Saying Good-bye

Wed. I went with Kevin and Kenny out on the boat along the Lunsemfwa River to visit 3 of the churches there and say good-bye. This was Kevin's last trip along this river in the Luangwa area. We will be going on furlough in July for about 9 months and then when we return we will be shifting to Lusaka which is the capitol city of Zambia. This past November Kevin started a new job as ACSL(Associate Cluster Strategy Leader) for Zambia and we feel like we can do the job better from Lusaka. It is very important here to say bye so as you can imagine we will be doing a lot of that in the next several months.

There was no rain on this day and the river was even down quite a bit from a couple of weeks ago when we tried to go. The sun was shining and it was quite hot. We had 3 different villages to go to so I have pics. below from each church. I just chose some of my favorites, sorry there are so many.

This was our first stop at Lupenga. This is where Kevin has been teaching the last couple of months. Today he finished up here by teaching on the Lord's Supper. There were only a few in attendance because most of the men were out on the river fishing because they said there was an abundance of fish now that the water had gone down some.

The children that was there just stared at me the whole time which was fine with me, I have gotten use to it after all these years. It mainly just happens when we go so far out that the people are not use to seeing white people.

Those in attendance followed us out and back to the boat.

This is the headman and his wife heading back to their home. Kenny with some of the young people. They love to have their pic. taken and then look at it.

One down, two more to go! Now, we are back at the boat and just have to get started off again.

Just a couple more pics. to take before we head out. This is the group of kids that followed us to the river.

This man was coming in as we were about to leave. This is a tiny little dug out canoe that most Zambians use to go up and down the river in and to fish.

What are all those children doing? It almost looks like they are making their plans in a huddle. However, you can't see Kenny, but he is right in the middle of this group showing them a pic.

This is us leaving. It is never easy to say good-bye especially when you have worked in an area for so long.

This was our second stop at Lisongwe Baptist church. Here again a lot of the men were out on the river but many women and children came to say good-bye. While we were here we picked up another passenger. A woman had a very sick child and needed a ride to the nearest hospital which was about an hour ride in the boat and then another hour in the car. I really think the child would have died if we had not been there on this day and taken them to the hospital. There is no place for these people to go to for medical help because they live so far out. It is no wonder that so many turn to witchcraft.

Even though it was not raining it was quite muddy along the river bank where we parked our boat. When we arrived my feet and tropicals(flipflops) were so muddy I just left them there and walked barefoot through the village. I just want to add that the sand was very hot, but have you ever tried to walk in tropicals with wet muddy feet??!! After we finished we had to walk down a steep bank to get to the boat and of course I slipped and fell on my bottom-quite gracefully though. Kenny even got a video of it!

This was our last stop at Nyamkhumba Baptist church. We had to walk quite a bit to get to this church but when they rang a bell we were amazed at all the people who came so quickly. There were at least 70 people that showed up. We sang some songs and then the choir sang a few songs and we danced. Then Kevin told them that we would not be coming back. This church will do fine. They have grown so much over the years. In fact, this was the first church that was started in this area many years ago.
Please continue to pray for these churches to grow and multiply even in the absence of a missionary.

We had to walk through a wet muddy area to get to this church.

Kenny on our way back enjoying the ride.

We did see a few hippo's but I only got this one pic.