Well I Finally Showered...

Today I was overwhelmed by thankfulness. Here each of the staff members, before they do anything, say Pslam 118:24, "this is the day The Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." It has been such a wonderful reminder and especially today for some reason it just really sank in. This day is a gift from The Lord. He gave us life and a brand new day and that is something to be celebrated. I think so often in the U.S. we forget that. We forget that each day is a gift from God and we should treat it as such. 

I am already learning so much from the staff here. Not only growing in The Lord and learning more about Him and being more thankful but also about the culture here. Today we did training for the July Camp Hope and we went over the curriculum and practiced translating some things. (The Zambians translated. We spoke. Haha) 

What the three of us realized though was that in order for them to translate we have to speak very clearly, annunciate all of our words, and project our voices. It was interesting to learn that certain words we say are hard to catch. For example, sentences with lots of "s" in them often slur together on our end and then it's hard for the translators to catch it. 

Side note: the translators are partnering with the missionaries coming over to lead the camps and each missionary paired with a translator will lead a group. The translator is there because 1. Not all of the children speak English and translating it into Nyanja is important for them. 2. Cultural differences and for any questions the missionaries may have. They are to be a team and work together to tell these children the truth, hope, and love of Jesus. 

So we finished up the training for the day around 3:30 in the afternoon. We left around 9am. Time is an interesting thing here. We were told about Zambian time and how it was different but we are still learning that it is very different from the U.S. Like here, you can set a meeting for 8 but people will not show up until 9. It is way more relaxed and laid back which is complete opposite from the go go go of America. It has been very refreshing to not have that though and be in a more relaxed environment time wise. It is all very interesting to me and still trying to learn about everything. 

Now to the shower situation. First of all our accommodations are so great and so nice and I am super thankful so please don't think I am complaining because I'm not. I just want you guys to have a mental picture of our room here. So we each have our own bed so you can imagine that the room is pretty big. Our bathroom has no door, no shower curtain, and no curtain rod. The shower head is on a pretty short cord which means you have to hunch over to get water on you. Oh and it's cold water. So the girls and I have become really close in the past few days and I have to be honest and say I delayed the showering process as long as possible. I'm not about that cold shower life. I did take my first shower in the dark though due to power outage. Shower by flashlight. This is Zambia. 

The Lord is definitely teaching me to be thankful though because the past two nights around 10:30 our water goes out and then we don't have any at all and then suddenly a cold shower doesn't sound so bad. Learning to be thankful and rejoice in all circumstances. 

Because... "this is the day that The Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." -Psalm 118:24

Oh also Brooke, Lauren, and I have also decided to call ourselves the Mzungu Musketeers. Mzungu means white person or foreigner and so we get that a lot here. Clearly. And there's three of us so it's perfect!