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?