Hey everyone,

In typical Dave fashion, I have delayed getting this final trip
summary out by at least a couple of weeks. This time I have a good
excuse though. Possibly the best excuse ever. I was busy getting
engaged. Sarah said yes! (I was pretty sure she would, but it was
awful nice to hear it anyway.) I know the next question that will
come from all the women reading this: "How did you do it?" And so, to
avoid answering that individually to a hundred different emails, I
will give the pre-emptive answer here.

We went down to a spot on the St. Johns River in San Marco. It is a
place near Sarah's house and we have had a number of special moments
there…first "I love yous" etc. I have to insert some background info
here. On our third (I think) date, I brought a notebook and pen and
our date was sitting in a coffee shop and writing silly stories
together. She would write a line and then I would write a line. You
get the idea. We have done this a number of times since and always
had a pretty good time at it. So we brought the notebook and started
writing a story…which I was deviously steering into a story about us.
Eventually the story progressed to the point where I wrote: "and then
he asked her." She did not know what to write for the next line since
that hadn't happened yet. Then I handed her the pen and the ring was
on it. (Insert a collective AWWW here.) I got down on a knee and
asked her. She said yes. It was awesome.

But when you read this, it sounds really suave…but in actuality it was
kind of awkward and dorky…and very consistent with me…given that I am
most often awkward and dorky. See, when I handed her the pen with the
ring on it, she didn't actually see the ring. So, I had to get her
attention, grab her hand and show it to her. Then, after she said
yes, I tried to take the ring off the pen, and I was shaking so badly
that it took me at least twenty seconds to get the ring off the pen
and onto her finger. It was great…and perfectly "us" which you can
take to mean really sweet, but kind of dorky. I have stopped trying
to run from that. Anyway, we are getting married and are both very,
very happy about it.

Now, back to the Zambia stuff. First off, moving to Zambia is still a
go. Except now it will be that we are moving instead of I am moving.
(I really like the sound of that a lot better.) We are looking to get
married toward the end of January and move
toward the end of next summer. The timing of the move is still very
much up in the air and will depend largely on how long it takes to get
ready to go. We are trusting God to give us more direction as to the
"when" questions in all of this.

As far as the last bit of my time in South Africa that you all haven't
heard about, I can say that it was really good. I attended the Pan
African Vineyard's 25th anniversary conference and it was great. While
at the conference I got to sit down and discuss our future plans
(Sarah and myself) with the leaders of the Vineyard in Zambia (There
are 3 area pastoral coordinators (APCs) that oversee 36 Vineyard
churches in Zambia. These are the guys I was meeting with and they are
all indigenous leaders.). From the time I spent at a few of their
churches when I was in Zambia, and from much prayer and the many
conversations I've had with Sarah, I told the three APCs that we
wanted to come and serve them wherever they needed us most. They felt
that we would be a good fit with what they are trying to do in their
churches and said they would welcome us there. We discussed a lot of
possible things we could do, but decided that we would begin working
on training their leaders about HIV and also doing leadership
development training on a variety of topics. We'll be visiting a lot
of different churches to do this and will get to see many parts of
Zambia that we haven't been to yet.

Sarah and I are really excited about the way this is taking shape. We
are getting to start small and will have a chance to really learn a
lot about the country and the culture before we settle into one place
or undertake a big project. We also like the idea of serving the
local people as they do their ministry more than trying to get them to
help us start ours. God did some major work in my heart to get me out
of the "let's start a big…outreach, orphanage, church, or whatever"
mentality and get me into the idea of serving the local churches and
jumping onto their program.

The main purpose of taking this trip was to find out what to do next.
And in that respect, it was a huge success. We know what to do to get
started. We know who we are going to be working with. We know how to
begin preparing. So, thank you, to each of you that made this trip
possible. Everything that needed to happen, did. We would ask all of
you to continue in prayer with us; we need God's guidance in all of
the next steps in our life together.

Thanks a bunch,

Dave & Sarah

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well Everyone,

This is the last blog entry that will come from an African computer (for a while anyway). Tomorrow I get on a plane at 830am and begin a 36 hour commute back home. I am totally ready to be back home. The trip has been a complete success. Just about everything that I hoped would happen while I was here, has. I will post another blog and fill in the details of what I mean by that after I get home. For now, please pray for safe travel (particularly no noisy kids kicking the back of my seat for 36 hours--in this case the prayers should be for their safety). Anyway, I can't wait to see you all and share with you what is coming next. Thanks again to all of you who participated in this through prayers, giving, and encouragement.

See you in a minute,
dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well gang,
I am nearing the end of my journey. I am looking forward to coming home, which will be on the 19th of this month. For the last week, I have been in Jeffreys Bay. Due to a few schedule changes, I had some free time in between coming back here and going to the Vineyard Conference (which starts next week). So, I took off and spent a week in Jeffreys Bay. To all of you non-surfing types, J Bay is home to one of the worlds best surf spots. Needless to say, I was in heaven. It is kind of cool when God just gives you opportunities like that. Tomorrow morning, I leave to head to the Vineyard Conference for all of the Vineyard churches in Africa. I am expecting it to be amazing. Something else that is cool is that it worked out for Dr Thinus to come to the conference with me as well. I am excited that he will get to see a little more of what the Vineyard is all about. After the conference ends, I will head back up to Centurion with Dr T (Centurion is near Johannesburg) and then fly to Lusaka and then fly home, via Lilongwe, Malawi; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Rome; Washington DC, then good old Jacksonville. Please pray for me this week as I will be talking with some of the Zambian pastors about working alongside their churches in the future. Thanks a bunch and I can't wait to see you all.

Love ya,

dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello there everyone,
I am writing this blog from the safety and comfort of the New Life Vineyard office in Capetown, South Africa. I wasn't planning on being here until next week, but my travel plans shifted suddenly. Over the last couple of weeks, I was visiting some of the Vineyard churches around Zambia with two guys from South Africa and was also scheduled to go into the Congo with them briefly. Last Saturday, they got some tragic news that a man from their fellowship here in Capetown had been killed in a motorcycle accident. So, we cancelled the rest of the stops on our tour and headed back here for the memorial service, which was yesterday. Please pray for the family and friends of Paul Murfet.

I want to give you all a quick update on what has been going on over the last couple weeks. Two Saturdays ago, I met John Fischer and Carl Schmidt in Lusaka. They are both leaders of this Vineyard church in Capetown, and have also been heading up the outreach, church planting, and leadership development for the Vineyard churches in Southern Africa. The time I have spent with them has been very productive in terms of just learning a lot. I have found that all of the things that I love about being a part of the Vineyard in Jax Beach are things that they are committed to building into the Vineyards throughout Southern Africa. I am really excited to go to the pan African Vineyard Conference in a couple of weeks.

While I was in Zambia with John and Carl, we visited a number of the Vineyard Churches there. It was really cool meeting the pastors and the people. We spent a few days in Lusaka, a few days in Kitwe, and a few days in Kasempa. Kasempa was interesting. It was the furthest from civilization that I have been since coming here. It was a small town about 3 hours from the nearest real city (Solwezi-which for the record is a real hotspot for witchcraft). They still had electricity and such, but there wasn't a gas station or a proper grocery store. There was a little town market with a bunch of little shops, but the store owners have to go to Solwezi to buy all their stuff, so everything is really expensive, at least by Zambian standards.

While we were there, we had a conference for the 5 Vineyard Churches in the area. Probably around 200 people attended. (This has very little to do with the story, but the head pastor in that area is an avid hunter and has said that he will take me sometime. I found that quite exciting.) During the conference John and Carl and I all did the teaching on the theme of maturing as a Christian. It was a profitable time of ministry.

After that was over, we hit the road headed for South Africa. Leaving Zambia, we crossed into Namibia and there was an immediate difference in the condition of everything. As soon as we left the border post, it was like, "You ARE now in Kansas, toto." It was almost instantly very first world. You can even tell by looking at a gas station. It isn't run down and dirty and all that. Namibia was for quite a long time (and still kind of is) an extension of South Africa. During the drive, I saw a giraffe, a couple of orycx (a type of antelope, not orcs all you LOR nerds) some springbok and countless warthogs, known as pumbas (turns out the lion king guys did their homework). As we got into the southern part of the country it began looking a lot like the american west does through Arizona and into California. It was a very beautiful drive. Once we crossed into South Africa, it became even more beautiful as we were driving right through an amazing stretch of mountains with expansive farms in between. There were also the beginnings of a wildflower bloom in the valleys that is famous around the world. It wasn't in full swing yet, but you could see patches of yellow and lavender and orange wildflowers starting to pop up in the fields of the valleys. It was like each scene was better than the next.

The final stretch before reaching Capetown was perhaps the most amazing. You come through this narrow pass in the mountains and this immense valley opens up in front of you. It stretches out for probably fifty or more miles (that you can see) and the entire valley is broken up into giant farms. The fields are different colors of green or yellow or clay depending on what is planted in them and how far along it is in the growth process. The squares of the different fields made the whole valley look like a giant quilt. It was quite stupid of me not to buy a camera before I came here. Honestly, what was I thinking? Anyway, you will just have to take my word for it until next time.

Since arriving here, I have been hanging out with John and his family. They let me tag along to a couple of family functions. That is watching rugby and having a braii (that is afrikaans for bbq). These guys like meat. Today for lunch I had a steak, some sausage, and some pork. That should cover all the basic food groups. Bonos and Sticky Fingers got nothing on this. I think if I lived here permanently I might develop heart disease before I turn 35. It is really good eating though. John and his family have made me feel extremely welcome too.

Today church was good. The message really never happened as worship time just flowed and flowed on and God began to move. I love the Vineyard. I am looking forward to seeing where I fit with the church(es) in Zambia. That about sums up the last couple weeks for me. At least it hits the highlights for you. Please continue to keep me in prayer as I am still trying discover more of the specifics of what I am supposed to be doing here. It is starting to take shape, but there are still plenty of questions. The answers seem to be coming along at just the right time though. God is pretty good at that.

Love you all,
dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It has been a couple days since I wrote anything so I figured I better let you all know that I am alive. I spent the weekend at a missions conference in a town called Kabwe, about 2 hours south of here. The conference was for African Missions, except not the way we think about it. It was for african missionaries to other african nations. It was really cool...and really long. The program ran from 730am to 9pm everyday and began Fri night and went Sat, Sun, and Mon. I didn't teach or anything like that, I was just there as an attendee. I got to hear about some folks doing stuff way more intense than anything I have considered.

There were a handful of folks that were so deep in the bush that it is a 30-50 mile bike ride or walk just to get to the nearest road, where you might be able to hitch a ride the remaining 100-150 miles to town. The only running water is a river, and the only electricity is the occasional lightning storm. Hard core missions. I hope God doesn't call me into that. Anyway, it put a lot into perspective for me. The teaching at the conference was really good as well. Now, I am back in Ndola chilling for a couple days. This weekend I will be linking up with a couple of Vineyard guys from South Africa and will begin doing some serious travelling. We will go to 6 cities in about three weeks and they are all quite far apart. I will probably not get to post or respond to emails very often during that time, so please be patient. Talk to you soon,

dave

Posted by Jeremy Brookins at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey everybody,

My life has been pretty quiet, not to mention a touch on the lonely side, the last couple of days. (Somebody please buy Sarah a plane ticket back here.) Just kidding...kind of. Being able to rest has been good though. It was very much needed after going like a madman with the team for the last three weeks. Today I went to Murundu. I hitched a ride in one of the huge mine dumptrucks. Kind of fun. I went out to the edge of Mufulira by the road that goes to Murundu and some guys started hollering to come over and wait for transport with them. I did and it turned out that they know Dr. T, as soon as I said Agape, they said, "oh, Thinus." Anyway, they flagged down the dumptruck for me and then hit me up for some kwachas...which I gave them. I was walking into Murundu, after getting off the truck, and as I turned the corner to Joseph's street, I was greeted by one of the little ones from our VBS. I don't know his name, but he said, "Hallo Dave," and promptly grabbed my hand and held it the rest of the way to Joseph's. It is nice to feel welcome. Kids tend to do that better than adults, no matter what part of the world you are in.

The purpose of my visit was to check out a little more of the chicken farming venture that I am getting into. The more I see and find out about this, the better I like it. I think it shows promise of being able to almost totally support the orphanage that Joseph and Hilda are building. Please pray for the birth and growth of that business as it will very directly effect how about 60 kids are living and eating. In addition to seeing the farming operation, I also got to see the piece of property that Joseph bought as the future location of his orphanage. It is 25 hectares (I don't know the exact conversion, but it is a huge piece of property) and it is located on the edge of Murundu and actually has frontage on the main highway. It seems like a pretty perfect scenario. Please also pray that God would provide the funds for building the houses for the kids on this land. He will need about $15,000 to build two homes that would allow him to take in about 50 children. Within that first $15,000 a very large part of the expense is in getting a well and a pump and having electricity run to the property. So, after the first two houses, each subsequent structure should be only cost around $4000. Once everything is built, the idea is to use the remaining land to farm. With that land, they should be able to produce enough to feed the kids and cover nearly, if not all, of the costs of running the orphanage. Another prayer request is that God would show me if this is a project that I am supposed to be significantly involved in. Right now, my involvement there is minimal, but it looks like it might be a good place to consider getting more involved.

Today was fun. Tomorrow I will be leaving Mufulira for Ndola to spend some time with the Vineyard church there. That should be fun too. I will talk to you all later.

dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, everyone is gone. The team left Lusaka yesterday. Dr. T is driving to South Africa. And I am back in Mufulira alone and very quiet. I did finally retrieve my guitar though. After dropping the team at the airport, I took public transport from Lusaka back up here. It should have taken about 5.5-6 hrs for the trip, but it wound up taking more than 7.5 due to road construction and the fact (which I discovered about 5hrs into the journey) that this particular bus company had many accidents last year and a bunch of people died and the government shut them down for a while and they just got their license back, so all their drivers only drive at about 45mph now. Yesterday, we left the house for Lusaka at 4am and I didn't get back until after midnight last night. Today has been a good rest.

One thing about the ride back that was really cool was that right after I got on the bus, Pastor Joseph got on the same bus. Pastor Joseph is the guy that has been feeding the orphans in Murundu and hosting us there. He had ridden down to Lusaka with us, but had been off all day taking care of some other business and came to the bus station and got on my very same bus. That was nice of God to organize a travel buddy for me. We had a really good talk on the way back. We spent most of the time discussing a chicken farming venture that I am going to invest a couple hundred bucks in. Joseph and his wife have been raising some chickens and using the money from that to feed the kids. As we spoke, I shared some ideas for growing the business. Joseph was liking the ideas, so I think I am going to be a partner in a small Zambian chicken farm. That will be a new one for me. My portion of the proceeds (assuming there are some) will go towards other ministry here.

This past week was real interesting. I had a pretty solid run in with Malaria. Actually, I can't say that, my illness was brief. Thanks for all of you who were praying for me. I feel totally fine now. Tuesday I started feeling like I was getting the flu or something. I was still well enough to go through our VBS program and then go shopping for more stuff that we were going to be giving the kids. By Tuesday night, I felt pretty horrible. Then, at about 5am I woke up very feverish, freezing cold and my whole body was aching terribly. It was miserable. Dr. T was already up and he got me another blanket. When I told him all my symptoms, he said it was almost certainly malaria. Later that morning, he got me some medicine called fancidar (not sure if I'm spelling that right). Fancidar is some quinine super-cocktail that blasts malaria out of your system quickly (if you take it early enough). I took the medicine probably around 10am. The fever and aches and all that got worse and worse and this peaked around 230pm, then the fever broke and it was like I was immediately a human again. I still didn't feel good, but the difference was night and day, and it happened so quickly. Thursday I still spent a good bit of time in bed but by the afternoon, I was pretty much over it. 48 hour malaria is pretty reasonable. Thank God for quick healing and quinine.

Because I was ill, the others took care of handing out all the clothes and shoes and treats we bought for the kids. Hats of to the team for handling all of that. I know it was a pain. The kids always are pretty rowdy when you are handing stuff out. Here is a brief rundown on what you all at home gave the kids at Murundu. 22 have their school fees paid through December, got a new school uniform, and a pair of school shoes and a pair of flip flops. The kids not in school (about another 34 that are too young) got a new shirt or two, a pair of shoes, and a pair of flip flops. All of them got a bag of treats. Also, we were able to cover the cost of feeding the children daily during the three weeks of our program. It is a drop in the bucket as there are more than 1000 orphans in just this little village, but to these 56 kids it is huge. The other part of what you sent over is that they all heard the gospel and all the ones who wanted a hug or piggy back ride or to be spun around (or all of the above over and over) got their wish.

Later,
dave

ps. Just one final thought. One of the most annoying parts of this trip for the whole team was anytime that we were handing anything out--like coloring pages or crayons or candy. The kids would freak out and push and punch each other and the little ones would get knocked down and start to cry. Then you would see another kid with 5 pages behind is back and his hand out again. It really sucked, every time. It was hard to keep a good attitude. Each day, everyone would get theirs, we always had enough. Didn't they remember yesterday when they all got one. Didn't they understand when we said to sit there and wait that we were going to make sure they were taken care of. It was real frustrating. Wonder if God ever feels like that with me?

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hey Yall,

Just wanted to give you all an update on what has been going on for us the last couple of days. We spent the weekend in Ndola, a town about an hour and a half south of where we are staying. Ndola is a bigger city and some of the areas there are really nice. We stayed in a bed and breakfast place that was in a neighborhood that looked like it could have been suburban Anytown, USA (except for all the potholes in the road). It was really nice there though. We spent Saturday in a community named "Overspill." It was named that because they ran out of houses and had to build more. Zambians often aren't really creative with naming things, but they sure are accurate. Anyway, we were there all day and had our Stop the Spread meeting under a little tent while Dr. Thinus had a meeting with a bunch of pastors inside the church. The location of all this was on top of a hill and looking out off it, you could see into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Which of course did not look any different from Zambia, but it is one of those things that is cool for some reason even though I couldn't really say why.

Our meeting was attended by about 15 youths from the church and one town drunkard who was fairly disruptive at several points during the meeting but what can you expect from someone that is wasted at 10am. Chris took that guy under his wing and wound up praying with him and giving him his flip flops. Good stuff. I was proud. STS recently hired a Zambian guy named Henry to be the full time coordinator of the program. Henry basically ran the meeting and we provided a little assistance. Sarah put together some short skits and the team did a great job performing them. It was a good day all around.

Sunday, we got to visit a Vineyard church in Ndola. This was actually my first time to a Vineyard in Africa and it was absolutely amazing. It just felt like home. I have not felt that in any of the other churches I have been to. Everybody on the team said the same thing. The worship was amazing and the pastors (they have 3 on staff) were all really great. Sam did an awesome job sharing his testimony. He is becoming more and more of a public speaker...even though he would deny it to the end. I got to preach and it just felt real good. I have a love/hate relationship with preaching. I hate the stress of preparing it and wondering if you are getting ready to speak the word of God or if you are just about to run your own mouth so you can listen to the sound of your own voice for a while. I hate having expectations (my own) of what a successful message sounds like or what the results of it should be. I also hate the question of whether I am doing this for God or so that people will think I am a good person. But, I love doing it nonetheless. I love knowing that I can make a difference. I love knowing that God can speak through me. I love knowing that at times, he has spoken through me. I hate falling into the trap of thinking that it is me that is making the difference in peoples lives, and not God. I hate my tendency to be results driven with it, but I really do love it. It is definitely a niche for me. On top of having a really good experience on Sunday, I am going to be spending the next couple of weeks after the team leaves, in Ndola, working with that church. I am really looking forward to it. I will keep you all posted.

The next couple days, we will be wrapping up our VBS with the kids at Murundu. We bought a bunch of clothes and shoes and will be giving that stuff out on Wednesday afternoon. That should be fun. Please pray for us. We are all really tired and several of us don't feel well. It is nothing too serious at the moment, we are just run down. We need a little boost to make it through the next couple of days. Talk to you later, dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone,

Just a quick note tonight to let you know what is going on. Tomorrow we will head to a town (Ndola) about an hour and a half south of where we are staying. We will be there Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we will be doing a youth rally geared towards HIV prevention. This is tied into a lot of the work I have been doing here the past couple of years, but it is not something that we as a team have prepared for at all. The opportunity just got handed to us and so we are doing our best to roll along with it. The team has been really great about being willing to jump in even with next to no notice. They all rock and have been doing a great job this whole time.

Sunday, we will be visiting the Vineyard church in Ndola. They are a church of a couple hundred...and I will be preaching. I don't think I have preached in front of that many people before. Should be fun. Then, in the afternoon, we will be repeating our HIV prevention rally for the Vineyard's youth group. Anyway, you won't hear much from us for the next couple of days and we won't be answering the phone either. Please pray for us as we travel and also as we try to jump in and do a good job with some ministry stuff that we aren't really prepared for. Love you all. --dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello Everyone,

I would like to quickly give you all a description of Murundu Village and fill you in on a couple of statistics that I found very interesting. Murundu is a collection of small, one room houses. On average I would guess that they are about 150-200 sq ft. That is one room that is 10'X20' and there could easily be 7-10 people living in one of them and sleeping on the dirt floor. The homes are constructed from bricks made from clay right there in the village, and the mortar is also mixed right there as well. The roof is either thatched or made from corrugated steel. The cost of building one of these is less than $75 for materials. Once built, one of these homes should last about 20 years before the bricks break down. Few of the homes have electricity and almost none have their own plumbing. Bush toilets are pretty standard and are made by digging a hole and surrounding it with a wall made by tying bunches of reeds together. (Our girls are not real big fans of the bush toilet...and for that matter, neither are our guys.) There is a good public water supply, but there is a small charge (literally pennies) for that water, so many of the locals get water from shallow wells that are tainted from all of the aforementioned bush toilets.

Murundu is home to about 20,000 people. 50 people in the village have formal employment. Yes, that is correct. The remaining 19,950 survive through subsistence farming and selling charcoal. They make the charcoal by cutting down trees and burning them partially, then putting the fire out, cutting it up and carrying bundles of it in to town on their backs or on a bicycle. There is pretty serious deforestation in populated areas as a result of this. Whatever approach they take to earning a little money, all of them are just barely getting by. Many cannot afford to send their kids to school. The public school fees for elementary school for a year are about $17 and the school uniforms cost $9-$15. There is a school in Murundu that is not government sponsored that was started by the community about 9 years ago. I visited there today. There are 514 students and 5 teachers. None of the teachers is paid a salary. Two of the teachers live in Mufulira (about 5 miles away) and they pay their own transportation to and from Murundu each day to work for free. The school was started by the community so that they could eliminate the requirement of uniforms and reduce the costs to parents. Many of the kids attending there are barefoot and their clothes are really torn up. The up side is that just recently they administered the Zambian 7th grade standardized exam and 100% of their students passed it. Today, there were only three teachers for the 514 students because the two in Mufulira did not have the $1 to pay for transportation.

The guy we have been working with here, Pastor Joseph has 56 orphans that he is currently feeding. Today, I went with him and paid the school fees for 21 orphans. Thanks to all of you who made it possible for that to happen. I was also able to give some money to the community school to help with supplies and transportation costs for the teachers. Tomorrow we will be purchasing material for Joseph's wife to uniforms for the kids. We should be able to cover school expenses for all of Pastor Joseph's kids through December. One of the things that has surprised me is that almost all of these kids has somewhere to stay at night. (By the way, in Murundu, population 20,000 there are between 3000 and 4000 orphans.) I asked Joseph on our first day there how many of the kids were sleeping on the streets and he said there were 3 that he knew of and had taken in. They were all teenagers. One of the really cool things about African culture is that there is a sharing mentality and most of the kids are at least given a roof to sleep under. Now, I should tell you that they may be sleeping on a dirt floor with no blanket, but so are most of the people living in Murundu.

While I was running around and doing that stuff, the team had their hands full with the kids playing games and sharing the gospel with them. When I got back, we went and had lunch and after lunch had hygiene 101 with a bunch of the orphans. The first lesson was bathing and the use of soap. The second lesson was first aid for cuts. Basically that consisted of telling the kids not to shove a handful of dirt in a wound to make it stop bleeding (a common practice). Last, how to make a toothbrush from the branch of a type of tree that grows in the area. Pastor Joseph did the last bit, because I have no idea how to do that. Following the lessons, we had bath time for anyone who wanted one. Sarah and Kelly took the girls into the house and helped them and us guys stayed outside and had quite a wild time. We had a 10 gallon bucket, a washcloth, four bars of soap, and suddenly a bunch of naked Africans. The kids were overjoyed at the whole procedure and made the most of it. Our intention was to kind of just facilitate the thing, but their intention was for us to fully administer the bath...which we did, with the exception of insisting that certain areas were not going to be washed by us. They were really dirty and I have no idea how long it had been since their last contact with water, let alone soap. Washing their feet was really sad. Their skin was so dry and cracked that the only thing I can compare it to is an elephant's skin. It is the product of walking around in clay and dirt with no shoes on and never bathing. They were thrilled at the attention and being clean. I can't imagine being 3 or 4 and not having someone to do that stuff for me. One of the boys came back for a second bath right after he dried off from the first one. Another little one, after his bath, took his clothes and put his socks and shoes on and that was it. After a little while he surrendered and added the pants and shirt. Tomorrow we are going to give them their very own soap.

That is all for now. It is late and I should get to bed. Keep us in your prayers. It is hard to know where to start sometimes when the problems are so big and overwhelming, but just about that time, one of the little guys grabs your hand and motions for you to pick him up and you have to realize that whatever it is you were trying to do, it isn't nearly as important as you thought. So, you grab his hands and spin him around until you both fall down and then five others jump in the mix and for just a few minutes, no one is thinking about whose parents are dead or which one of the kids might have HIV or where dinner will come from and the laughter is pure and sincere and begins to grow real good things in everyone's soul.

Sendemenipo (goodnight),

dave

Posted by Dave Lashbrook at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)