No CAA to help but God provides

We have been in our new home for exactly a week and it really starts to feel like home. It is nice to go to work in the morning and to come back home in the evening. It gives you a real feeling that you are doing something other than just changing rooms.

This past week was a pretty busy week with 4 children from Chongwe going to a high school in Luangwa where they start on Monday. Mareta went on Tuesday to visit several schools and was able to find a school that would accept the 3 girls and one boy. On Wednesday and Thursday a lot of shopping had to happen and on Friday they were brought to Luangwa by Willy and Mareta. After they were dropped off and Willy and Mareta started on their way back to Lusaka (about a 3 1/2 hour drive) but shortly after they left Luangwa one of the fuel lines bursted and the car came to a stop.

At the same time Gert was with Caison and Phil in Chongwe with Lucky to discuss some things regarding the chicken farm. Around 3pm on Friday afternoon we got a call from Mareta telling us that the Landcruiser had broken down and that they didn't know whether they would be able to get it repaired. We decided to quickly get in the car and head back to Lusaka in case we needed to get some spare parts. While driving back to Lusaka we got a call that Willy had been able to find someone who was willing to sell him the spare part. He quickly got it and installed it and about an hour later they were on their way again to Lusaka.

Something like this makes you realize that here in Zambia things are clearly different from Canada or the US. When a car breaks down there is no CAA or AAA that you can call and that they will be there in less than 30 minutes. No, you're on your own and you have to be able to help yourself. Luckily it happened while Willy was there and he has a magic touch with cars. I don't know where and how he learned it but he is able to get pretty much every car running again in no time. A week ago he helped Machteld and Lucinda when they were stuck with a vehicle with a dead battery. In relatively short time her was able to figure out the issue that caused the battery not to charge and got it fixed (had to change the battery though). I wouldn't want to be on a far-away road with a broken down vehicle and night-time approaching. But in all this, God was present again and showed us that we can trust Him in all we do. Thankfully Willy and Mareta made it back almost before dark.

Today we went to Chongwe to play a volleyball tournament. On our way there we got a call from Kevin to tell us that the starting time was postponed till noon due to the rain that we had overnight. We went anyway and had a great time of fellowship with the DeKam and Roelofs families. In the early afternoon we were told that the tournament would start at 3pm so in good Zambian style we showed up about 45 minutes late. After a nice dance show of some of the kids of the local school that one of the Japanese girls had taught them we went over to My Father's House to play our tournament. There were 4 teams, one for the Esther School, one from Nyangwena (mostly from My Father's House), one from the Chongwe high school and a team of Japanese volunteers that help at some of the schools in the area. We had a great time and after all the games were played the Chongwe high school team won and the other three team ended in a 3-way tie for second place. After counting the scores our team ended as third. Not bad for a team that had never played together before. I am sure that there are some old muscles that will be sore the next few days. But it was a lot of fun and the plans are to organize this more frequently and we challenged the mamas in the homes to have a team as well to next time.

We left Chongwe around 6:45pm with the daylight fading quickly. The sky was a beautiful range deep purple and in the distance we could see some lightning in the sky. On our way back, close to Lusaka, we saw a couple of police cars at the side of the road and it appeared that there had been an almost head-on collision/ There were two cars on both sides of the road and just as we passed the ambulance came from the opposite direction. It was another reminder for us that driving in the dark is a dangerous thing here in Zambia. Many cars have bad lighting which causes them to use their beams which then blinds oncoming traffic. Inexperienced drivers will do strange things when this happens to them and regularly this will cause accidents. We hope and pray that the people involved all survived and that there are no casualties. By the same token, it could have been us because often westerners get into accidents not because of their mistake but because of bad driving by Zambians.

We are thankful to be home again safely. God is our strength, our comforter and guardian. He goes before us and is beside us and behind us and above us and underneath us. He is omnipresent and always there to protect us wherever we are. We serve a mighty God and we have seen that this week. We are thankful for His presence.