Easter in the Village

Last week I visited one of our project areas a couple hours from Lusaka. I was struck by the beauty of the rolling hills and fertile fields, the warmth of the Tonga people who live there, and the grace and dignity of the chieftainess (one of just four women chiefs in Zambia) who rules the area. I asked our staff member, Dream, if I could bring my family back to camp for Easter weekend and he agreed to set something up for us. We arrived home last night and I have to say that our time in Chikinkata was one of our highlights of our time in Zambia.

Dream had us set up our camp in a small compound comprised of several empty mud and thatch huts. Similar compounds dotted the hillsides and ripening cornfields covered every valley as far as the eye could see. Kids herding goats and cattle, and women walking back and forth collecting water and firewood, as they have done for millennia, surrounded us. And there we were, white folk from Edina, Minnesota, right in the middle of it all.

PICTURES OF OUR WEEKEND HERE…

It did not take long for the kids to figure out that we were in a sweet spot and they dove in…Making friends with the neighbor kids, chasing goats, running to the tops of the hills. Total freedom. Each morning and evening the women and children would congregate around the well to gather water. Our kids would join them to help pump the cold, clear water into buckets. Our kids would speak to them in English and they would speak back in Tonga and somehow it worked.

Clara picked up on the communal aspect of the village. She said, “everyone helps everyone else…” She is right. Africans by and large still hold closely to the concept of “Ubuntu” which roughly translates to “I am, because we are…” It fleshes out the second of Jesus’ two great commandments, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As Desmond Tutu says, “A solitary human being is a contradiction in terms. A totally self-sufficient human being is ultimately subhuman. We are made for complementarity.” As Westerners conditioned to individualism it is refreshing to be immersed in an “Ubuntu” context. Desmond Tutu goes on to talk about how just as individuals have something to offer one another, so do different nations and people groups. There is not a better or worse. He says, “God is smart, making us different so that we will get to know our need for one another. We are meant to complement one another in order to be truly human and to realize the fullness of our potential to be human. After all, we are created in the image of a God who is a diversity of persons who can exist in ineffable unity.” (From the intro. to An African Prayer Book.) An example: Each morning the woman next door walked over, greeted us kindly, and took a coal from our fire with no more thought than if she was getting matches out of her own cupboard.

On Saturday morning we drove (in four-low) up a road, over a river, that became a trail, that became a dry river bed - until we forced`to stop driving. We proceeded to hike for a couple miles, further and further into antiquity. Ox-drawn carts, shepherd boys, simple huts…It could have been 2,000 years ago -- Which was an interesting time to be in as we reflected on Easter. The world that Jesus lived and died in was not much different than the one we found ourselves in this last weekend and, in that, we felt much closer to the Jesus whose resurrection we celebrated.

On Easter morning we were up before the sun (with the roosters) and enjoyed a brilliant sunrise. True contentment. We had an Easter egg hunt (a little strange given the context) and then we packed up our camp and went to meet Dream for church. Since it was Easter Sunday, several of the churches gathered together at one spot. Each year they rotate the location and, let’s just say, we drew a bad year. We drove for a good 30+ minutes over rough roads to get the site of the service. The kids were already going nuts before the THREE HOUR service in TONGA was going to begin. Fortunately, Dream was acute to our Western sense of time and volunteered for us to go at the half time of the service, before it even started.

The trip to church did have another purpose in that we think we might have found a small piece of land, on a hill-top, that we can purchase - something that we have talked about doing before we move. This inexpensive piece of land, with million dollar views, could be the future site of a small African home for friends and family to use in years to come to experience what we did this weekend – Ubuntu. We’ll let you know what happens and how many cattle we may need to part with to secure this ground.

We board a plane two months from today and there is excitement all about. We are trying to store-up the treasures of this time, like this weekend, knowing that they will take on dream like characteristics in the months and years to come. I am reminded again of the Robert Frost poem that I reflected on as were preparing to leave MN two years ago - Nothing Gold Can Stay – we continue to try to learn to live life with open hands.

Peace from Africa –

Jeff, Molly and Kids

Update After the Rains

The sun is breaking through a LONG rainy season and we find ourselves amazed that we are on our final stretch of our time in Africa. More on the emotions involved in our inevitable departure in a bit, but first…

There are a couple of reasons why we haven’t written in a while… First, the rains got us pretty muddy (literally and figuratively.) Late December and early January was, I’d say, our toughest window here with near constant monsoon rains that got us all a bit stir crazy and irritable. So, being inspired to write a blog was one of those things that got shelved to make room for dealing with trying to keep everyone on board this train.

Secondly, both Jeff and I had fairly last minute trips to Minnesota that were nearly back to back, but not together, that kept us busy with the logistics of single parenting/juggling being continents apart as a family, Preparing to go, being apart, and the work of coming back together and finding our equilibrium took a lot of our logistical energy mid-January to early February. So… here I sit a week into March finally sharing the last few months with you.

Our trips to Minnesota were both VERY full and COLD and WONDERFUL. I (Molly) had a lot of anxiety that I’d feel overwhelmed being home after having been here in Zambia for over a year, but it was good and filling. I came home for a week with my dearest Zambian friend, Dorothy Phiri. She is the founder/director of Mercy Ministries—the Chifundo Mission School with which we have been so involved. Colonial Church in Edina has begun a missional partnership with her and brought us to MN for a week of sharing with their church community about her life and ministry. We also had the opportunity to share about Zambia/Chifundo School with a couple of different schools. It was truly a gift to be with her there in my world after having spent much time together here in her world.

We have had a few visitors since the rains have slowed—Jeff’s mom came for another visit, which was such a gift for all of us. She came geared up to come alongside me and help with our little school here and she was FABULOUS! She spent a chunk of time with the girls each day doing an English/literature/writing unit and reading a chapter book with Bennett. Mostly, it was wonderful to be with grandma. There is nothing better than seeing your kids with your parents and the magic love that they share!

My aunt and uncle (mom’s brother and sister in law) and cousin, Brad, Linda, and Ashley Baker are here for a quick visit from Atlanta. It has been fun to have them here. Jeff and I were talking last night about how great it is to have visitors—how it causes us all to reflect on and share about living here in a way that we don’t when it’s just our family living day to day life. It’s really wonderful as our time winds down here to continue to have that gift—of sharing our time, and our love of this place, with people we love from home.

A few random reflections from day to day life:

As with everything, we’re on the downhill stretch with our year of home schooling. It has been a great experience for all of us. It feels rhythmical now, very doable. It isn’t something I could do for the long haul, but I think we are all glad to have spent this year this way. It has been a gift to watch how the kids learn this year, to see what they really enjoy, to understand more the places where they need encouragement, to watch light bulbs go on, etc. All of that said, everyone is chomping at the bit to be back in “real school” next year!

We are having a blast playing soccer outside in the late afternoon/evenings as a family. It’s the latest on a long list of memories of this time that are shaping/have shaped our family life in a way that we are so grateful for. Jeff and I are regularly catching ourselves “in the moment” stopping and realizing what a treasure this chapter has been as parents to really invest time in our kids (and each other) in a quanitity that we’ll never be able to duplicate stateside. We’ve recognized that the whole time we’ve been here, but it gets more poignant as our time here comes to an end.

We’re finding ourselves feeling some similar emotions as we prepare to leave here that we felt as we were preparing to leave Minnesota two years ago… First, that sense of freedom that comes from not projecting out too far. It’s amazing, really. One of the gifts of this move has been simply in the moving. There is a release from the clinging to what we want “next” to be that comes in endings. It’s funny because none of us EVER knows what the next four months will bring, but when our backdrop isn’t changing it’s easy to live like we know exactly how things will unfold (and to stress about it!) Knowing all our earthly goods are going to be packed up in a 20 foot box in 10 weeks and shipped across the ocean and that we are leaving life as we’ve known it for two years somehow leaves us free to just enjoy the NOW a little more.

We also have a similar feeling of soaking up the goodness of our life here—time with these new friends we’ve made grows sweeter, the smells and sounds of Africa grow richer and louder. I feel like I’m seeing it all again—the dirt worn footpaths full of people streaming to and from their work/school, women with bundles on their backs and on their heads, men hauling all manner of things on bicycles. Except now there are stories with some of those people. It is a similar rich KNOWING and LOVING that we felt as we left Minnesota, not the same history but another chapter of knowing and loving.

At the same time as these emotions, the excitement for getting HOME is preeminent. Once again we are deeply aware of and grateful for the sense of home that we all feel. We can’t wait to be back on Branson Street, to be with Nana and Papa and Uncle Brad and Aunt Carrie, to bbq with friends, to go to soccer games, to go to the cabin, to spend time in Colorado, to be back at Upper Room… There are times when we all feel like we could burst with excitement for the returning…

Meanwhile, we continue to live in the story that is unfolding here. Just yesterday, I ran into James, one of the street kids that we have connected with here. We haven’t seen him since late November. I said to Jeff recently that I honestly wondered if he had died. I saw him yesterday when I was going into the grocery store. He told me that he hasn’t been around because his grandmother (who he was living with in town—both parents have died) has died and he is living out at a family farm now. He asked me to come to see him at his school next week. He has made something in art for Clara. He didn’t ask me for anything. He wants us to see a bit more of his life. This was probably the highlight of my week.

Last week, I had the gift of bringing a group of women out to the Chifundo School to see the work that is going on there. It was so exciting to see the school through the eyes of women who live here, but haven’t really seen “the real Africa” here. We went into the Chainda compound to visit a couple of families connected with Dorothy’s ministry. One is a family with a handicapped child who is living in a temporary “flat” because their house literally crumbled during the rains. The other was a widow living with full blown AIDS and housing her 4 grown children and 2 of her grandchildren in a 2 room house. She was sharing with us through her caregiver that she has been tested for AIDS and can get the ARV’s (drugs to stave off the effects of the disease—to keep her alive), BUT… she doesn’t have the money to get enough protein to be able to take them… this was a rubber meets the road moment for me… I was standing there looking in the window of her home as she shared her story, feeling responsible for this group of women, my head reeling with the complexities of the issues here… and I found myself somehow at home. I was aware of how natural it felt to be there. As we walked back to our cars, I was realizing that my heart really has come full circle—from a longing to know the poor, to a hardened/confused knowing, to a somehow-ok-just-in-it-coming-alongside-entering-in knowing…

The conversation between Jeff and I these days centers around, “What now? How does this experience translate back? Who have we become? What are our responsibilities now?’ I don’t feel too caught up in trying to figure it out, I am confident it will unfold, much as the being here has… That God will have his way with us in the places where we don’t resist His shaping…

Thanks for “being with us” in all of this… Couldn’t do it alone.

Love from Here,

The Dysktras

p.s. It is almost 2 years to the day that we published this post...