Update from Casie

Hello Friends and Family! Muli-Shani! (Zambian Greeting)

Things are going well here in Mufilira. This morning we awoke to the sad departure of half of the team that has become a family. Duane, Beth, Adam, Megan, and Jim left us this morning to move onto their respective locations. Their departure was very bittersweet because we know that they need to go but we were not ready to see them leave. I must admit, many tears were shed by yours truly. :-)This weekend brings two new people to our team! Max should be arriving tonight and Jami will be here on Sunday. We are all very excited about our new additions!

Dr. T dropped us off for our last day at Kalanga. We started with addressing the issue of stigma with the 6th graders. I felt slightly awkward with this group of kids today because yesterday during my talk instead of being from team STS the translator told them that I had STD's. umm yeah. That was def a miscommunication! haha wow.

So anyways...after the 6th grade was the 8th grade. Now this is where things began to get interesting. Before I spoke, the weight of my responsibility really hit me. I have the words of life and I have been given the opportunity to say ANYTHING I want to these kids. I spent time searching scripture and just praying that God would give me the words to say but the responsibility still weighed heavily on my shoulders. I started my talk and just prayed the entire time that God would give me the words that HE wanted me to say. I spoke from heart and about what God has done in my life. I spoke from John 8 and explained to them how Jesus loved the woman who was caught in adultery. I told them that God loved them the same way that he loved that woman. Friends... I did not know that I could preach... haha but let me tell you.. I was preaching. At the end all of the girls crowded around us but didn't really say anything. I couldn't figure out what was going on... a few minutes later one of the girls wanted to know how to accept Jesus as her Savior.. I told her and asked if she wanted me to pray with her... She hesitated and then they were all like..."No, we want you to pray with ALL of us. We ALL want to accept Jesus as our Savior." I was floored. I led them all in a prayer and they all got on their knees and accepted Christ... right there.. in the middle of the school. Praise the Lord! Today heaven in rejoicing over about 100-150 new Zambian girls! Craziness.

So that was the highlight of my day. I was not expecting to lead ALL of the 8th grade girls to the Lord today but Praise God.We then did the stigma talk with the 9th graders and headed off to the Church planting school on foot since Dr. T was out of town picking up Max from the airport. The walk was long and hot but beautiful. After a while... we FINALLY made it to our lunch! It was AWESOME. We had chicken, nshema, and these greens called Rape (almost exactly like spinach). It hit the spot. We then went into town and got water, apples, and chocolate(!) from Shoprite and began our two mile walk home. Needless to say, we were all EXHAUSTED when we made it to our humble abode. When we got here a couple was waiting for us on the front step.. so Elizabeth and Dan couldn't rest. They visited with the couple.

I was very excited to lay down but just as I was falling asleep Dan came to my door and told me that three girls from Pamodzi were here to see me. Even though I was tired... I got up and spent some time with them.

Shortly after the couple and the girls left, we had more visitors show up and everyone is in the living room entertaining our guests. (I snuck away to shower... yay for being clean!)

I am afraid that I am going to smell bad when I get home and not realize it... haha because you get used to it and you don't smell it anymore. I figure that if I DO smell myself... then that means it must be PRETTY bad! I try to shower.... but there are alot of people with only one shower to share. Most of us are pretty grungy most of the time :-) So we should smell AWESOME when we get home! Henry and Pastor Terry did an amazing job teaching the teachers at Kalanga about getting tested. The word from Elizabeth is that they were phenomenal.

All in all we had a very long, good, eventful day! Tomorrow we have a sports competition from 9-12 somewhere.. they haven't told me where yet and then the afternoon is a mystery. No one has told me whether there is something planned for us tomorrow afternoon or not. Knowing this crew... there will be something... it will be a fun surprise!

Well... I love you all. Thank you so much for your prayers. Pray for the unity of our team and the two new members we are getting this weekend.

Nalikutemwa,
Casie