Discipleship, Hogware and Rape for Dinner

Cabin photo of desk and refrigerator.

Bed in the cabin.

Kitchen

Another sunset picture.

 July 8^th

               Malaria Monday!  Yes I took my malaria pill.   Only 4 more after this and I am done  It started out very cool this morning, upper 40’s, but as we always expect warmed up rapidly after the sun cleared the horizon.  So, now it is breezy and in the low 70’s.  I will certainly miss these moderate temperatures.  This is the second day without Martha’s milk.  I am starting to go into withdrawal tremors.  We can’t drink her milk till tomorrow, because Vet. Teddy gave her an antibiotic shot for mastitis just in case.  Makes me cry to think of Bud drinking all that milk by himself, but he’s a steer and can use the antibiotics.

               I am continuing to disciple Albert Kalenga, our cook, musician, grandfather to the children and man of many talents.  I have been using a small faux leather ESV for teaching and discipling Kalenga.  I gave it to him today with an inscription from Ecclesiastes 4:1-12.   We have become very close Christian brothers.  I have every intention of giving it to him as soon as we started meeting.  He uses an NLT  and Living Bible.  It will help him study to teach and preach to have the ESV.  A thought just struck me, a play on an old proverb.  If you teach a man about the Bible, you feed him for a day.  If you give him a Bible and teach him how to study it, you feed him for life.  And then he can feed many others.   Pretty cool!!!

               We now have a hog wire perimeter fence here at NDO.  We also have a gate.  This is mostly to keep out stray dogs and cattle.  However, it will also cut down on the non-NDO foot traffic through NDO (sorry Blu, almost typed compound).  I still think there are 3 wild dogs of Africa trapped within the perimeter fence.  I spotted them last night near the pit where we throw chicken and rabbit parts after cleaning them.  Apparently dogs have no shelf life on dead animal parts.

               Darbi, Melody and Katie are safely through Choma and are probably in Livingstone by now.  The van held up for them to get that far.  You may be wondering if Blu is insane letting his wife and three ladies drive to Livingstone on their own.  Darbi is an African bush woman.  After years in the bush she can handle herself.  She also knows a good mechanic in every town from Lusaka to Livingstone.  No worries mate!!

               Martha (not the cow but the lady who works around our hut) did our last load of laundry.  There is something a little disturbing about having all of your business hung out on the line to dry for everyone to see.  We did that when I was a kid, but we had a backyard for such things.  Our laundry is displayed in front of the hut for everyone who walks by to see our tighty whities.  Not cool!!!

               The garden is looking great where Lynne, Noah and some men from Rosemont mulched and planted.  The rape and onions are coming in well.  She is re-planting some of them today to thin them out.  As much as Lynne is looking forward to getting home to work in her own garden, this one will still be in her heart.  The staff and children at NDO will be reaping a harvest of her efforts through October and November.

               Let me digress for a moment.  Melody and Katie Hammond arrived last Monday from Texas.  Melody shook my hand when I met her and said, “Hey Larry!  I have been reading your blog.  It told me everything I needed to know to come to Zambia prepared.  Surprise!!  Somebody I had never met had been reading my blog.  Now I didn’t think there would be a large following, but apparently it is popular in Texas.  The teachers here at NDO have asked me to continue to blog for them when I return home.  Some people are really starved for entertainment.

               I have two more evenings to climb the tower and watch the sun set.  I stopped climbing the tower for sunrise when I realized I could watch it rise through my hut window.  It has been fun playing with the camera to get different exposures of the sunset.  I am including one taken yesterday that I used as an inspiration to design the cover of a thank you card.  Someone here at New Day asked for a copy of all of my pictures.  I told them there are over 3,100 pictures, and that amounts to more than 18 Gigabytes of data.  If I see it, I shoot it (with a camera).  I have learned that every time I leave our hut to bring my camera and a flashlight.  So far, so good.  Why a flashlight?  It is often very dark when Sikutanta descends the tank tower, and I need the flashlight.  I especially need it if we are load shedding and the power is out. 

               The students in my computer class are doing well.  All of them have improved their keyboarding skills immensely.  They have also had a lot of fun doing it.  Although some people are down on games, playing games associated with an important skill is very valuable.  I tried having my students do the same drills I did in typing class using a keyboarding textbook.  They quickly became bored and frustrated.  Once I introduced them to games, there was dramatic improvement, and they had fun.

               Tomorrow is our last day at NDO.  It will be a normal day for us.  Lynne will work in the garden and check on the animals.  Not sure if we will have a computer class or not.  I will try to pack as much as I can tonight and maybe we can still have computer class.  I hate to disappoint my students.   We came with two suitcases and are returning with four.  If anyone sees Susan Brumeloe, tell her we are bringing home her suitcase that was left at the airport.  We thought we were going to bring home some African-made baskets but the local lady who makes them has not come back to see us.

Rape plant in the garden.

               I will miss being so involved in ministry.  During our time here, I have felt very much involved in Christian ministry and used by God.  I have been given the opportunity to use my spiritual gifts daily.  I guess that is the benefit of a small staff and congregation; more opportunity to contribute and be used by God for the benefit of the body.  Although I may be just the big toe of the NDO body, at least I feel a part of the body.  Do you think the city of LaGrange would object to me climbing the water tank by home depot every day to watch the sunset?? 

               We had pork chops and rape for supper tonight with cornbread.  The rape reminds me a lot of collard greens.    Abbey, Hilda, Mulenga, Kulenga and Elizabeth helped us eat the cornbread.  Mulenga was still raving about the oatmeal raisin cookies I brought to our last computer class.  Lynne had to wing it with the recipe, but they turned out great. Tomorrow we begin packing up and cleaning up the hut.  Tomorrow is our last day at NDO, since we leave Wednesday morning.  Romeo had it right, “parting is such sweet sorrow.”