Have you ever heard the expression you don’t appreciate something until you don’t have it? Well that is how our time in Zambia has been so far in regards to electricity. Zambia is currently going through a time of ‘load-shedding’. What this means is that there are scheduled power cuts which vary by time depending on which part of Zambia you live in. The reason the government of Zambia is doing this is a bit unknown but we have heard many stories. Some revolve around the turbine generators being old and not functioning at full capacity. Some revolve around there not being enough water in the lake so it is not generating enough power. Whatever the reason is, here at Kachele, we have been living with power cuts 8 hours a day for the past few weeks. It really makes me realise what we have and makes me appreciate the power when we do have it. Many nights it has meant eating by candlelight and having to clean teeth in the dark etc. but all of it makes me remember that there are so many children that we are striving to serve who don’t have a time when the power comes back. These children don’t have candles to help them see at night. These children are constantly getting ready for bed in the dark, assuming they even have a bed. And we complain when we don’t have a laptop or phone for a few hours. It has really made me realise and remember just what kinds of things we take for granted. When the power is out, it means we can run out of hot water, so makes having a shower uncomfortable, but then I remember, I’m lucky to even have running water. There are many homes we have visited where the children have to walk an hour every morning to get the water and then carry it all the way home even just to have water.
Last week, Tommy had the opportunity to go with a group of people to a community called Mwaseni in the Kitwe area of Zambia. Community prayer happens once a month and the majority of people who we live and serve with go into a community to bring encouragement and spend time with the Care Workers. This month, Marc (one of our volunteers) shared on relationships and how we can use them to help heal each other’s wounds. So many of us and our Care Workers are broken and we realise that the only way we can be healed of this is through following Jesus and recognising that God first loved us and calls us to love others in the same way. We also shared a time of worship together with the Hands family and the Care Workers, it was a special time and we really saw God’s presence show up. Attached is a sound clip of some of the worship time we had together. (sound clip) Following the meeting, we went out to do a Holy Home Visit with the co-ordinator of the Community Based Organisation (CBO), Rose. She has been suffering from cancer for over a year and as a result has been bedridden. Before she discovered she had cancer, she was the life and leader of the CBO. She would encourage the other Care Workers and make sure all the 100 children Hands at Work serves in Mwaseni were being cared for. The community is trying to care for her in the best way they can by visiting her and Rose’s daughter is helping by caring for her sick mother. The group of us that were on the visit encouraged her and prayed for her as she is going through this difficult time. We will continue to pray for Rose and ask that you join us in praying for her.
In the past couple of days Morgan has travelled to another part of Zambia called Kabwe where we have a Service Centre (SC) which supports 5 CBOs. She travelled with another volunteer named Heather and they are going to host a team of nurses from the US. These nurses leave their day jobs for 10 days and come to serve in Africa, visiting children in their homes but also providing 2 days of mobile clinics. This means that they set up a clinic in the community itself and people come from all over the community to be assessed. The nurses, along with Zambian nurses help provide much needed access to medical attention to many people.
At the end of next week, Tommy has the opportunity to travel to DRC with
a team of people to help support our SC team in various ways. Some of
the group will be helping lead a kids’ camp, some will go and speak to
churches. Tommy will be helping out in the office by providing support
to our bookkeeper there.
On the visa update, there has been no news and right now it looks like I
will have to apply for a new South African visa in November.
Much Love
T + M
