Trial by Fire - Update from Austin

Today’s blog is titled “Trial by Fire.” I’m not sure if it is common practice to title these entries, as this is my first, but I feel it is appropriate. This fire got particularly intense about 11:00. Since yesterday was African Freedom Day, a holiday for Zambian schools, today began our second week of ministry. We are going to be presenting at Kalanga Basic School (grades 1-9) in the mornings and then, after our daily ration of nshima, we will be heading to Pomodzi Girls High School to meet with the entire school body for the afternoon. I think we have all learned the meaning of the word flexible more every day. I mean, it’s one thing to be flexible, but it is an entirely different thing to be flexible in Africa.

Today this looked like us arriving at Kalanga around 9:00, thinking that we would start around 9:30 and thus, have approximately 2.5 hours with the students in grades 6-9. We were promptly ushered into the office of the headmaster who informed us that the school was “extremely overenrolled” with over 1000 students and that it would be best if we just spent an hour with grades 6 and 7 and then an hour with the 8th and 9th graders. No problem, we expect things to change. Now for what actually happened…

As we walked across the schoolyard it seemed as if the floodgates were unleashed; hundreds of screaming children came running across the yard after us to see what the white “Muzungo’s” were up to. So, we did our best to get the young one’s corralled to another part of the schoolyard. Angie and Casie were great about taking them off to play games so that we could present to the remaining 300 the skits, songs and talks on Biology, Transmission and Myths that we had prepared. I think it was a taxing time for all of us. Even when we broke into small groups, most of us were trying to have meaningful discussion with about 40-60 children which is not the easiest thing in the world to do. And yet, there are good reports; the Lord is always so faithful to both teach us and stretch us. Megan and Jessie did a great job with their talks and games and the kids seemed to have a really good time with them. Dan also reported an incredibly honest small group with the older guys of the group (including a 19 year-old ninth grader). Tomorrow we will be bringing with us some of the church planters from Dr. Thinus’s school to help with interpretation and crowd control, which should be a huge help because those men and women are incredible.

The afternoon at Pomodzi was a wonderful experience and that is God’s grace on us, because we were all pretty exhausted from the morning. As I’m sure has been said previously on here, we spent last week with the school’s Stop the Spread club, consisting of about 60 girls, trying to empower them to be leaders and women of God. Today we met with much of the student body, giving much more of a theatrical presentation that the week before. We sang some songs and danced and then did a skit called “Doctor’s Office.” Then Megan and Jessie gave their performances, again doing a stellar job. The girls were very responsive and I think we all left excited and encouraged about the rest of the week there.

I want to close this entry with a story, not my own story, but the life of a girl that decided to share with me as we were sitting around while waiting to be picked up. We were making small talk, I was asking her about her family, school, future plans, etc. She told me how much Stop the Spread has meant to her over the last 3 years and I asked her if she had any questions about the things we had covered. She said no at first, but then asked “how would you feel if someone you love very much died, and you didn’t find out until 2 years later that it was from HIV?” I told her that I would be hurt very much, that I couldn’t really imagine how hard that would be and then I asked her if that had happened in her life. She then told me about the death of her father. He moved away when she was 12 and she heard soon after that he had died. She couldn’t even go to the funeral. The hardest part about her story for me was that she found out at age 14 that he had died from AIDS from her younger sister and that aside from her sibling, this now 16 year old high school Junior had not told anyone. She told me that I was the first person she had talked with about his death since she heard. That really blew my mind. I asked her “so you have held this in for 2 years?” She nodded her head and then talked with me for a while about her emotions and the process of grieving. She told me right away that she was a Christian and that her faith had been a source of comfort for her. I felt like I was really able to encourage her in the Lord that she is a daughter of God and that nothing can take that away. I know there are so many more like her all around us. The disciple John says that “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Praise the Lord for that. May Christ be all of our hope and strength and life as we continue this week. Thank everyone that is reading this for your prayers, they are powerful, effective and much needed.

-Austin Crane, Team STS