Say Uncle!

We are livin' large in Joburg! What a different world to be in the inner-city. I can't wait to share pictures of the village in Zambia where we stayed in comparison to this.

We don't know what to do with ourselves here! We had CORNFLAKES and REAL milk for breakfast! And if we want pizza... we can CALL and order it!  But apparently not after 9pm - last night was an epic fail with a bunch of crazed, hungry girls. :) (Did I mention we haven't had cheese for a month in Zambia?)

I love being here in Joburg and can't wait to fill you in on the anti-human trafficking training we've been participating in as we plan on taking it to local schools. But I also want to remember and share with you important and transforming moments in Zambia.

Mpulungu and the villages around Lake Tanganyika in Zambia are what you might picture when you think of Africa - babies running around half-clothed with distended stomaches poking out, beautiful land sprinkled with poverty and straw huts, crazy markets with live chickens running around and women and children carrying unbelievable loads on their heads. I LOVED it.

We were working with a ministry called Good News II, whose mission was to Light the Lake. They have several different areas of ministry based in Mpulungu, the "big city" around the lake apparently. Only 1% of villagers living around the lake are Christian and Good News II has missionaries living in some of the villages along to lake planting churches.

These villages... unbelievable.

The lake is absolutely breathtaking, but has nothing on the people or the simple way they live. We were able to do a community stay and spend time getting to know the people and learning from the missionaries. Life is so different there.

While in Zambia, we had a "holiday", or a day off... There's not a lot to do in Mpulungu once you've swam in the lake (fully clothed), walked through the market with everyone staring at the mzungus (white people), and enjoyed a cold drink. So we set off on a 2 hour boat ride to a resort along the lake with trusty, loving and absolutely wonderful Uncle Reinwold driving the boat. (Sister, you would LOVE Uncle Reinwold. But maybe not as much as Rhonda Harvey would.)

Some of the team chose to relax on a sandy beach for the day and enjoying paddle boats. Sidenote: the entire time we were in Zambia it was HOT and we were very, very physically active. Lying on the beach sounded like heaven...

BUT... my mother raised me not to pass a good adventure! (I believe her words are, "I can sleep when I"m dead." but I'm striving to be a little more normal than her.)

So, the rest of us continued on in the boat for a few more minutes to a tiny beach village along the lake- where I immediately started dancing and playing Simon Says with a bunch of PRECIOUS children. We were setting out on a great adventure: Hiking Kalambo Falls! It's the second highest waterfall in Africa, and we were starting from the boat and going all the way up.

I thought I was going to die. After the first hour of climbing STRAIGHT up wobbly rocks, my lungs were heaving and my butt and thighs were ready to quit. And there, an HOUR STRAIGHT UP, was a village. A village!!!

I couldn't believe it. How did they get water? There was no way you could carry water up where we just came from and we were still an hour from the falls. What did they eat? (Only what they grow.) How did they sustain themselves? So many questions...

The children ran after us screaming, "Mzungu... sweeties?" They wanted candy. I realized they must only get to taste sugar or have a treat if white hikers happened to come by with something sweet to give.

So many thoughts and questions...

An hour later, the falls were UNBELIEVABLE! We had hiked to Tanzania! The other side of the falls - no wider than the Guadalupe River - was Tanzania! It was unbelievable! We swam in the falls and drank the water. So clean and beautiful.

We hiked down another way - STRAIGHT down through more similar and isolated mountain villages until we came to a beach village along the Tanzanian border. And there was Uncle Reinwold!

Later, I was chatting with Uncle Reinwold, hearing his story and his love for God. I shared with him my disbelief in seeing the villages half way up the Kalambo Falls hike. He shared with me that there are so many more villages in the mountains that don't have hiking trails through them. Some never see mzungus or anyone besides their own villagers. In fact, later that week, I visited a village whose mother brought children to look at my skin - some cried because they'd never seen white skin. (And, for the record, my arms were at their all-time most tan for the month we were in Zambia. Winter in Joburg is bringing me back to mzungu status, however.)

My mind was reeling with questions and disbelief. No wonder ancestory worship and witchcraft prevails and oppresses in Zambia, especially along the lake. That's all they know.

We base our realities off of what we see- cultures, world news, media, relationships. It feels like we have the whole world at our fingertips. (especially now that you have an iPhone, Sister!)

But what about them? Their reality is based off what they know - and they know nothing outside of their tiny village on Lake Tanganyika. Africans are incredible spiritual people - and all they know to worship is their ancestors.

What if you have never even had the option to hear the name Jesus Christ?

We can acquire as much knowledge or as much of anything as we want. But they can't.

We can raise the money. We can take a break from our jobs, our school and our delicious, delicious queso (mmmmmmm)... it's easy. They have to know!

Uncle Reinwold looked straight into my eyes on the boat ride and said, "I don't have money. It's my joy to serve the Lord by driving you on this boat. I can't do what you can do. Part of why you're here right now is to learn this lesson. To go tell people who can come to come. To go tell those villagers who Jesus is. You CAN tell them. They can know. There are so many who don't."

They don't have to live the same way we live. I'm glad they don't. But they can live with freedom from oppression of worshipping ancestral gods and putting hope in witchcraft. They can know the Ultimate Father who is their portion, their sustainer, their protection and their deliverer.

If we speak... If we let them KNOW... they'll never have iPhones, but they'll have HOPE. And an unconditional, everlasting LOVE and ETERNAL LIFE.