from Dayspring to Heartspring

Being back in Livingstone is bittersweet as a lot of things in life are. The bitter: It is blazing hot here. And that is coming from a girl who spends every day of a North Carolina summer working with horses in jeans. Escaping the sun is tough in itself but the lack of air flow indoors is enough to drive you back outside. The sweet: Sunscreen is impossible to keep from sweating off so I am getting real tan real fast. I even proved to the girls that I am not "White" by comparing my arm to a white dress we were washing. So now they call me "Tan" and themselves "Brown". The bitter: We aren't nearly as familiar with this town as we had gotten with Kitwe. We don't know where to get exactly what we want for the best price or what times are best to avoid crowds. The sweet: We get to explore again and try different places. Plus there are SO MANY WHITE PEOPLE! (Livingstone is pretty touristy) so we don't get nearly as much attention. The bitter: I miss all of my new friends from Kitwe. The staff at Kambalange Guest House took such good care of us and let us make ourselves at home there. The place we stay now is much smaller and not quite as homey. Ivor stayed in the Copper Belt to work for a couple weeks before making the venture up here to take us to the airport. To be honest, I miss the guy. And the Grace boys... gosh how I wish we could have just brought them along with us! We have already heard from 4 of them either checking up on us or wishing us a Happy New Year or just sending a text to say they miss us. One of them even listed me as his family member on Facebook! And when you are an only child, things like that go a long way. The sweet: We have gotten to spend time with Tinta, the 22 year old whose mom owns the hostel we stay at now. She is alone most of the day every day so it has been a blessing to be able to keep her company. Being back at Heartspring has been nothing short of wonderful... The girls there- ages 5 to 16- remembered us and were so excited we came back. They even memorized Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Little Sally Walker that we taught them last time. The older ones have been teaching us how to cook and I wash clothes with the younger ones almost every day. No wonder all of the women have killer biceps- stirring nshima and scrubbing out stains is tough work! They are all very patient with me and I think they actually enjoy getting to help the White, I mean Tan, girl. We play lots of clapping and dancing games in addition to cards and Start- basically Monkey in the Middle meets Dodgeball. Unfortunately, they don't speak Bemba in Livingstone so my weeks of practicing don't pay off so well here. The language here (did I ever mention that Zambia has 73 tribal dialects?) is Chitonga- Tonga for short. So the girls have been teaching me how to say simple words and phrases. I'm not good enough to share those with you yet... I don't want to downplay what a transition the past week has been but I also know it has been exactly what God wants it to be. He has removed me from the "home" we built over the past 6 weeks and has brought us to navigate life in Livingstone. He has stretched me from loving teenage boys through conversation, Bemba lessons, and jamming to Ava Michelle's and my iPods to the complete opposite end of the spectrum- loving little girls who barely know English and find the utmost joy in girly games that I've never really cared for. He has reminded me that this isn't about comfort or feeling useful or having good stories for a blog. It is about relying on Him and letting myself be sent to love the fatherless in a way that can only be done through the Father. It is about eagerly learning and patiently teaching, selflessly giving and graciously accepting, determinedly searching and gratefully finding. It is about so much more than Ava Michelle or myself and our world adventure. It is even more than Dayspring in Kitwe or Heartspring in Livingstone. It is about the beautiful Plan that has been knit together, causing our paths to cross for a short time, our lives to intertwine for much longer and our experiences to affect us more than is even imaginable.