October 2022

October was a fun month because we finally shared our big news- we are having a baby! We are SO excited about our baby that is due in early April! We actually found out that I was pregnant a few days before we left for Zambia. It was really special because we got to share the news with our immediate family right before we left for Zambia. My pregnancy has been really great so far, and we are so thankful for this sweet season with lots of transition.

October is also the real beginning of the hot season in Zambia. Imagine above 90 degrees every day with no AC and no fans. Zambia in October is very dry and you are dehydrated and have no relief from the heat the entire time. Our teachers and students also eat outside at noon, meaning very little shade, so our whole month was being amazed at these troopers and having lots of water on-hand. Many weekends were spent in front of our fan in our living room, because it was too hot to do anything else outside.

*Teacher’s Day Celebration with our Hands of Hope Trust School Teachers*

We had our first Teacher’s Day experience at the beginning of the month. Teacher’s Day is a day the entire country is out of school, and we celebrate all teachers for the amazing work they do and the impact they make on their students. As we spent time at the school working through meetings and budgets and food collection, teachers went to a big parade in the middle of the city where they were even addressed by Zambia’s president. We met them after at a nearby lodge, where teachers swam, ate, and celebrated!

As Luke has been continuing to manage the construction projects of Phase 2 Renovations, he has also had more opportunities to speak at church! He gave his first sermon as a speaker at Patmos Baptist Church! He spoke on the Holy Spirit in our lives while our friend Charles translated for him into Nyanja. At the end of his message, he had people come to the altar to get prayed for and so many children came up, ready to have the spirit fall fresh on them!

*Luke preaching his first sermon at Patmos Baptist Church*

*Luke praying over people at the end of his sermon*

Another testimony has been the caring of and meeting with our special needs students. I was particularly worried about two girls who have special needs in our school and how we can best serve them and their families. Charles, our school administrator, and I went to do home visits and inquire about their situation and needs. One of the caretakers, a grandmother, was worried that we were coming over because she thought we might tell her that her child (an orphan she took in) couldn’t go to our school anymore because she wasn’t making progress. The girl has been with us for years, and our teachers are serving her the best they can as she has some special needs that we have been trying to diagnose and reach her to help her progress, but it has been very slow. A lot of schools will not allow such children in their school and society here is not kind or accessible to people with disabilities. We reassured both of the caretakers, who the girls each refer to as their mother, that we are there not to kick them out, but to help them. There was such relief in their faces and was immediately followed by thankfulness from them. As we talked through the individual child’s situation and past, we informed them of a nonprofit that God has perfectly placed in our path called Special Hope Network! The next week, we brought both girls and their mamas in for examination to one of their care centers with a specialist, and are waiting to hear results and next steps. It is a seemingly small step, but showing the families and the girls that we are wanting to love them unconditionally, and take extra steps to care for them, has meant so much to me and to them.

The door mat of one of our special needs student’s home- what a beautiful message to walk into to remind me of how it is because of God’s grace that I get to help such wonderful, deserving little people and their families.

This month we have seen so much progress in our renovation, and one of our favorite renovations has been our school office and staff room! We took extra steps to make sure that our staff had a comfortable place to meet and plan together, and had adequate storage and facilities for materials. We took one of our rooms and created a meeting place, with a storage locker and shelf for all their teaching materials to be organized. We also renovated our office with an actual desk (not a table that was falling apart, haha) and a place for people to come and feel comfortable as they explain their needs to our staff. It has made our school days so much more efficient, as no one has to squeeze by and interrupt people or have teachers meetings under the hot sun.

*Working in the New Hands of Hope Office*

As Zambia has become our home more and more, we have been diving deeper and deeper into our Nyanja lessons. Luke and I are stumbling through all of the ever-more-obvious differences in English and Nyanja, but we are still so grateful to have a teacher and also have a new favorite coffee shop to practice at! We are finding more and more that there are amazing little places in Lusaka, and have had really eye-opening conversations there. I have only ever been in the community and compounds surrounding our school, and now that Luke and I are living here full time, we are realizing there’s a lot more to this city than we initially thought. There are nice restaurants and places that almost feel like back home (with back home prices too, haha). Some people we talk to have never even heard of the area where our school is, and they’ve lived in Lusaka, Zambia for a long time, if not their whole life. Some have heard but never visited. It really reminds me of back home, where we may have communities ten minutes down the road with nothing, but we may not really interact with that side of town, so we don’t really know what it’s like. I know God puts us in those conversations to show how amazing the people are there, and the incredible work of Jesus that is being done. As nice as some of the places in Lusaka can be, I still prefer the compounds we work in, where people are genuinely so kind and generous with their neighbors.

*Nyanja lessons at our favorite coffee shop*

*Helping a student with her sponsor letter*

Speaking of new experiences in Lusaka, we were driving a new way one day and smelled a lot of burning plastic. We really didn’t think anything of it, as we constantly smell burning plastic (something we preach against at our school but still happens a lot in the city), but as we drove, the piles of garbage grew bigger and bigger. We were then driving right next to Lusaka’s landfill, plopped right in the middle of the city. There were mountains of trash, burning, and creating a haze all through the sky. We knew Lusaka was polluted from individuals, but as we watched the trash burn and people sift through garbage for scrap metal or plastic bottles, it was a sobering moment of realizing how polluted the air really is. The garbage problem is an ever-growing one for communities like Zingalume and Lilanda, where you see litter everywhere. This is largely because people cannot afford to use income to pay for garbage collection, and even if they could, the companies are not consistent or reliable enough to know that your garbage will be taken care of. We have experienced this a lot at school and have gone through so many companies, just trying to get one to come to our area on a weekly basis to collect trash. This is one big problem in our area that we are trying to be set-apart in at our school, and keep it a clean and nice place for our kids. Click here to read an article about waste management in Lusaka from February of this year.

*The view of the Lusaka landfill from the road, next to homes and businesses in the middle of the city*

This month was also really exciting as we celebrated so many things- our grade 7 had been going to quiz competitions all month, battling against 30 other community schools in our zone. The program was set up by zone leaders to encourage students to study for the big grade 7 exams that happen in November. These exams mean either being able to move onto secondary school, grade 8, or having to repeat and write your exams again. You cannot move on without passing these exams. Our grade 7 students at our school are our first graduating class, and they are incredible kids. They got to the finals, ranking in the top 6 of schools, and tied for first place in the competition! We were so excited to celebrate their accomplishments with them!

*With our Grade 7 team during the competition*

We celebrated them the next day as we also celebrated Zambia’s National Independence Day. We had a school-wide celebration, with everyone wearing national colors, performing for the school, and being celebrated for their accomplishments in the program and at our school. We also celebrated my (Savannah) birthday on Sunday and on Monday enjoyed the national holiday by going to Lusaka national park, where we saw wild elephants, giraffes, antelope, and zebras! At the national park they have an elephant orphanage, where they rehabilitate orphaned elephants and then send them back into the wild. There were lots of what I will call paths rather than roads that we went down and explored, trying to look for any animals. It was a really cool experience, being in the middle of the wild right outside of the city!

*Zambian Independence Day Celebration at Hands of Hope Trust School*

*School Directors, Savannah and Bitwell, at Zambian Independence Day Celebration*

*Wearing a Zambian Shtenge and Soccer Jersey at the Zambian Independence Day Celebration*

*At Lusaka National Park- Elephant Orphanage*

We also continued working through staff development and changes at the school. I’ve been working a lot on things from an educator and director standpoint, having lots of good conversations and innovation about how to move our school foward. Luke has been working a lot with our support staff and contracted work around the school. We are closer than ever for Phase 2 Renovations being done! As we establish ourselves more and more around the school, it’s been really sweet to continue building relationships with the adults and children all around the school. We are becoming less known as visitors, but rather as a part of the school that is known, which is really nice since we feel so different from everyone in everything that we do. This isn’t just because we stick out like a sore thumb, but also because of the preconcieved notions that people tend to have about us coming from the western part of the world. People know the USA as having money, so we really work to show that we are not a bank account or handout, but a working part of what’s been established in the name of Jesus. Being seen as a permanent part of what’s happening around school and feel somewhat normal to everyone is such a welcome feeling. Don’t get me wrong, kids still follow us around everywhere and beg for handshakes and high-fives, but not as many call us ‘muzungus’ anymore. They actually call us by our names! It’s a big win in our book.

As the end of October came, so did a few rains. Just small rains, but the rain here was a welcome relief to the hot weather. Although, we’ve been warned many times that rain is not something you look forward to in the city, and we quickly realized why. With just a little rain, there was already mud on all of the unpaved roads we normally drive on, which made it difficult to drive on. As wonderful as it was to feel cool raindrops, it brought on more heat by the end of the rain, and this time the air was muggy and full of bugs. As we enter into next month, we’ll really be able to see what rainy season is like here in Zambia.

One thing we struggled with this month is losing power. We lost power so many times, and for long time periods. When we lose power at school, we don’t have wifi (for working on administrative things or things for the nonprofit communication), as well as not being able to use our water pump for the well. A few times, we’ve had to send students home early because it wasn’t sanitary and we didn’t have water in the tank for flushing toilets or washing hands. We have a system now of filling the tank early in the morning before school so we can last as long as possible if power goes out, but that depends on having power in the early morning. At home, when power is out, it means no cooking, fan for cooling off, etc. Normal things. But it’s difficult not having it for multiple days, because we can’t cook food when we get home. Most people here have braziers with charcoal and cook outside during those times, so we may have to begin doing that if it doesn’t improve. Losing power is really common here in Lusaka, and can be even worse for the more impoverished communities who tend to get power last.

We are so thankful for the work that we are privileged to do here, and don’t ever want to take it for granted. Although things are hard for us at times, we still see and experience so much good. While the comforts from home don’t really exist in the same way here (thinking of Mexican food and soft couches as I type this), God makes us still feel right at home. God speaks to Luke and I very differently, but has made sure both of us know that He sees us right where we are at. Don’t get me wrong, we really miss a lot. We miss having clean feet, wearing shorts, having air conditioning, amazing medical care, bugs staying outside, a clothes dryer, etc. We are missing lots of big and small moments at home, like weddings and birthdays and milestones in our peoples’ lives. But God sees our sacrifices and constantly reminds us that He is our comforter, not any of those things. He is our source of good, our expectation of great, and He will supply all of our needs in Jesus. I say this because I want to encourage anyone reading this- God sees your sacrifice. God knows that you give up things for the sake of His kingdom. And it will not only be honored in heaven, but here on Earth because the best thing is finding our source of joy in Him over the thing we sacrificed. I find that it’s not just ‘worth it’, but God makes you feel that a life of sacrifice is so much better than life without it. Life with God is beautiful like that.

*View from our neighborhood walk during sunset*

We ended the month with a big push we’d been working on and praying through all month- the Care for Classrooms Challenge. This challenge is to help fund our classrooms next year, and the initiatives that the school has to make our school excellent. I have found, as many nonprofits know, that all of our problems typically begin and end with a lack of funding. And as we encountered this problem over and over, we came to the conclusion that God has brought us here not just to ‘get to work’, but to expand our faith. We believe that God meant for this school to be excellent, and that He will bring in the funding that is needed for it. We stretch every dollar now, and plan to once we are fully funded as well.

Click here to learn more about the Care for Classrooms Challenge!

Praises

Our baby’s life! We praise you, God, for giving us a miracle!
God has shown us very clearly where to have our baby. This was a long, prayerful decision, that ended up not really being our decision, but took our obedience! God had made the decision, and once He spoke to us clearly, it was our turn to obey. We have decided to have the baby around family in the US, so we will be transitioning back to the United States for a little while, which comes at a great time because we are hoping to be doing some speaking engagements about the ministry before baby is born!
People giving funds already to Care for Classrooms! We thank God that He put generosity on people’s minds and hearts.
Our two special needs students are on their way to finding the help that they need in school and at home!

Prayer Requests

God would protect us and our facilities during rainy season. He would protect all of the people we work with in the coming season, as they live and walk through floods.
God would supernaturally protect everyone at Hands of Hope from pollution in the air and on the ground. That the effects of pollution would not touch us, and that our hands and minds would be ready to be the change we wish to see in the community as a solution to the problem.
God would help my mind and Luke’s mind to understand Nyanja well.
Care for Classrooms Challenge would be fully funded next month!

Praises

Prayer Requests

November and December 2022

September 2022