Month Three

The first weekend in July was the Mukuni Chief Ceremony. Zambia (as well as other nearby nations) are divided into chiefdoms, and many of them have annual ceremonies to celebrate their chief. Our base is in the Mukuni chiefdom, and it is Chief Mukuni that gave this piece of property to Overland. Because of this, and because it is important to us to respect and participate in the Zambian culture, Overland plays a big role in planning and executing the ceremony, and so we all helped with the proceedings. I attended the chief ceremony in the Moomba chiefdom when I was here last year, but although I did not know it then, that ceremony was far less elaborate than the Mukuni ceremony.
Saturday (the Fourth of July) was the first day of the ceremony, and I ended up not really doing anything in the morning because time is not of the essence in Zambia, and therefore, everything was delayed three hours. In the middle of the afternoon, we traveled back to base where we helped finish setting up for the chiefs dinner being hosted on base that evening. We (AMT students) worked as the servers for the night. So we greeted the chiefs and other guests (the chief’s families and local military and policemen), served drinks and h’orsdeurves, and then continued to serve drinks and clear plates once they were sat for dinner. Following dinner, a few staff members created a fireworks show over the gorge, which was quite impressive. We claimed it was in honor of the Chief, but it was secretly to celebrate the Fourth of July. 😉 The guests all left afterwards, and then we all indulged in the leftover food (delicious homemade fried chicken, amazing t-bone steaks (Overlanders know how to grill!), sodas, and cake), sang the US National Anthem together, and then had a spontaneous dance party that lasted until midnight. It was by far the best 4th I’ve had; so much fun!
Sunday was the second and final day of the ceremony, and it was much busier. I wasn’t scheduled to serve until the afternoon, but they needed more help than expected, so I ended up working all day. I helped greet for the first part of the ceremony, then helped a little with lunch set-up, ran chairs and benches between the different ceremony arenas, served drinks to the chiefs during the second part of the ceremony, and then served drinks and clean tables for lunch, which ended up being dinner because things were delayed again. It was hectic and tiring, but fun, and I was able to watch some tribal dancing during the first part of the ceremony and the Chief and his security ride in on elephants during the second part.
The week after the Mukuni Chief ceremony we did our Preaching and Cross Cultural Communications courses. Normally preaching class involves a lot of popcorn preaching with the delivery of a sermon at the end of the course, but because our classes have been packed together in the last month, we simply went over some methods for Bible study and then simply wrote a sermon. Cross cultural communications was a pretty fun and interactive class where we learned more about African and Asian cultures.
This next week, we did our Such a Great Salvation (basically a theology course) and Come Back Alive courses. For our Come Back Alive class, we were split into four groups, and each group taught the class on a different survival element: fire, water, shelter, or navigation (my group taught on shelter). In addition to the class, Come Back Alive involves randomly being left in the bush as a team with minimal equipment for an unknown amount of time (between 1 and 4 nights)–what is easily the most infamous part of AMT and what was my biggest initial reason for dismissing the thought of AMT when I first found out about it. We knew our Come Back Alive would be short because of time, but we spent all of last week speculating on when it would be. They finally sprang it on us Friday afternoon. It ended up being different than I thought it would be, definitely challenging, but also fun.
We were told that we had five minutes to run to our tents and grab one item that would be useful for the team. Afterwards, we were told to select a leader, who sorted through the items and chose 10 to take with us (which is not much for 22 people). We ended up with a few blankets, a large knife, a roll of toilet paper, three headlamps, matches, and a lighter. We were then given a GPS and coordinates of the location which was to be our campsite. So we walked about 20 minutes to a location just outside of the base where we “found” a large pot with maize meal inside and grate for the fire. We then started building a short rock wall around the perimeter and clearing out our campsite. Afterwards, our staff leaders came by to see how we were doing and give us the coordinates of two more locations: one where they left us a couple jugs of water to ration and another with a source of food–which ended up being a live goat (the most infamous part of Come Back Alive). Once we had a fire built, a few of us cooked the maize meal (n’shima) while the rest killed and butchered the goat (I gladly stayed with the n’shima), which we then roasted over the fire. After dinner, we spent some time talking as a team, by which time it was around midnight, so we decided to try to sleep. Our summer is Zambia’s winter, so while it’s warm during the day (in the 80’s) temperatures get into the 40’s (30’s sometimes) at night. We laid the blankets on the ground to try to block the cold ground and snuggled together as closely as we could, but it was too cold for us to get more than a few minutes of sleep. We ended up building four more fires around the perimeter of our camp, but it didn’t help a whole lot in terms of sleeping. The only way to totally stay warm was to stand (the ground was too cold to sit on) between two of the fires. Thankfully, some of our team signed up to do white water rafting in the Zambezi river the following morning, so we were permitted to come back to base at 6 am. We were cold and sleep-deprived, but it was still a good time with my team.
Our last week of classes was busy, but it went very well, as did our sector project presentations. As I’ve mentioned previously, Overland divides the ministry areas into sectors, and each sectors have specific missionaries working in that sector. So for our final project for AMT, we are divided into groups and assigned a future sector for which we have to research and create a 5-year ministry and logistical plan and budget, and the plans are frequently used in real life for the sectors. My group was assigned Myanmar, which is a country in southeast Asia that recently opened up from communism, and therefore is a tough country to get into with a ton of regulations for tourists. However, our presentation went very well, and the Overland leadership was impressed.
That afternoon, I had my “interview” with the Overland leadership to decide my course of action. Because of the large number of people joining, where the needs are, and my logistical skills, they have asked me to spend my first year serving in the US office in Cocoa Beach, FL. This will give me time to finish school while we figure out where to send me, and increase my knowledge of Overland. Logistically, it looks essentially the same as working overseas, except that it isn’t abroad.
The following day, we left for our final expedition, which was absolutely AMAZING; by far the best expedition I’ve been on. We went to the village of Sikalele in the Simwatachela chiefdom, which is the next chiefdom to the east; about a 4 hour drive from base. Our leaders dropped us off and left us to fend for ourselves and our translators, which we definitely did.
People in Zambia are really nice and hospitable in general, but the people in Sikalele were especially so. We camped next to a school, and the villagers built a partial fence for our campsite, as well as two enclosures for bathing. In addition, they refilled our jerry cans with water and brought us fire wood on an ox cart, and they were so thankful that we were there.
Upon our arrival, we were able to set up camp early enough that we still had some time for ministry afterwards. So we broke into groups and went out, which we originally had not planned on doing, but I’m very glad that we did. My group went to one hut and ended up spending about three hours there. Upon arriving, we noticed a woman with a huge black eye, as well as bruising on her upper chest, and we were immediately concerned, though unsure of how or if to approach the situation. After preaching to and encouraging the family for a while, they began asking questions, and the woman asked us what someone should do if her husband makes a mistake, apologizes, and keeps making the same mistake. After answering her questions, we mustered up the unction to ask about her bruises, and she confirmed that her husband abuses her and is having multiple affairs. While we were talking to her about it, her husband came home. So we decided to have the females in our group pray with the women, while the men went to share the Gospel with the husband. There was no instant change (although the wife seemed uplifted), but we ended up reuniting with one of the family members a few days later, who said that their marriage was restored. Praise the Lord!
Our second day of ministry was also rather tough. In the morning, each group went to different local church; my group went to a Church of Christ church, many of which do not allow women to preach, including the one we went to. Our translator on this day was female, so we were not allowed to share, although they did let us give our names and a brief description of Overland. The service, which included communion, lasted about 3.5 hours, and afterwards we went out for hut-to-hut. Once again we made it to just one hut, which ended up being the home of a couple pastors from the church. Things were smooth at first; we encouraged them, and they encouraged us. However, we ended up discovering that they believe that only those who attend Church of Christ will go to Heaven, so of course we had to correct them, which didn’t really get us anywhere, but we trusted God that we still planted seeds and made them think. Some of our team ended up going back to that hut later in the week to find that the pastors had a change of heart.
Our third day of ministry was awesome; probably my favorite day of the week. We started out speaking with two young men on the side of the road. After sharing with them for a bit, they, too, started asking questions. One of them, Victor, asked us what a man should do if his wife is cheating on him. We have a guy on our team who was married a few years ago and his wife had an affair and divorced him, so he was able to share part of his testimony. It was such a work of God in terms of putting the two of them together. Victor was so enamored by the fact that a white person had been through the same thing that he is going through. In the end, both men also accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. After we parted ways, a local pastor, Pastor Decision, who was translating for us that day, informed us that while we were speaking, Victor was motioning to the other man that he had pain in his stomach, likely some type of demonic presence, that was relieved while we spoke. Afterwards, we went to three huts, the last of which had two ladies that taught us how to pound and sift millet for n’shima. (N’shima is normally made with maize, but is sometimes made with grains like millet or sorghum). That night we had our first of three night meetings. We sang and danced and prayed for people, and I was one of the people who preached.
On our fourth day, we did hut-to-hut in the morning (in which we made it to two huts), kids’ ministry at the school in the afternoon, and another night meeting in the evening. The fifth day was much of the same, except instead of kids’ ministry in the afternoon, we held a soccer tournament.
On our final day, we did more hut-to-hut in the morning, and went to two more huts. After the second hut, we were asked to stay and pray for a neighbor child. So one of the ladies brought to us a beautiful little girl of about 4 or 5 years old with a bowed leg. So we laid hands on her and prayed for about 30 to 40 minutes, and although she wasn’t instantly healed, we walked away knowing that she will be. Afterwards, we went to the home of one of our local guides for a community meal. We helped cut cabbage, tomatoes, and onions, and they slaughtered a goat and two chickens. We just sat and fellowshipped and spent time with several people that we met throughout the week. In the end, none of us wanted to leave.
On Saturday, a few of us went into town for a couple hours to do some last minute shopping, we relaxed, watched Jurassic World, and we did our official AMT debrief, which involved going over some tips for readjustment into life in the US and speaking words of encouragement to one another.
On Sunday, we played a staff vs. AMT volleyball tournament (we won) and then we had our graduation party, which involved appetizers, a dinner of lamb, mashed potatoes, and green beans, with gelato for dessert, the passing out of our “diplomas”, and a dance party. It was a lot of fun.
It was super hard to say goodbye to my team, but it’s also a great comfort knowing that I’ll see them again soon. If not sooner, we’ll see each other in January for the Overland annual conference and staff retreat (which this year, happens to be a cruise to Jamaica).
The next few days, I will be resting and reflecting, and then jumping right into fundraising. I do not yet know what my required total will be, but I will have to raise several hundred each month to cover my expenses as I go, so that needs to start ASAP. If you would like to help with that, please let me know! (Supporting online will not be available until my staff paperwork is completed).
As always, thank you for your love, prayers, and support! AMT may have ended, but this is only the beginning!