Always Choose Faith, Not Fear

Yesterday was our first full day at the Mission. We ate breakfast on the open-air porch and loaded in the bus for a tour of the campus. The bus was necessary because the campus is 7,000 acres and very spread out. We stopped at the primary school, the clinic, and lastly the orphanages which are referred to as The Haven.

The Haven consists of three buildings; the first one for the babies, the second for the toddlers, and the third is the hospice orphanage with primarily AIDS and TB babies. They are all simple, but very cheery and open with murals painted on the walls from previous groups and a dirt courtyard in the middle used as a playground. The children are cared for by the “Aunties” (like daycare workers) and each have live-in house parents. Each haven is 4-5 rooms with built-in cribs lining the walls and children everywhere! Now there are about 60 kids between all three houses. From the moment we walked in, everyone had a baby in their arms. The Aunties do a great job with them, but there are just too many kids to care for between them and they just need to be loved on. I held a little 2 kg preemie for a long time until he fell asleep, and then the next baby was waiting! At the toddler house the kids came running to us with their little arms up for us to hold them. It is so hard to walk away because they are all most happy being held and it seems like the whole room starts crying when you try to leave. We helped with lunch at the hospice house, and examined the babies on TB treatment in the “isolation room” (meaning the door was kept shut).

Friday afternoon we went to town in Kalomo and walked through the market. We stood out so obviously, and spent most of our time amusing the children by taking their picture and showing them the photo of themselves. They laugh and laugh to see themselves on the camera and ask for more pictures. A group of us met an older man in the market who asked us countless questions about America and told us, “you are who gives me the chance to see the world”. It hits me again at times like that-here we are halfway across the world doing and seeing amazing things, and so many of the people here will never get to see outside of Zambia.

My favorite thing from yesterday was our post-dinner excursion. We drove half an hour or so to the tiny village of Mutala for their ritual Friday night singing. It was in a little one-room church building in the middle of a grass field with open windows for circulation. The people of the village had no idea we were coming and jumped up to give us their seats on the wooden benches; women on the right and men on the left. This delayed the singing because they had to scrounge up more chairs and spread the word to the rest of the village. The only light was a single candle lit on a wooden table (the only piece of furniture besides the benches) at the front of the room. The singing was incredible, though we could not keep up with the Tonga fast enough to join in. Listening to the singing and staring out at the expanse of stars outside the window made me think of how small we are compared to the hight and depth of God’s love. We used a translator for the message which was to always choose faith over fear. Afterwards the villagers formed a circle outside and we continued to sing the same song as we shook each and every person’s hand.

This morning several of us formed a running group and got up before breakfast to jog in our long pants (no shorts allowed here!). It felt very surreal to be running together in the orange dust down a rutted road past mud huts, greeting the early morning Zambian risers in Tonga (“wabo kaboti” meaning “have you risen well?”). We made it back just in time for breakfast, and then had a free morning. I helped unload boxes of textbooks and such from the container sent over here a few months ago and to organize the medications and supplies for the clinic. A trip to the clinic pharmacy this morning revealed they are almost entirely out of medicines, so what we were able to get from the States will be all we have to work with here.

The rest of my morning and afternoon was spent at The Haven. It is quite a trek through the underbrush (a good 30 minute walk one-way) and over three barbwire gates to get there-and that is the short cut. My feet are so dusty I can’t see the color on my toenails! I made two round trips today. Once was in the morning with several of the students. In the baby haven we filled the common room with at least 12 people at a time and each one of us was holding onto a baby (and I am becoming a pro at changing cloth-and by cloth I mean washcloth diapers). The second trip was after lunch when the group went to the basketball court to play with the local kids. The PA students and I walked back to The Haven armed with our stethoscopes to examine the sick babies we had been told about the day before. We listened to many sets of lungs, drained and cleaned a scalp abscess on one of the babies, and took inventory of the medication available between the three houses.

All in all our time here is off to a good start. The worst part so far is trying to ignore the huge spiders that appear all over the walls. We are not allowed to kill them because they eat the mosquitos! I should have more of a routine down next week, but you never know in Africa. The students are starting off their classes next week with three hours per day of intensive Tonga lessons taught by one of the Zambians on the mission, so I will hopefully get to sit in on some of that and learn how to communicate a little better! If I’m lucky I’ll even learn some medical terms...