The Call to Africa | 2009
In late April/early May, a team of seven women returned to Africa to train additional counselors and make additional arrangements for The Esther School. A second trip took place at the beginning of August. Check out all of the God Sightings from these trips below!
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- Construction of The Esther School is underway!
- A Service Center was established in Lusaka, Zambia to serve as a headquarters for all of the operations that take place there.
- We had immediate support/assistance upon arrival in Zambia as the cab driver we used during two of our previous trips – Swali - was waiting at the airport and made all the arrangements with other cab drivers to get the team and our luggage to the guest house safely. This was a real feat!
- Training of returning counselors was great! So good to see the women and hear how things are going in their clubs – great stories of true life change for girls and counselors. Those that have been leading clubs for more than two years seemed to have a good understanding of club life and their role as mentors. Some that had only been serving as counselors for one year still needed clarification in some areas. Noteworthy was the overall spirit of unity – kindred spirits.
- In order to accommodate the storage and distribution of all of our supplies for clubs, i.e. Bibles, personal care bags, seeds, start-up bags, curriculum, t-shirts, etc., the wife of the pastor of the church where we hold training, Judith, offered the use of her office. The office was located in a building on the church property and we were so thankful!
- Unfortunately, with all the moving and shifting of so many boxes in Judith’s office, a piece of the linoleum (non-installed) on the floor was torn. To compensate for this, we purchased an area rug for the office. Judith was so very thankful and so delighted!
- Backpack giveaway! The building and office mentioned above also served as the distribution point for the long awaited backpacks! We were unable to distribute these during Get Connected! Camp last August. They simply did not arrive in time even though they were shipped in February! Nearly 500 backpacks were there waiting for distribution. What great joy it was to offer these gifts from girls and women in North America to the girls that had participated in Get Connected! Camp. These girls came to the church for a Saturday morning get-together and distribution. Their big, big smiles and expressed “thank-yous!” showed their deep gratitude.
- The singing of the Zambian counselors at the beginning of each training day was a taste of Heaven- such joy in worship!
- New counselor training involved 144 women! Yes, it was a challenge to enfold all 144 women when not all of them were proficient in English, but we did our best. Even though we make it very clear that in order to lead the lessons in GEMS, you have to be able to read and speak English, the women who attend training are not always proficient. Children today are taught English as the first language in school, but a large percentage of the women may not have attended school for very many grades. And sadly this is still the case for many girls today.
- 26 new clubs were started! Thank you Lord for growing your ministry in Zambia!
- Many of the older girls active in GEMS for the last two years or more, came to be trained to be CITs. We enfolded them into NEW counselor training and they did such a great job! They are so eager to lead! Nowhere else in their culture are they given an opportunity for leadership. They will do an amazing job!
- Praise the Lord for so many opportunities to talk and share with older girls and hear how God has intervened and directed their lives since coming to GEMS! What a blessing! Getrude, an orphan girl that was raped and then forced to leave her home by her parents, has become a shining star! She served as the praise and worship leader for all the girls from Get Connected! Camp. They all look up to her as she has the joy of the Lord on her face and in her heart all the time. Fannie learning about menstrual cycles at Get Connected! Camp. She was able to tell her mother that getting her period was normal and not something that required a visit from the witch doctor. Before the mother would believe this information, the GEMS counselor had to meet with the mother and validate what the daughter had said. When the mother finally accepted the information, she wondered why no one had ever told her. All her life she had believed that when that time of the month came, it was because of evil spirits in her body. The mother encouraged her daughter to tell all of her friends this truth. Grace, sharing her love for singing and sewing! She never knew how to sew before GEMS. Now she just loves sewing! Karen talked about how inspired she was at Get Connected! Camp where she learned to do creative movement. Now she leads it for her club and for her whole church. And we got to watch Karen in action. She was great!
- Watching our two Area Coordinators and two Leadership Trainers in action – helping new and struggling counselors was so reassuring. Their commitment and willingness to learn is so admirable.
- We played! Having the chance to visit and play with the children in The House that GEMS Built, was pure delight. The children are so eager to love and be loved. They just melt when you hug them & seem starved for affection. Likely the heartaches of the early years of their lives will always be with them. The children sang and recited memory verses for us. The oldest boy, Charles, no longer lives in the GEMS house but came to visit. Even at 16, our hugs were well received! Prayers are still needed for all the children and their momma. Life is not easy for orphans even with a home. School is especially difficult for them even though they try so hard and want so much to learn. Every child sees education as a privilege and longs to go to school and to succeed. Tutoring is desperately needed.
- Visiting clubs was rewarding and eye opening. Some of the counselors have embraced the concept of “enfolding girls.” This was all new for them – something they had never experienced themselves, but knew girls needed. They could remember desperately wanting to be loved and hugged when they were young. Other counselors struggled with the curriculum. Their experience in school was/is still so different from ours. They seldom use textbooks or workbooks – they are simply not available. All a student ever sees is her exercise book or notebook. They copy answers into the notebook. So having a Counselor Helps book was a new experience for them – all new! It was good that we could see their struggles and understand them better. These are things they are not able to articulate. We have to experience them to understand them.
- The Club Coordinator of one of the clubs we visited was obviously not understanding how to use the curriculum. That night after our visit, she walked approximately two miles in the dark (which is VERY dangerous) to the home of the GEMS Leadership Trainer that visited the club with us. The Club coordinator wanted to know how she had done, and whether or not the Leadership Trainer would help her become a really good GEMS Counselor. We were all humbled by her seeking heart.
- Annette, another Club Coordinator, was all alone with her 35 girls when we visited her club. No other counselor had come that day. But was Annette ever prepared! She had her object lesson down pat complete with props! Plus her gentle, quiet, and sweet spirit captured the attention of every girl. They were very attentive.
- As we introduced the new Hand ‘n Hand micro-financing and fundraising program to the counselors, they initially looked puzzled by it all. Then as they began to understand that we were empowering them to become self-sustaining, they responded with their version of a “Yahoo! Praise God!” Smiles were everywhere! We had to explain what a pot holder was. They had never seen nor used one before, but when they learned that this could help them NOT burn their hands as they picked up heavy, super-hot pots off their stoves (a lot like a rustic version of an outdoor charcoal grill), they were so excited! And when we gave them a potholder “kit” to take home, make, and bring back the next day, they were eager to get started and learn. The next day… all smiles! They proudly held up their potholders for all of the team to see and appreciate!
- Getting everything ready for introducing the Hand ‘n Hand program was filled with God sightings every step of the way. Finding a store with the quantities of fabric needed, finding the glue and stain for the ornaments, negotiating a good price for all the quantities needed, building a relationship with the store owner who was of a different faith, finding a large enough space to cut the massive amounts of fabrics, getting the fabric and other items all divided up into bags for each club to pick up – one bag to start with and more to pick up after turning in each round of100 completed potholders, identifying someone of noble character that could become our Hand ‘n Hand/Service Center Coordinator in our absence – Feliciters will be able to keep things going, getting her a phone and announcing her role to counselors, finding a location for the Service Center, receiving the batting “just in time” the night before we had to depart – it was all Holy Spirit led.
- Alan, Swali, Crispy, and Allan – all provided protection and support and encouragement in different ways. Swali in particular provided great insights into wrong and offensive behavior. He helped us understand a lot more how the absence of real or known ways of meeting basic needs which all people have, drives people to do things that are not how God would want us to treat one another. We so appreciated God for using Swali to provide us with the wisdom and understanding that was needed in a particular, recurring situation.
- Both of our meetings with Chief BundaBunda – the gracious gifter of land for The Esther School – were very important and very precious. We wanted to make sure that the leaders in the village viewed the school as a partnership venture. And, we wanted to not only share our dreams for the school, but hear from them and learn what their ideas were. The chief is a gracious, wise, and highly respected man who appreciates and values prayer. Sitting with him and watching how he treats his people was a rich blessing. His words to us were pleasing to our ears. We were thankful that God had redirected us to bring just the right gifts – an African Bible Commentary for him, a handmade quilt for his wife, and soccer balls made in the colors of the salvation story which we explained to all the people in our gathering. As it turned out, these were the best gifts.
- Walking the land where The Esther School will be built, seeing the beauty of the land, was again such a joy. We felt like we were walking on holy ground. And indeed it is – holy because it comes as a gift from the Holy One.
- There were many “match stick” moments with our team – times when we had so many things to accomplish that we just drew lots or matches as it turned out to see who would do what. The team is completely made up of get-along girls – no whiners or complainers, just women willing to serve anyway that was needed no matter how tired or exhausted they were. This was a team that could divide and conquer, a team that worked so well together, that totally appreciated one another, and that prayer fervently together – morning, noon, and night. A memorable prayer was one that was offered daily over lunch of peanut butter sandwiches – “we pray for our team member, Wendy, who is with us in spirit only this year. Please heal her body, Lord."
- Our finances were significantly improved this trip due to the value of the US dollar. This was pretty amazing to us! And, we did not run out of money so this was a praise as well. It is not easy to access bank machines that work there!
- As we departed Zambia, gave hugs to the people we’ve grown to love and appreciate there, and traveled back home, God did not stop pouring out His blessings. He connected us with a woman who had started a ministry of her own in Zambia to “help the gentle and kind people” there. She was an inspiration. And then, in the line in Customs at Heathrow Airport in London, God added yet one more blessing to our basket that was already overflowing! Standing directly across from us was the one woman we had missed connecting with on our trip due to the sudden death of a government official and funeral arrangements. There stood Mrs. Shikapwasha. As we looked at her, our eyes widened and our mouths flew open! We could NOT believe it! There she was! More than the icing on the cake, this was the cherry on top! We hugged her and visited with her as she waited for her son-in-law to pick her up. She was in London for the birth of her next grandchild.
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What an amazing, grace-filled, gift-giving God we serve. To Him be the glory!
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