Thursday, July 14, 2016

Zambia - Saturday and Sunday

Saturday, June 25th 
This year we stayed at a hotel called Latitude 15.  Camp Life was so full that there was not room for us at the Villas on the Family Legacy property.  We were so blessed to be able to stay in such a cute, fun little boutique hotel.  I loved all of the decorations, and the staff was so sweet to us!









After we unpacked a little, we headed down to dinner.  We had a special room with a long table where we could all eat together.  The food was really good all week, too.

At dinner, we discussed a little bit about what the week would look like, and Tia gave us each a word associated with an attribute of God.  She asked us to share the word with our teacher this week and to be looking together for ways we see God demonstrating that attribute.  My word was "faithful".  The verse was, "The faithful love of the Lord never ends!  His mercies never cease.  Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each morning."  Lamentations 3:22 - 23  After dinner, we crawled into bed exhausted from traveling but excited about the week ahead.   

Sunday, June 26th 
On Sunday, we went to the Tree of Life for church.  It is always great to hear their beautiful voices as they worship Jesus, singing in Nyanja.  Their service is full of singing, dancing, and praising Jesus.  It is vibrant and full of joy!




After church, we had lunch and went shopping at the market.  I bought a few things and had a chance to see Teacher Edna (from 2013) who was selling things at her booth at the market.


I also saw several of my students from 2013.  It was a great feeling to hear that they recognized me, and it was so good to give them hugs! 




 We left the Tree of Life around 2:00 and headed back to our hotel to have a meeting and prepare for our first day of teaching.  We then had a delicious dinner, which Amanda and Kathryn got to join us for.  It was so good to see them!  After most of the group left, Diana, Tia, Allison, Kathryn, Amanda, and I ordered ice cream and sat out on the couch in the lobby talking and laughing.  I even ended up showing Amanda the Bumble dating app.  We laughed at the few Zambian men on it and then were surprised to find a few to "swipe right" on who were living in Lusaka or visiting.  (I nearly died laughing the next day when my phone buzzed and it showed a match with Shaun, one of the guys we swiped right on.  Unfortunately, he never responded to my message, but we had a good laugh about it.)  I loved spending time with the girls.  It brought my heart so much joy!  I love those girls so much!

Traveling to Zambia

We left DFW around noon on Wednesday, June 23rd.  I flew with Amy Pratt, her daughter (Meredith), Lizzie Oliphint, her daughter (Katie), and her daughter's friend (Callie).


The flight was about 14 hours to Dubai.  It wasn't too bad except for the poor screaming child.  He screamed for several hours straight, but it seemed as though he may have had special needs.  I felt bad for the parents as they could find nothing to calm him down!  I still managed to sleep a little and watch a couple of movies to pass the time, though.  We landed safely in Dubai and made it to the airport hotel for our 20 hour layover.  We rested for an hour, ate at the hotel, then went to the Dubai mall to walk around and kill time to make ourselves stay awake.

We saw the Burj Khalifa from afar.   Last year we went to the top, but we decided we did not need feel the need to do it again, so we enjoyed taking pictures in front of it from afar.  





We traveled during Ramadan, so we couldn't eat as all of the restaurants were closed, so we just walked around and looked at the shops and people watched until the fountain show about 7:30.


After that, we made our way back to the hotel, fell asleep around 9:00pm Dubai time and had a great night's rest.  Our flight left Dubai at 9:25am on Friday morning.  We were about an hour late taking off because the stairs were "stuck" to the plane.  Haha!  The 6 hour flight seemed so short compared to the one the night before! 


Once we landed in Zambia, we had to wait forever in a really long line for our Visa.  We chose the line with 2 workers thinking it would go faster.  We should have known...TIA (This is Africa).  It was the longest line because the 2 workers just talked the whole time!  We ended up being one of the last few to get our Visas.  The positive was that we didn't have to search for our luggage because there were only a few lonely suitcases sitting there! :)  Tia and some of the education girls were there to greet us, and it was SO good to see their smiling faces!  I was so excited to be there!