Jeff Morgenthaler's Zambia photojournal

Here are the Shaner girls getting checked in at the AA ticket counter in Chicago

We had a long layover in London so we went  by tube to the Parliament building + saw some sites

After lunch, a few of us toured the National Gallery.   When we came out, the pubs had emptied into the streets because England had won a World Cup Soccer game.  Here are the celebrants in Trafalgar Square

Next stop was Johannesburg where we slept with the big birds

We had a puddle jumper flight to Ndola and a 2 hour bus ride to Chingola, arriving after 10pm.  The next day we went to church + afterwords climbed up on a nearby rock overlooking the Luumbda township, where the Children's Village is located.  Here is the view of the two buildings plus the temporary grass huts housing us and the construction workers.

Here are some kids playing on a nearby field

Some kids that stayed with us on top of the rock

We found Wayne could sleep anywhere

Some teens from Bristol were down as part of the M68 (Mica 6:8) program.  Here are Julie and Rachael with neighborhood kids. We were all deeply grieved to hear that Rachael (the one with dark hair) had drown a few weeks after this picture was taken at a beach in South Africa.

I faded back to the playing field to see how the game of football (soccer) was progressing + encouraged the Shaner girls to come with me.  Here is Heather and some of the kids.

Here is Heather's mom, Janis interacting with the kids.  My favorite line of the trip happened about now: Janis said, "I can't believe I'm in Africa talking to these people!"

Here are the kids playing

A few days later, the construction team from Bristol had arrived and we went back up on the rock.  This a view in the direction opposite from the Children's Village, with a school and more of Chingola in view

Brian, one of the Brits, had a digital camera + was giving the kids instant gratification.

More photos on the rock: Robert and a neighborhood girl

The M68 guys with kids

...and Rocky too

The second weekend, some of us went to Elder George's furniture shop in Kasumpe (sp?)

We also visited another business in the township that makes "roller meal," a coarser, less expensive version of nshima

Ant hill and tree on the drive too and from Kasumpe

Kelly seemed to be accident prone.  While rushing to the Internet cafe to check her email later that Saturday, she tripped and banged her knee.  Her chivalrous brother went to the hotel/restaurant staff and asked for some ice....

The guys usually had conversations and spontaneous bouts of singing every night before bed.  Here Guy is talking to The Wall which separated the leaders and their snoring cohorts (Elliott, Todd, Wayne, and Brian) from the rest of us rabble.

The next morning we split up for church.  Stephanie and I went to the original Fire Baptized church in the ??? township.  The pastor of the church is Mary Katengo Zuze, the only female pastor in the Fire Baptized churches.  I asked her if she faces any discriminations or special treatment.  She said, "no, I am treated as an equal."  The guy in the yellow tie is Humphrey, her youth pastor.  He translated the sermon for us, which was given by a visiting pastor.  The sermon was about being pregnant with a vision or calling--how being pregnant is cause for acting different, more careful, etc.  The visiting pastor kept switching between Bemba and English, but Humphrey hardly missed a beat.  It was a dynamic experience!

These pictures were taken after church at Pastor Mary's apartment.  Some of the youth cooked lunch for us on her charcoal stove on the front step.  Pastor Mary's place has electricity but no running water.  There is a well out front and an outhouse (a hole with a fence around it) out back.

After church, everyone would shake hands...

...and pose for pictures

Pastor Mary had no means other than public transportation to pick us up, so she had hijacked one of the public (but not city run) minibuses that shuttles people around the town to come get us.  Humphrey rode back . with us.

It being Sunday, we relaxed our normal requirement that neighborhood kids stay away from the construction.  Here are some girls in their Sunday best.

The following week, Elliott got tired of driving on the potholed rodes, so he let me take two of the women who cooked for us on errands.  Right drive with a 5-on-the-tree pickup (the shifter is on the LEFT side) is pretty challenging.  Luckily I didn't have to go far.  Here are some pictures of the Luumbda market.

On our last day of work, we had a visit from "His Worship" the mayor of Chingola.  He reviewed the plans for the project and graciously agreed to give the project some adjacent land (probably extending back to the playing field or so) for 3 additional buildings and some room for growing crops.  Humphrey, who is a successful young business man (he is 27) has some land a few miles away (beyond the railroad tracks) that he is also interested in seeing the Children's Village use.

Some parting shots of Team Zambia, the foreign and local components during our celebration in which we shared brownies and coffee.

Travel home took 3 days.  The first day we went through Kitwe to Ndola by minibus.  After settling in to the Christian guest house, Jim and I took a photo safari.  The guest house is located in a nice neighborhood.

Then it was a 2 day journey by plane (including long layovers) back to Chicago.  The length of the journey caused some of us to go loopy.  When we got back to Chicago, Linda and Lindsay were there to greet us.