First week without the teams

After surviving bungi jumping off a bridge at the top of Victoria falls this week, I have survived my first week alone in Livingstone! Although it has been difficult, I see God working in this place. I have started to work with these 3 boys: Davis, Boyd, and Nathan, who live on the street due to their parents dying and/or their relatives abusing them. We are looking for a place for them to live and one of the men that does children’s church will be living with them. He is actually an orphan himself, so we would be providing shelter to all of them. I am having a hard time knowing what activities to do with them each day, as well as communicating with them as their English is not that great and my Nyanja and Tonga isn’t very good.

I have many people in the church willing to help me, but it is hard to lead when this isn't my culture and I don't want to do things wrong. It is also very difficult to find a place to live for them and even more difficult to say goodbye each night knowing they are going back to sleep in a ditch. They have difficulties attaching to others and obeying authority since they have been rejected by those who are supposed to love them. I hope that they have seen the love of Christ touch their lives in their desperation and have felt the church wrap its arms around them. They have been coming to church and bible studies this week and have come to hang out at the youth center everyday this week. These boys showed me a real life version of a story in the Bible of a poor widow who gave her last coin as an offering. These kids gave money in church the other day from having nothing. I don’t know where they stand with Jesus, but that showed me amazing faith.

Although it has been hard to connect with them, I felt a little closer to one of them today as I shared pictures of my family and our house that burned down. I have been bringing food to them each day and sometimes I bring some clean clothes. They are bathing at the church and sometimes washing their clothes there as well. I would really like to do some school work with them and assess where they are at in school, but it is difficult because I am not a teacher. Perhaps some of you teachers in the states could send me some ideas of what kinds of things I can do with them. They are at different levels - one finished grade 3, one grade 5, and one grade 7. I hope that these boys can be the first to be sponsored by people in the U.S. Those of you who sponsor/sponsored me, know that this is where your money is being spent right now and I am very thankful to have those resources available.

Today was a hard day because I witnessed a pedestrian being hit by a car while driving back from the internet café. The car hit her very hard and she flew through the air. Then, the driver kept going. He didn’t even stop! I was asking our driver to please turn around so we could bring her to the hospital or something and asking my friend Watson to call the ambulance. He didn’t turn around and Watson told me there really isn’t a number to call for an ambulance. I felt so helpless and appalled that we could do nothing. We finally found a number after we had already driven back to the church and by then the police said they had picked her up and brought her to the hospital. Watson said she was probably dead. This was very hard for me to come to terms with.

Death is so rampant here that although it is still very sad and heartbreaking, it seems to be much more accepted. The desperation is also so much that it is almost ignored because everyone is so overwhelmed with all of the family members they are already trying to take care of. I don’t want to get so caught up in all this that I forget that I am here to offer the gospel of hope and love to these people first before material possessions.

Please pray for these things, as well as for some girls my age that I can share things with as I feel alone in all these experiences and feelings. Don’t get me wrong I have some great men my age that have been awesome and my “family” here is also great. I would just enjoy the company of women as well. I have enjoyed the food, culture, and language as well. My new best friend is my 8-year-old “sister”. There have been a lot of laughter and fun along with the sadness and I am really enjoying the people and the experiences.

Thank you so very much for your support and prayers!!

Love,

Erin (My new African nickname is Combutso-it means memory to remember the teams that left)