First Week In Zambia
It’s been a week since we arrived in Zambia, but it seems much longer. We actually left St. John’s nine days ago. We flew to Toronto on Air Canada, then overnight to London and overnight the following day to Lusaka. We arrived in Lusaka early last Thursday morning. As we left the plane and walked to the terminal building Kristina pointed out that the red carpet had been rolled out for us. We learned later that the President of Zambia had been on our flight. More importantly, all of our bags arrived with us – we’d been without our bags for several days last time due to a problem with US customs in Montreal.
Gilbert Nigh (an SIM missionary and former SIM Zambia director) and his daughter Meredith met us at the airport. They brought us to the SIM guesthouse at the Evangelical Church of Zambia (ECZ) compound in Chamba Valley, Lusaka, where we’ve stayed ever since. It’s been a joy getting to know the Nighs and the other SIM missionaries here in Lusaka. They’ve shown us great kindness and have opened their homes to us numerous times. Sung Sik Park, the SIM Zambia director, has been especially helpful in getting us set up. The Nigh and Watson families, also SIM missionaries who live nearby on the ECZ compound, have shown great hospitality to us in many ways. Our kids have enjoyed spending time with their children.
After a week we’re still at the guesthouse. We’ve had a very busy and productive week here in Lusaka, but we’re waiting for renovations on our house in Ndola to be finished so we can finally move. It’s been challenging at times to be at the guesthouse for so long with all of our bags stacked everywhere and without hot water, but we are thankful that God has provided a place for us to stay even as we anxiously wait to move to Ndola.
We’ve spent much of our time getting settled here in Zambia. Ross, a Zambian believer who works for SIM, has been very helpful and we’ve relied on his wisdom numerous times. We’ve also kept him quite busy driving us from place to place most days, so much so that he seems like part of our family now.
Our primary concerns have been purchasing a vehicle, completing the renovations on our house, and getting furniture for the house. With Ross’s help we purchased a 1999 Toyota minivan. We hope to have all the paperwork finished up by Monday.
Our new house in Ndola has been rented for us by SIM from Youth For Christ. Many renovations were required, and most of the work has been done. We are hoping the house will be ready for us by end of next week. On Tuesday we traveled to Ndola to check on the house. It was good to see the inside of the house and to begin to imagine living there.
We’ve also worked on finding appliances and other furniture. Some things will need to be purchased in Lusaka and transported to Ndola, while the rest should be available at similar prices in Ndola.
So we have made much progress over the past week, but we continue to wait for our house to be ready so that we can get to Ndola and prepare for the coming semester. Please pray that our way to Ndola will be prepared in a timely manner so that we can move into our new house soon.
We’d like to thank you all for your support over the past few weeks. Your prayers and messages have been a real encouragement to us as we make the difficult transition away from family, friends, and the familiar surroundings of St. John’s to our new life in Zambia.