Merry Christmas! We wanted to post a few pictures of what the holidays have been like for us here in Zambia! We hope that you all have had a wonderful time celebrating with family and enjoying a bit of a break from work/school. We miss you all very much, but we look forward to seeing you perhaps next Christmas! On December 21, Jason and I had the opportunity to help with a youth Christmas party in Musenga (the village next to Amano). Jason prepared a few games and a short devotion to go along with the youth leaders' activities. There were some younger village kids who sat in the distance to watch what was happening. We had the chance to try and talk with a few of them after the party. Below are some pictures of the party.

(water balloon fight in cardboard tanks)

(Jason giving a devotion on the obedience of Mary and Joseph in the Christmas story)

(the young children who watched the party from a giant ant hill in the distance)

Christmas Eve was mostly a baking day to get things ready for Christmas day. Now I'm starting to know how all those moms feel with sore feet and backs after cooking all day. :-) We went to the candle light service at church which started at 6:30. We had planned to eat together (the 6 of us) after the service. Since we're in Africa, the service went a lot longer than they said, so we didn't get to eat until after 9, but it was still a nice evening. Below is a picture of the choir singing at the service.


We celebrated Christmas day with 4 other people: Dave and Tine, who are missionaries with Liebenzell Germany; Judith, who is also with Liebenzell Germany working as a midwife about 10 hours from here; and Hilary, the headteacher at Amano working with CMML. We decided to have a progessive dinner between three of our houses. It was quite nice and we enjoyed all the yummy food and learning about each others' family traditions. Appetizers were served at Dave and Tine's (above) mobile.

The main meal was served at Hilary's house (above). We all helped with parts of the main meal and enjoyed a delicious duck. From left to right: Tine, Kelly, and Judith We are relaxing at Hilary's waiting for the main meal. Dessert was served at our apartment.

Here is a picture of our missionary family. This is in our apartment. Left to right: Kelly, Jason, Hilary, Judith, Tine, and Dave. We ended the evening with some sparklers on the veranda.

Merry Christmas from Zambia!

Christmas is Coming

Hello Friends,

We closed off the school year with some Christmas concerts, and Kelly's kids all participated with various roles in the play. Here is a shot from the "Countdown to Christmas" performance put on by the primary students.

We decorated our flat with the stockings we brought from home and some other decorations some friends let us borrow while they are at home in Germany for the holidays. Here is a shot of us wearing the chitenge clothes we had made by a woman from church who owns a shop in Chingola that does tailoring work. "Chitenge" is the local word for the type of material that almost all women use for skirts that they wear, sometimes just a big piece of material wrapped at the waist as a long skirt, sometimes made into an outfit with a matching shirt.
We took a nice trip to Lake Kariba on the southern border of Zambia. We saw some game and visited a crocodile farm which breeds thousands of crocodiles each year, taking troublesome crocs from the wild and catching them to place in a created lake so they breed. The eggs are collected each year and hatched by hand as shown in the picture. The babies live in a nursery with close control so they don't catch diseases or stop eating if they are too stressed, and they are then moved on to the next holding areas as they grow. I (Jason) got to hold one of the day old babies, see picture) and we got to drive through the breeding area with no fences and they threw meat to the crocs to get them close to the truck, which is the last picture (the feeding)



We hope to take a bus down to Livingstone in a week and a half to celebrate the New Year and our first anniversary at Victoria Falls. The kids are scheduled to return on Jan. 7th, so we are gearing up for a new year but enjoying this break while they are away from campus. We plan to celebrate Christmas with a few friends who are still around campus and are looking forward to our very different Christmas this year amidst the warmth and rain. We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and hope you enjoy your celebration of our Savior's birth and of the New Year to come.

November Activities

About two weeks ago, I (Jason) was able to travel with the grade 9 students to a community center in Ndola called Mushili. There are a few Liebenzell missionaries who run both an HIV/AIDS testing center and counseling center as well as a plot where conservation farming is taught to local farmers and hundred of children come to play soccer, netball, and volleyball. We first went to the HIV/AIDS center and sat through a mock counseling session and HIV test only to find out afterward that the woman who was being "mock" interviewed was actually just re-enacting what actually happened during her initial visit when she found out she was really HIV positive. She was in good health and the kids were able to ask questions about how her family responded, and she told of her husband dying of AIDS years before and not believing that he really had it when she was told.

We then went over to the plot where sports are offered for several hundred local kids, and we were able to play some volleyball and soccer with them there. I was, of course, the only musungu (white man) on the "field" which is shown in the image, but I managed to score the first goal of the match though I was much less skilled than most others on the field. :-)

A week ago, one of the workers managed to kill a snake in the bush and brought it back to the campus, where one of the students with snake experience helped skin it and dissect it for the many children watching. Not a poisonous snake, a python.

We were even able to have our own version of a Thanksgiving meal, though turkeys are not available anywhere in the country this year due to the bird flu epidemic. We made two chickens and had corn and green beans and a small ham and twice-baked potatoes and some wonderful rolls (Kelly's grandma's recipe, she has perfected the art of making them). We had several friends over and enjoyed the meal and a Christmas movie to follow together. It was nice for things to feel a bit like home as we celebrated our American holiday and told others about it who had never celebrated it before.


The day after Thanksgiving, we got our Christmas decorations up in the flat, including stockings on the mantle, so the apartment is looking like it's ready for the holidays to come, and we are ready for them to come too, along with a break from school, teaching, and dorm activities. Term ends in just a week, and we are planning to travel to the southern border with Zimbabwe to Lake Kariba for a short time away and some relaxing. We hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebrations and we wish you a wonderful week.

It has been awhile since we have been able to post. As we promised, we wanted to show you some pictures from our trip to Nsobe Camp (about 2 hours southeast of here). We spent 2 days with a few of our friends over our half-term break. There is a nice lake with crocodile free dams, so we were able to canoe. They also offer safari jeep tours through the game drive to view the animals. We found 3 giraffes, many varieties of antelope and a herd of zebras. They even allow you to take a walk through the bush and we happened to come across the giraffes. We were able to get very close to them. It was amazing.


Today we had a farewell service for the Grade 12's (not same age as a US Grade 12 student, more like Grade 10/11 age) but they left the school after finishing their exams this week and are now off to A-levels (from the British education system) or trade school. There are about 4 weeks left in the term, and we are looking forward to a month long break in December in which we can prepare for the next year and maybe relax a bit too :-). It certainly won't be a white Christmas, more like a 90 degree day with a rain-storm probably, but we will enjoy it nonetheless and celebrate with some friends here. Hope to post again soon!

It's official, we have seen the monkeys! The other night we went out for a walk through a bit of the bush and we happened to spot about 6 monkeys in some trees. We quickly ran back to our apartment to get the video camera to take some nice shots. Over the next two mornings, Jason had to run back to the same spot to try and catch the monkeys on tape again because we had run out of battery on the first night we saw them. We are attaching one of our favorite pictures of the monkeys below.
In a week, the school will have half term break. It lasts for about 10 days. We are planning to go away with some of our friends for a few nights to Nsobe Camp. It is a game park where we plan to take a drive through the park to see all sorts of wildlife. We will also be able to canoe on the lake and go swimming, so we are looking forward to some traveling and relaxing away from the school.

We plan to put out our monthly newsletter this weekend, so we'll update you more in that letter with more pictures.

Moved in to the new flat

Apologies for taking so long to post since the last time we put some pictures and information on the website. We have been quite busy preparing lessons, teaching, grading papers, putting students to bed and waking them up, among other duties around campus. We were able to travel with another couple to Kitwe (the closest town to Chingola, about 45 minutes up the road from Amano) and we got a few decorations from the craft market there. We also got a good deal on a wood frame and wicker dresser on the side of the road since we had nothing to put folded clothing in. We will post some pictures of the completed flat (minus some pictures we hope to put up this week), and they should give you an idea of the place we're living, which is beyond what anyone would expect for a flat in the center of the African plains. :-)

The dresser below is the one we picked up from the man who makes these on the side of the road on the way to Kitwe. We have finally put our clothing away, and we are enjoying being more organized now.


Here's a shot of our bedroom. There is a closet off to the left and the dresser, as well as our mosquito net frame and nice big mosquito net over the bed. This is about as nice as they come since they are usually hanging from a circular ring at the ceiling and fall in your face sometimes.

We've added a few touches to the bathroom like the curtains Kelly brought from the states, so the bathroom is a bit more homey now too.
Here's a shot of the kitchen which is also very nicely done. There is a nice view at the sink, and plenty of cabinet space, as well as a range and oven and a fridge/freezer. We even got a microwave and toaster too!

Hope this gives a better idea of where we're spending a lot of our time. If you want to see pictures of certain things around the dorm or around campus, let us know, and we can try to post them. I will try to get some pictures of the dorm itself and some of the guys soon when I take them.

We are finally getting settled and experiencing some of the culture. The boarding students will start arriving on Monday (27th of August) afternoon and classes start at 7:30 AM on Tuesday. We're both looking forward to meeting all the children as we have heard so many great things. Jason will be teaching grade 9 math, physics class, and design and technology. He will also be responsible for some dorm duties with the boys wing. Kelly will still be taking over the first and second grade class with 8 students. Below is a picture of the 1st and 2nd grade class. Kelly built a 3D tree in the corner but has not changed many other things in the class, as she is waiting to get more information from the headteacher.

As of now, we are still living in part of the guest house. We are getting excited about moving into our permanent flat, but the construction is still being finished. Tomorrow we will move to another flat for 2 weeks, until our flat is finished. We wanted to post some pictures of our flat to show what it looks like before the work is finished.





This is our living area:

















This is our kitchen. It's very small, but has a beautiful view.









There will be a wall put in here with a door to our bedroom. The bikes are not ours, but we're hoping to be able to use them (same with the other things in the room).









Today we also got the chance to experience some real Zambian culture. There were some small children playing in the center of the campus in a grassy patch. They started a small fire and tried to put it out, but it was so windy and it is very dry here that the fire just took off. Jason went running to try and find workers to help put out the fire. The workers came, but since it is Saturday there were not as many workers as there are during the week. They used buckets and dumped water and moved faster than we've ever seen the Zambians move. Praise the Lord everyone was okay and no major damage was done. Only about 2 acres of grass were burned and it stopped right before it reached the dorm building. There was also an electric box above the flames which was quite dangerous, but thank the Lord it didn't explode. Jason has a few burn marks on his foot and part of his hair was singed, but we are grateful the fire didn't destroy anything major. Burning of grassy patches is very normal here, but only when it is planned and able to be controlled. This was an unplanned burning. These are pictures of the ground after the fire was put out.










Thanks again for all your continued support. We love you all!

Finally Arrived at Amano

We have arrived at Amano Christian School just outside the city of Chingola. We enjoyed a retreat at a 'nice' hotel outside the city we flew into, Lusaka. The first picture shows an image from the retreat where we got to meet many of the other missionaries working in Africa with Liebenzell, mostly Germans.

Yesterday, we drove from the retreat to Chingola and moved into a nice flat (apartment, more or less) where we will live for the next few weeks until our permanent flat is finished attached to the dormitory. We will try to post some pictures of the campus to give a better overall sense in the next few weeks. We are enjoying ourselves and looking forward to when the other teachers and students return from their break. We also travelled into town today to do our grocery shopping and spent 424,000 kwacha. It's nice to be millionaires, haha. Actually it was a little over 100 US Dollars, and things seem to cost very similar to the same items in the states. Anyway, we are about to eat dinner with the German family whose house is adjacent to our temporary flat, so we will head out. There is a picture of the temporary flat on the campus (we are located in the farthest right-hand side of the white wing of the building (on the right) and we will plan on explaining the campus better with some more pictures in another post. (We will add a picture of one of many rather large anthills on campus, and yes it's actually an anthill.)

Flight Information

It's official. We're going to Zambia. We booked our flight for Friday, August 3rd. We leave from Washington D.C. at 9:45 fly to Rome, Italy. Then we fly from Rome to Ethiopia and from Ethiopia to Malawi. Then we board a small plane to Lusaka, Zambia! Lord willing, we will arrive in Zambia on Saturday August 4th at 2:20 their time after about a 29 hour flight!

An aerial view of Amano and their surrounding property.