Being Used

When I was asked what project I wanted to work on I chose community planning. I put youth ministry as my last choice. I wanted to learn something new. My choice was based on what was good for me.

This week I was asked to attend a pastor's week of training. The training was to educate pastors on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic and how to support the youth in their congregations. "Youth" is anyone 12 to 30 who is not married. This is the age group that is at the greatest risk for HIV/AIDS in Zambia.

On Monday I was asked to co-facilitate a session on mentoring and disciplining youth. At the end of the week, I realized that God used my weird collection of experience with youth to minister to a group of male and female pastors that know they are losing their youth due to a fast change in culture and tradition. They do not know how to work with this new generation of youth, but they are so anxious and willing. At the beginning of the session I told them that we Americans may say something to embarrass ourselves, and they should feel free to laugh at us. We did not disappoint them. They were gracious,however, even when I used the word "dating." You see, in this culture you would never "date" except for the purpose of having sex. They asked us if youths dated more than one person. Audrey said, "all the time." They gave us the Christian look of shame. :) Finally, the WHIZ facilitator clued us in. We have had many laughs about this in the last few days. When I explained that I was talking about a time to talk and get to know the person, and find out whether the person was as godly as they claimed to be, I was in good graces again. I feel blessed to have been used in a critical area. I'm so glad God does not always give us what we want.

We moved this week into the new WHIZ guest house. It is beautiful and large. Most importantly we have almost constant internet access. I finally downloaded research that I desperately needed. We are thrilled to be the first team to use this new facility, and realize this may be considered a selfish thrill :)

We were moved at night, probably when the truck was available. We had a few surprises waiting for us, even though we were excited. First, since the bunk beds would not fit in the rooms we were suppose to stay in, we were put in a room that had not been cleaned or have full screens on the windows. Due to mosquitos, we had to keep the windows closed. It got a little toasty. The next surprise came when I needed to use the toilet. I lifted the lid, and lets just say it was nasty in there. Next I realized there was an open window. I went to close it and a baby frog jumped on me from the window sill. I screamed. Next, Audrey came running into our bedroom to let me know the door had to be shut because a bat was in the house. Brandon chased it back into the attic, and we were safe once more. We are calling him Batman. The last surprise was how cold shower time was. I think God just needed to remind us we were in Africa even though we had moved up in the world.

Today a flatbed truck pulled up with the remainder of "stuff." Boxes are hard to come by here so most things were just thrown on. We have managed to get most of it put away. We wanted to surprise our housekeeper. She is a wonderful woman who serves in amazing ways, with a quiet and patient spirit. While she has not literally washed our feet, she has served us in the same humble way. I have prayed that some of her gentleness would rub off on me, but I'm still just as vocal as I was when I arrived in January :)