my own will and by my own strength. Not so much here. Two weeks ago I still rocked my neon earplugs but then the shouting started. I’m thankful for the comforts ripped from my hands, because I can experience the ultimate comforter, desperation in its beauty, not its burden. On days when I seem further from understanding this culture than ever, I can rest, not because it feels normal or because it’s my first reaction, but because Jesus is loving me so much to affectionately scream at me to stop trying to know it all. There are moments of fear, moments of bliss, but I’m coming to find that there are riches far greater than a “good” day.

Moments like when I hear “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” Moments when I step outside of my gate feeling the protection of the Lord, and a peace unlike any other. Moments of beautiful affirmation of His will for me to be here. Days living in grace and love of such magnitude I’m only starting to understand. That’s Jesus.

I’ll conclude this post with a prayer request. Yes it would be great if y’all wanted to pray for my time here, but I had a different one in mind. This “Christian nation” is a dark place. Incredibly. There are things happening here that haven’t happened in the history of the nation, there is a rise of witchcraft that’s crippling the people. I’ve talked to too many women about their husbands dying within a week of a bug bite. It’s not even material poverty that’s the huge issue. It’s spiritual poverty, a stronghold over this nation that shouldn’t be here. Pray for Zambia. Pray against darkness and evil and for light to radiate in every village through every tribe of people here. Especially for Lusaka. Maybe even be as bold to pray for God to tell you if this is where He wants you. I know He’s equipped His people to be here and it’s up to us to say “yes.” I know it's me. Maybe it's you too.  

not

twenty

Things I've learned so far: 

1. International missionaries are incredible people, especially the Carr family.

2. Clean is a relative thing. My lion’s mane head of hair will never be fully clean with a bucket bath, no matter how I contort myself or what methods I try.

3. Salome, the Carr’s daughter, loves to pick the wings off of flies and watch them walk around

4. German Shepherds aren’t so bad, especially when they’re protecting your life day and night

5. It’s illegal to drive with your child in the front seat. Unless it’s raining, then it’s okay (not kidding)

6. When someone hands you what looks like chocolate candy, you’ve gotta sniff first to make sure it’s not mystery jerky. Or else you’re eating hippo or some other exotic game animal.

7. Communication is accessible, but it’s also seemingly impossible.

8. I will forever be ripped off and charged the mzungu price

9. Zambian sunsets are still one of my most favorite things on earth

10. Anything goes.

11. Allow at least 2 hours for anything and don’t plan more than 2 things per day.

12. As strange as things are and as difficult as they may seem, nothing is ever completely impossible. It may just cost a ton.

13. I’m capable of speaking with a pretty awful fake Zambian accent. But it works.

14. I’ll probably never feel comfortable withdrawing an amount that reads in millions.

15. The screaming at dawn I thought was hundreds of men turns out to be just hundreds of roosters. Insanity.

16. Monkeys are actually here in Lusaka, but only behind some fence by the highway to the airport.

17. My understanding of culture and this country is very, very limited. And I enjoy more than anything just soaking it all in.

18. Diet Coke is here thankfully, but it tastes so much better so the “light” is probably relative and it’s probably just as sugary as Coke.

19. My butchering of the Nyanja language provides hours of entertainment for Zambians.

20. These next few months will be just fine. Better than fine actually. 

requests

Dear friends!

It seems like I'm posting a ton, but it's only like a few minutes here and there that I can knock out some emails and keep everyone updated. So of course I'm down to the wire with internet again. Only 5 minutes remaining so here goes!

There is so so so much goodness going on here. Humbling. Inspiring. Encouraging.

God's met me right where I'm at, incapable and a little bit overwhelmed, to show me that He's got every last detail worked out. This isn't a fantasy I've created in my head, but it's His plan, His calling that I've gotten to say "YES" to.

Here are just a few prayer requests for the next couple of days:
1. Our training program is underway! We'd love to see community strengthened between the women through work. Not just sessions and education but relationships and encouragement.
2. We're going downtown to begin the filing process to see CiH as an official Zambian NGO (this is HUGE!). This would mean anyone (including YOU) could come to Zambia under CiH to volunteer and further the cause of hope and empowerment in this place. It would open up 5 million doors for this organization and cause.
3. We just got a call from IJM here who wants to meet at 11:30am on Friday to discuss possible partnerships with their aftercare program for widows. Again, HUGE.
4. We have put ourselves in a ton of strange eating situations, all humbling as we're served by the seemingly most poor, but really most rich in faith. We still are in perfect health, sleeping great, so if you could continue to pray over this, we would so appreciate it.
5. Mark has just one week left. We're trying to create a plan for the long-term in his absence, but I would also love for him to experience the best of this culture with his time left.

Thank you thank you thank you for praying for CiH, the women, Ng'ombe and for us. You are just as much a part of this as I am, and I hope you can get just as excited to hear that God is HERE and He's also so excited about all of this!

Blessings,
Amy

winter

It's winter here. A good ole South Carolina style winter. Minus heaters and an abundance of cocoa and coffee. But it's beautiful. I wake up every morning bundled up in layers under a stack of blankets feeling the cool air from the open windows wisp around the room. You know that feeling when you're so warm and cozy and just don't want to put your feet on the ground quite yet? Yea that's it, and it's actually so comforting. Every morning I brace myself for the bucket bath to come and boy is that an awkward experience. I'm starting to develop an appreciation for contortionists. Anywho, winter. Who knew in the middle of July, a warm vanilla latte would be the greatest little treasure, and that my Patagonia would never leave my side. Daytime warms up a bit but just as soon as that sun comes down, time to bundle up again. It'll be summer here soon enough and from what I've heard, it'll warm up in no time! Time to embrace and enjoy the crisp air, hot Rooibos tea, and coziness of winter. Enjoy your summertime full of ice cold lemonade, bathing suits, and lake days. There's beauty in every season.