Connections (Johnny Payne)

The movie I Heart Huckabees contains two “existential investigators” played by Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman, which seek to help their clients to make connections between all the events, persons, and circumstances in which they find themselves, in order to draw out underlying meanings, or spiritual truths we might say, about their own lives as well as more grandiose ones like the existence of the universe. Making connections allows the characters in the movie to view individual persons, events, and circumstances in a way they would not otherwise appreciate. For example, losing one’s job becomes an opportunity to rediscover a more fulfilling vocation, meet new friends which strengthen one’s self-awareness as well as providing distance from stagnant and discouraging colleagues.

This concept has been important to me in discerning how God is working in my life and how to minister more effectively to others. However, making connections is definitely not an exact science. For instance, Job and his friends spent a long time discussing the connection between his hardships and what God was doing and why He was doing it, all to no avail. When we reach the point of total confusion about the connection between our life and God’s plans, it is helpful to remember “[God’s] ways are not our ways”.

Connections which we have been experiencing the past two weeks in Zambia as a team have been many and have given us a lot of encouragement that God is present in what we are doing. For example, the dramas which the students (8th-9th graders) have come up with reveal the bleak reality which they face in their personal lives. Both girls and boys groups frequently, almost exclusively, portrayed the norm for young people in their community: boys, inspired by American hip hop videos, meeting up with girls, dressed “a la Rihanna”, and quickly preceding to have sex (this was inferred or referred to by the characters), without mention of HIV status or condoms. The pressure to follow in this behavior, despite the well known consequences (all characters tested HIV+), is more significant than most of us could appreciate from an outsider’s perspective. While the connection seems so obvious in the play, actually resisting the temptation to pursue such a relationship and to refuse sex is extremely difficult and very few teenagers are able to maintain abstinence until they are married. HIV infection statistics bear this out.

Some connections which need to be made are not being made. For example, answer the following based on your own experience or what you have read:

A. Does the knowledge of HIV differ between Christians and non-Christians? Testing rates? Percentage of singles who abstain from sex?

B. Has the presence of HIV been handled by the Church better or worse than the general public or other faiths?

C. Have our prevention efforts been based on a scriptural understanding of extending grace to the fallen and discipline to the non-repentant?

I believe the Church has overlooked the connection between who we are in Christ and what we do in the world and why we do it. Agape love is the unstoppable force with which Christ intends for us to overcome the darkness of the world, yet we fail to connect how this love should appear in our daily lives and especially how to love others which are not ready to love us in return.

The longer I work in the HIV education ministry the more consistently I find that people struggle to make connections between important things and are generally distracted by the unimportant. Many are eager to understand risks involved with using razors or condoms while they have never tested for HIV even once in their life. At one of the schools we are teaching at during this trip, 2 out of 20 teachers polled had ever received a formal training on HIV/AIDS (those two were lasted trained in 2006). While I became concerned that they needed training for their own sake as well as to share information with the students, I quickly reminded myself that knowing one’s HIV status would be far more important than knowing what HIV does to the immune system or most of the rest of our lessons’ content. Like most Africans, few teachers are willing to test for HIV, even fewer are willing amongst those who have a reason to believe they may test HIV+. Recently we offered HIV testing immediately following our Sunday morning service at my church in Mufulira, and only 16 out of 170 in attendance chose to test (2 were positive). Even in the US, the majority of those who are HIV+ have not tested since being infected, thus they are not aware that they may be transmitting it to others.

We have spent a lot of money on teaching people about transmission and prevention, on treatment, and other interventions like prevention of mother-child transmission, but few countries have attained a position in which a significant majority of citizens test regularly for HIV or in which those infected are aware of it. Likewise, only 3 countries have attained significant decreases in their HIV infection rates (and these may be easily reversed). This means the number who should be enrolled on ARVs is still far less than it could be if more tested and far less than it will be as epidemics become more connected by regional and global development. Already, we have concerns that treatment costs will not be manageable beyond the near future. Are we missing a serious connection between testing and prevention?

As we teach students about the reproductive system, sexual transmission of HIV, the immune system, and testing/treatment choices, we hope that both information as well as our encouragement and educational activities will give them the ability to make better connections between those truly important things, not only to prevent HIV transmission but to help them realize what God is doing in their lives and how they can reach their potential as children of God.

Day of the People (written by Jami Ward)

Church doesn’t start in Zambia until around 10:00 hours. What were we to do with all this extra time? :) Many different things, some slept, some cleaned, and some enjoy the worship music! Whatever was done, it was a well welcomed time of rest and renewal for all. We set off by foot to Agape church and enjoyed a nice service given by Dr. Thinus on how we’re challenged to not focus on the bad doings that are going on all around us but to stay focused on G’d. And to remember he’s in control. Bishop Mulaea then gave a short testimony about the HIV/AIDS conference they all attended. We ate lunch prepared by the church ladies out in the open lot in front of the church, like a picnic. It was amazingly good food. We then walked back to the house where Matt and Austin changed into more comfortable clothes. Then we headed off to Glenis’s church to give an HIV/AIDS talk to her group. The talk went great where everyone had tons of questions. We had that one guy who no one could figure out what he was asking ... and he was innately angry ... but beside him, all questions were answered and everyone was very positive and learned a lot. The night was concluded at Carmelitar and Rebecca’s house where they prepared us a Zambian dinner. A Zambian drink was prepared for us, which was called Mumkyo. It’s basically maze mill and millet. We played with the kids and danced and sang. All 7 of us road home in Dr. Thinus’s little Volkswagen car, now that the cockroaches (what Zambians call the police) were now all asleep! You couldn’t ask for a better day.

Sports Clinic Day (Austin)

Today was Sports Clinic Day! I was very excited for today as this was my big to-do. During preparation of our trip Jami had assigned me the task of Coordinating the Sports Clinic. That meant coming up with the games, organizing the teams, and developing a “Sports Safety Presentation” that would be presented after the games were over.

The event itself was held at a community sports arena down the street from Butundo Basic (the local school). When Jami, Matt, Jill, Sidney and I arrived at the sports arena we were greeted by Pius, Henry, Duncan and Davison, who would be translating for us. There were already some kids playing soccer when we got there but the child population quickly jumped up to around 100+ kids when news had spread that we had arrived. Once most of the kids had shown up we played “Red Light, Green Light” to get the kids warmed-up and excited about the games. Afterwards Matt and Jill lead stretching circles for the boys and girls while the translators and I went around and placed the children into teams by tying colored strings on their wrists. Once finished we broke the kids up into their colored teams and started the games. The whole event worked like a well oiled machine. Jami, Matt, Jill, and Sidney were team leads and helped get the kids get ready for each event, the translators did a fantastic job of explaining the rules of each game to the kids, and I did my best to keep the whole event moving smoothly with minimal hang-ups. The actual game events were as follows: Wheel Barrel Race, Dizzy Race, Three-Legged Race, Relay Race, Tug-o-War. The teams were very evenly matched and there was strong competition throughout the whole event.

After all the games were said and done we handed out these frozen water pops (which was total chaos) and then settled the kids back down so we could talk to them about sports safety. This was my first time actually using a translator to teach so I was a little nervous but I had been watching Matt all week in class so I understood how it would work and it went quite well. I talked to the kids about sports safety focusing on what to do if one of their friends was injured or if there is blood present. Matt helped out by playing the part of my injured friend and Jill helped by playing the parts of both an Adult and a Doctor. After the presentation we said our goodbyes to the children and headed back to Dr. Thinus’s house very satisfied with the outcome of the day’s events.

We Can’t Get A Bus Day (by Jill Hansen)

Today was our last day @ Eastlea and Murundu, and the day that the students had an opportunity to apply what they’d (hopefully) learned throughout the week by presenting their own independently developed skits about some aspect of HIV/AIDS to all 4 groups of students, with a prize for the best overall skit. In an effort to make the grading process as legitimate and fair as possible, we used a rubric that allowed 10 points each for originality, creativity, message, and working within the 5-minute time limit; all of us team members plus the facilitators formed the panel of judges. I conducted a quick quiz of my class before I herded them over to the student center for the presentations, and was pleasantly surprised by their quick and accurate responses. I wasn’t sure how effective my lessons had been since I’d had a different translator nearly every day, the last of whom had been an Eastlea teacher who had “translated” by paraphrasing everything I said in English prefaced with “What she was saying is…”

The presentations were all quite entertaining, despite all covering basically the same events: boy (or girl) meets girl (or boy), who pressures them to have sex. Girl (or boy) finds out that they have HIV, and the parents/grandparents/friends reject the HIV+ person. Most of the skits concentrated on portraying the seduction process and, since the teams were made up of all girls or all boys, each got creative with their portrayals of the opposite gender. The girls teams had the baseball caps, slouching walks, and awkward pick-up lines of the stereotypical Zambian high school boy down pat, while the guys teams stuck out their butts and pranced their way across the stage in comical portrayals of their female counterparts. A team from my class actually won with their well-choreographed and melodramatic presentation that culminated in a perfectly timed ensemble admonition not to have sex before marriage. I’m so proud of my girls! It’s so encouraging to see the spark of initiative and thirst for knowledge spring up in the eyes of these precious students, especially after a long week of feeling as if I were a less than effective teacher. :)

We left Eastlea right on (Africa) time, so about 30 minutes after we said we would, and had to hike quickly to the taxi stop (i.e. the side of the road) so we could make it to town in time to pick up a minibus and get to Murundu by 14 hours (2 pm). Finding 2 taxis is always a problem, but we managed to do so in record time. Once they dropped us at the Murundu minibus stop, we decided against climbing into the “Liverpool” minibus (they all have names) that sported 3 broken windows, a flat tire, and a non-functioning trunk latch. Unfortunately, the buses are not on any sort of fixed schedule and the unspoken but omnipotent Minibus Drivers Code requires that the first bus to arrive must be filled before the next bus can leave, so we had to wait for 15 people to brave Liverpool and 15 more to fill up the equally sketchy bus in line behind it before we found one that looked remotely road-worthy. That process took about an hour, and by that time we decided that it was worth the 60,000 Kwacha (~ $12) to pay for the extra seats to hire a minibus to take all of us to Murundu, instead of waiting another hour for a safe minibus for 2,000 Kwacha each (K 20,000/ $4 total). By the time we arrived at Murundu Basic School (after having been stopped by the police for illegally changing lanes-and watching the bus handler hotwire the bus to get it started afterwards), most of the children and teachers had gone home for the day. We did find about 50 of our group members, though, and set up the skits in one of the classrooms. Honestly, we weren’t sure what to expect, but the kids did a wonderful job! Watching Zambian high school students perform skits about HIV/AIDS entirely in Bemba (with occasional snatches in “Bemblish,” as they call it :) ) is quite an experience, and the Murundu kids went all out. The possibility of winning a certificate is an incredibly effective motivational tool for the average Zambian student, and these kids were no exception. We were entertained and enlightened to see how these students see HIV/AIDS in their everyday lives, and left the school exhausted but pleasantly surprised at how well the kids seemed to have assimilated the lessons. We’re all looking forward to the sports clinic @ Butondo tomorrow, and to not having an Indaba tonight. :) Overall, I think God has used this week to teach us patience and faith in His ability to work even when we’ve had to change all of our best laid plans, and to keep a sense of humor no matter what comes our way.

Immigration Day (Blog from Jami Ward)

Thursday started out like a standard Zambian day, the rooster was crowing by the window, the sun was beginning to shine in a big blue sky and my mosquito net was beginning to fall. I was awoken by Jill bringing me a piece of bread with thickly spread chocolate Nutella, which is a highly effective means of getting me out of bed! We all ate breakfast, packed for the day at the schools, grabbed water and headed out on foot. We walked to Eastlea where we met the STS Zambian facilitators to teach the last day’s curriculum. The celebration of Freedom Day on Tuesday, 25th of May, meant that we had to squeeze the getting tested topic in with transmission/prevention talk. Being that it was a last day for the students to practice their presentations, we all gave the students a little extra time to practice along with extra guidance. We also all spent sufficient time answering the student’s questions about HIV/AIDS and making sure that any misconceptions were clear. The girls had lots of additional questions about pregnancy and mother-to-child HIV transmission. For the life skill lesson, we encouraged the students to think about what life means to them. The topic was quite abstract for a lot of them but good discussions was had. After teaching at Eastlea, we walked out the back gate of the school, as usual and walked to the corner where we again caught a taxi which would take us to the bus stop for the bus to Murundu. We were walking towards the bus, where the drivers were waiting for us, when we were stopped by two men who claimed to be with immigration. The immigration officer talked to the Zambians first, asking what we were doing here. Johnny asked to see his papers proving he was who he said he was. He proved he was with the immigration office and proceeded to ask for all our passports. He harped on the fact that we should have registered as travelling as a business. We disagreed but then convinced them that we’d do better next time. This pleased them and then we spoke some Chibemba which made them laugh, which seemed to do the trick. We assumed they were trying to find a way to get just a few Kwatcha out of us! They failed!! During this whole charade, a bus driver who remembered Austin from the day before was loudly signaling for him to bring us to get on his bus. Once released from the immigration officers … we all went and jumped on the minibus to Murundu. We barreled off, down the road to Murundu, tightly packed in the minibus. We got to Murundu basic where we all went and taught again! The girls at Murundu declared to Jill that, “they know everything there is to know about HIV/AIDS and sex.” Slightly overconfident perhaps! We practiced the relay for the sports clinic on the students at Murundu. It didn’t prove to be the easiest game to organize but it was fun. With a little reorganization it would work perfectly. Overall, it was a terrific day filled with lots of great talks and fun!

African Freedom Day! (Blog from Jill Hansen)

Happy African Freedom Day! :) Schools were closed today, so we took the morning to stock up the pantry @ Shoprite, then headed to Murundu to spend the afternoon with Pastor Joseph. Jami and I helped Martins water the burgeoning tomato crop, which they will soon be selling to help cover transport costs for the orphanage, before moving on to the new moringa saplings- all using the sprinkler/irrigation system that Mr VZ had installed last summer. It’s delightful to see the orphanage moving even closer to self-sufficiency. :) We were called back to the house for lunch, but first pitched in- literally- to help the guys load maize onto the roof to dry. 5 guys on the roof, 1 on a ladder, and 10 on the ground formed a human grain elevator and made relatively quick work of all 5000 kg / 11,000 lbs. By the time Hilda’s scrumptious meal of nshima, sweet potato leaves, and chicken was served, it was all we could do to flop onto the couches in exhausted but happy stupors.

After lunch and a much-needed break, we set off for Game Day at the orphanage, where we saw their new maize mill and introduced the kids to the classic pastimes of Tug of War, Dizzy Races, and Wheelbarrow Races. There is nothing quite so heartwarming as the gleeful laughter of happy children, and I know their joy blessed us as much as our spending time with them blessed them. :)

We had so much fun at the orphanage that we departed too late to catch a taxi in time, and ended up waiting for an hour for a minibus that would fit all 8 of us. The time passed quickly, though, just sitting on the sun-warmed ground and enjoying fellowship in the balmy African winter evening. This is what STS is all about- ministry and fellowship.

First Day of Work (by Matt Porter)

We awoke early this morning and made our way to Eastlea in the hopes of meeting with the headmaster of the school. Previously he had been adamant that we needed to have our classes from 11-13 hours, which would effectively kill any chance of visiting two schools per day. Fortunately, he was willing to accept starting at 10 and knocking off at 12. The kids were well behaved and we could see that many of them were very intelligent. We taught about the immune system with games and demonstrations. Some of the students were labeled helper T-cells, some B-cells, Killer T-cells and of course we had a compliment of random diseases. For some reason, you don’t get many volunteers when you ask “who wants to be Syphilis?” maybe it got a little mixed up in translation. I think our only two problems were the short teaching time and the language barrier. I have a hard time judging whether or not they just aren’t confident in their English abilities or if they have no clue what we are saying. After class, we went outside for games and the most peculiar thing happened. Johnny asked if anyone wanted a bible lesson and he actually drew a huge crowd, larger than the groups playing soccer, Frisbee, or any of our other games. I found it to be very refreshing that kids would actually want to learn about the bible. We walked to the bus stop to catch a bus and waited for about a half hour before one of the Zambians said that buses don’t run during the lunch hour so we would have to take a taxi. It makes you frustrated at first but if you don’t adapt it will make you go crazy, just remember TIA (This Is Africa). Finally we made it to the bus stop for Murundu, our last school of the day and climbed aboard. I learned that sunglasses are the most valuable thing that you can bring with you on the mini bus, if you want to know that story I’ll have to tell you all about it later. Either way, Murundu Basic school was great and the kids were easier to teach than last year. By the time we made it back home, all of us were exhausted and in need of sleep, but we still had to cook dinner together. Johnny and Jill are amazing chefs who actually enjoy cooking, while the rest of us are merely helping where we can in the hopes of sharing the load and of course eating sooner. I think that our group will get along just fine and have a great trip.

Traveling to Zambia (Austin)

I awoke Saturday morning to Matt and his freshly shaved head staring down at me. He was wearing one of our custom made ”STS” T-shirts and coaxing me to get up; it was 4am. As I was stumbling through the living room to go to the bathroom I could see Jami in the dining room clipping papers into our lesson plan binders while Matt returned to weighing luggage. At about a quarter till 5am Rich shows up to help us load our luggage into his car and drive us the 3 hours north to JFK airport. We took turns being Rich’s co-pilot while the others napped ... wait let me rephrase that, we attempted to take turns then all of us promptly fell asleep 10 minutes later. Rich was kind enough to let us nap until we arrived at JFK. We said our very gracious goodbyes to Rich and then proceed inside to get our tickets and check luggage. The best way I can explain our 13 hour flight from New York to South Africa is a combination of awakeness, followed by movies, followed by napping, followed by some light reading, followed by some airline food, followed by some more movies.

The next morning, after we finally landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, we had planned to meet up with Jill, who had taken separate flights from Tennessee. But not before I was harassed by the airport security for having too many batteries in a single bag. FYI: 16 batteries in one bag = bad, 16 batteries scattered in 4 bags = quite alright. So after my little battery debacle, we met up with Jill and I was introduced to both her and a giant fake giraffe in the airport terminal lobby. Jill later described our connecting flight as, “waiting in the terminal lobby for the bus, so we could wait on the bus for a bus driver, so we could wait outside the airplane for the pilot, so we could wait on the airplane for takeoff”. Luckily the 2nd plane ride was only about 3 hours long and we slept almost the time.

After we landed in Ndola, Zambia we had to go through customs to get our visa’s before we could officially enter the country. It was quite funny explaining to the security guard who was checking my baggage that all the toys I had packed in my suitcase were my “personal games” and weren’t going to be sold or gifted to anyone. Once outside Jami, Matt, Jill, & I waited for Johnny (who lives in Zambia at Dr. Thinus' house) to come pick us up. Johnny arrives with a taxi about 10 minutes later and after some luggage Tetris we head off towards the town of Mufulira and Dr. Thinus’s house. Now as a first time international traveler it did take some getting used to the fact that cars drive on the left side of the road but that driving anomaly quickly took a backseat to the fact that African drivers will just drive on whatever side of the road has less pot holes so really we were driving on the right side of the road half that time anyway.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful as Dr. Thinus wasn’t going to be arriving until the next day so when we arrived at his house we just unloaded our stuff rested from our long trip.

-Austin