Hi everyone! It was so nice to receive messages from many of you back at home in Canada! We may not have responded to each individually, but know that they were so appreciated! The love and support we have felt here has been awesome!
I'll dive right in to our first week here. It's actually hard to believe we are only on day 10 of living in Zambia! This past week was great to settle in more, familiarize ourselves with the layout here, and get to know and spend time with the Grace kids. Part of me feels like I will never get the names straight around here (the worst is when a child comes up and asks, "Do you remember what my name is?" and I forget for the 4th time! Or when they say, my name is _____ but you can just call me ____ . There's lots of that!), but I know this will all come in due time!
The kids found the pile of sand on the farm, and were entertained for ages!
None of us can resist the cuteness of the baby goats :)
We are able to eat the cafeteria lunch, if we so desire, and it has been quite fun and interesting trying different foods! Most of it is quite delicious, like nshima (which is a corn meal dish) with cooked green vegetables. We were encouraged to at least try these little fish (I can't remember what they're called), and we all took a nibble. None of us went in for a second nibble ;)
The guys did a test-run on the chicken processing plant with 10 chickens! This was very exciting to watch! It all ran seamlessly, and is going to be so wonderful to use it regularly to supply the orphanage with chicken!
A highlight for us has been the huge water fight last week Friday! Shannon has a huge stash of water guns, and she kindly distributed them to all the kids that wanted to be a part of it. There were filling stations around the dorms, and as soon as you entered the water fight, you had a 0% chance of remaining even remotely dry!! Such a fun and refreshing way to spend the afternoon!
We also watched the older boys play an intense game of soccer. Their skills are so impressive...and many of them played barefoot!
We're in "burn season" in Zambia right now. Things have dried up after the wet season, and to remedy this, people take a match and light it up! The land owner might light his own field, or a passerby might decide things are needing a burn, and light up another person's field! It's so crazy to witness! The trees somehow remain, and the flames don't seem to reach the houses. The field next to Grace was ablaze yesterday! Plumes of dark smoke, and loud crackling lured us over to watch. It certainly made us think of back home, where the forest fires are burning so intensely, and threatening the towns and homes of so many BC residents. Our prayers are with all those affected by this!
Dave kindly captured us after church for our first family picture since arriving! Thanks for all of you following along with us. Ivy wrote a letter to one of her friends in Canada today, and her ending is fitting for the end of this blog post. It read, "I like Africa. You should come." :)
Till next time!
Love Jon and Renae