Take down and transport after the Feast

Lusaka, Zambia

At 6:00 am we started working on takedown in dismantling the shelter where we met during the Feast of Tabernacles. The men spent three days putting it up and the takedown was to take a good part of the day. I helped out with taking nails out of the wall supports. Every nail I took out was saved…it will be straightened and used next year as the shelter is set up again. Nails are expensive. We rolled up the home-made bamboo mats there were used for flooring and for the walls. The crew moved quickly and aptly under the direction of Haben Moonga, a hard-working, competent farmer and builder. He has put in charge of building the three UCG church buildings in the Mumbwa area. A ride for the Copper Belt people was arranged by running out to the main highway and getting a bus to drive into the game park and picking up the 18 people heading to Northeast Zambia. The Copper Belt people assumed that we were going to give them a ride to Lusaka, but that was not the case. Kambani Banda is a great planner and had all the logistics thought through with getting equipment back first to Lusaka and then taking two loads of people of over 60 at a time on the truck for the three hour trip to the Mumbwa area from Paray’s Game Park. Kambani Banda is a man of great patience who was able to handle the misunderstanding and arrange adroitly for everyone and everything to be accommodated. We then loaded the rented chairs and other equipment on the LifeNets truck that I drove back to Lusaka. Some of the Lusaka people also were taken back. One was an older woman with her grandchild that climbed amidst the luggage. There were four people in the back of the truck. Actually, this truck is called a “van.” What to me is a van they call a small bus. In the cab of the truck with me was Apren Moomba and his wife Grace. Grace was going into town to be with her daughter-in-law and nine-month old grandson Derrick who has cancer in his eye and will be having it removed. Doctors suspect that Derrick’s other eye may cancer in it, too. Surgery will be Tuesday at a hospital in Lusaka. We dropped off Grace and her son Javelin on a crowded street in Lusaka and then we carried on to a drop off half the chairs at an elementary school and the other half at a Catholic church and school. Both places rented the chairs to us. Finally on to Kambani Banda’s home where we unloaded many bags and boxes along with a full bed. Time was moving on and we needed to get back to load up all the people and their belongings for the bumpy trip home. The process of loading the first 60 people on the “van” was arduous. Tents were folded, belongings packed away in sacks. When we return we learn that the father of three of the members and ex-husband of another died earlier that day. The day before The day before I baptized Mostly and his mother Emily who were a son and the ex-wife. The other children were Nice Shachoogo, wife of Jerrison and Often Chifwepa, wife of Winter. In the loading process of the van, all 60 people were sitting on back of the van baking in the sun, but no one complained. Instead, there was happy bantering and I was told that they were not going to suffer on the three hour ride to Mumbwa because the wind was going to air condition them. The group got on its way. Shirely Banda after a while took me and Bev to the compound were we would stay the next two days. It was a walled secured complex of an inn and guest houses run and used by the government for diplomats and foreigners. It was huge and Bev and I walked around the perimeter that we estimated to be about two miles long. Kambani didn’t come until about eight PM….he stayed out at the game park and hadn’t heard about Apren Moomba’s return. It was dark and it was decided that the remaining group would pitch their tents again and return the next day. Apren did not return until after 10:00 pm. Bevin Moomba and Joe Banda were to dinner with us. Bevin will be receiving a LifeNets Developing Nations Scholarship. We are quite impressed with him. He will be attending University in either Lusaka or Kitwe in the Copper Belt starting in January. There is one more young man in Mumbwa that LifeNets wants to help go to University. This is a big step forward in this area as no one has ever had a higher education from this area. We really love the people of Zambia. There is a beauty in their warmth that is perfected with Christian conversion Tomorrow we go out to Mumbwa to see the LifeNets projects: cattle, wells and the agriculture program.