2009 Zambia Trip

The first five members of this year's STS team just left Atlanta on a nonstop to South Africa. The plane was about an hour late. They will stay overnight with a friend that has helped them through the years, David Jordaan. The next day they plan to fly to Zambia. The group is made up of Liam Benkert (an artist from California), Megan Sheridan (an aerospace engineer from California), my brother Jack (an agricultural engineer from Ohio), Jim Sr. and our son Drew. You can watch Megan packing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2u47OgTQA4. We all had similar packing experiences. Jim and Drew took four complete volleyball set ups, volleyballs, several pounds of moringa seeds, a moringa capsule maker, several containers of moringa powder, 100 STS team shirts, tools, many new volleyball shirts for orphans and the necessities to live in Zambia for a couple of weeks.

Jami heads to Zambia later this month with another group. Next week her job takes her to Huntsville where Tannen lives. It would have been so wonderful if they were together to organize like they did to start STS so many years ago.

Three medical students from California will be added to the first group when they get to South Africa. They have supplies for the new "Grace Place" clinic. "Grace Place" is named for Holly's daughter. They helped fund it. While in Zambia two years ago, Holly had several sick days. We were so excited to find the cause of the sickness would have the middle name Grace.

The medical students had planned to go to Central America for HIV/AIDS work that is similar to that of STS. Plans were cancelled because of unrest in the country so at the last minute they bought tickets and joined our group. Hopefully, Liam and Drew can paint murals on the walls while the three set up the clinic. I spent last night forming ideas for wall paintings that will combine the trauma program, clinic work and Grace Place theme. I dream of using medicine, moringa, toy animals, stickers, and trauma information to help women and orphans through rough times.

Next week, Jack and Jim plan to start building an irrigation system for moringa and garden vegetables. Megan and Tannen are scheduled to run HIV/AIDS programs at two schools. The blogs should explain what really happens. Every year the plans are very different from the results.

Karen VZ