Zambia Post #1

I know we have been back for 3 weeks now and I have still not gotten around to writing about Camp Life on here. To be honest, I am finding it very hard to even know where to begin. 

Instead of trying to give every detail of every day I will just tell a few of my favorite experiences and stories. Here it goes...

This year I had a group of 10 girls ranging in age from 6-11. Here are the 10 girls that I had the privilege of spending the week with at camp.

Thursday is my favorite day of camp! Every other day of camp we have the kids bused in and do camp at a conference center type place. Many of the kids have never ridden on a bus much less leave the community they live in.  It is so sweet watching these kids experience so many "firsts".

  

Thursday is different because we get to go into the communities where these kids live. My kids were from a community called "Ngombe". They tried all week to teach me the correct way to pronounce this word....they were unsuccessful! Let's just say they laughed at me A LOT.  

This year we focused on how as believers in Jesus Christ we should love and serve our neighbors. So we put these kids to work! Once we arrived in Ngombe we split up the groups of kids into different service projects. Some of the jobs were picking up trash, cleaning the community schools, painting a local clinic/police station, walking around and evangelizing. Service projects are a foreign concept to the Zambian people. There is no "serving" your neighbor. It was so fun to have my girls walk me around their community pointing out places of significance to them. Here are some pictures of the different communities that I have been to in Zambia.

Imagine walking through these communities that are littered with trash, one room mud huts, and little kids wandering around alone. It is heart breaking. It is one thing to hear these kids talk about their living situations and all of the hard issues they have to face daily but walking through it yourself makes it all very real. 

One of the hardest realizations when you are in a country like Zambia is that the problem seems overwhelming. Here are a few statistics that will help you understand better.

* Half of the population of Zambia is under the age of 16

* Of the 6 million children in Zambia, more than 1 million of them are orphaned

* Average life expectancy is 38

* 86% of people live on less than $1 a day

When I would look at the kids sweet faces, it would break my heart to know the odds they are facing. Orphans are seen as a burden in these communities and usually neglected because of their status. But in all of this there is hope...

I will be posting a few of these amazing stories of hope soon!