We are resting today after a marathon journey to visit the Chief Machia (spelling?) at his palace and view the land. The road there was over 120km of dirt road. Let me define a Zambian dirt road... red dirt, pot holes, rocks, ruts, and dust dust dust... The road is large enough to make the map, but it was so rough that our max speed was 40km/hr (about 20mph) I know what it feels like to be put in a washing machine on the max cycle... There are several protocols to follow when visiting a chief. One is to keep your head lower than his. Since he was about 5' tall, this was difficult for me, so I was practically sitting instead of standing..All in all it was an experience and we really enjoyed our camp out and fellowship with Pastor Francis and Felix.
The land looked very promising, but the journey there is long and expensive to transport goods to. We are praying what God wants out of this opportunity. The chief asked for an answer within a month, so please be praying with us, and communicate any thoughts, questions, or prayers! Thanks!
Tomorrow at church we are having a baptism. It is very exciting because they only do it twice a year here. We will get to take part and see many of the new Christians be baptized. Also, a new bible college is opening in Lusaka and Livingstone, so two missionaries have come to do an intensive bible study course this week and we were able to meet them, and they will preach tomorrow, and let people know about the program.
Finally, we were able to build a few of the FAST (Faith and Sustainable Technology) Kenya Spirit Burner stoves. We met Travis Hughley before we left, and brought the stove manual here. The people primarily use a charcoal stove inside their house and suffer from Respiratory Illnesses from breathing all the smoke day in and night. The spirit burner is made from 2 cans, some cotton, and simple tools and will burn methylated spirits which appear to be cheaper and are definitely cleaner than charcoal. We are experimenting to find the best cans locally to use and have presented the idea to the pastor here in Mapalo and Lusaka. Hopefully, some people will learn to make and use them here. The stove burns about 15 minutes, but their staple food takes approx 1 hour. This would require more than one stove, but we are going to try to make one that would burn longer.
We are planning to leave Monday, and head East. please pray as we will not have a guide, or a definite place to stay. We have two hospitals to visit and hope to find a guest house nearby. There is not a www.holidayinn.com in these kinds of places, but God has the ultimate plans, so we will trust Him!!
We give a shout out to the rest of the team safely back in Virginia with their luggage .. praise God. Thanks for the post Mark!!!!
We love you all and miss you, God Bless!! Matt & Bonnie
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Hi guys, praying all is going well. We all miss you so.....much. We arrived home saftly and as for me I am trying to bounce back. I have been in bed for 2 days now. I am going to go to church tonight. I will be thinking about you'll. I have been sharing some of our stories and experiences that God allowed us to be apart of. Praising God and giving him all the glory. Yes, Bonnie God is good as soon as I got off the 16hr plane ride in DC I stepped literally into a starbucks, I leaped for joy and me, mark and michelle had a Speciality coffee. It was so good! I miss everyone there a lot, a part of my heart will remain in Zambia. I have looked at my pictures a number of times to gain that feeling and time back. Although I can not gain it the imprints are in my heart. I am praying for you'll glad to see things are going well!!! Yes the dirt roads now that I remember! My body is still aching..age to huh!!! I will be glad to see you and Matt soon. Tell Matt hi and not to drive over 100 HA! I was going to sign in as mother Hen!! Love you'll Bye
Hi Bonnie and Matt and niece/nephew! We continue to pray for you guys. I think of you often and miss you.
I will send you some falls pictures when you get home. I didn't want to overload your email account, but you would be crazier than you already are to ride those falls on an innertube! Hopefully, you will understand why, when I show you better pictures. I don't know if I'm supposed to go on and on on the blog - so... Love you. God Bless.
Kate
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