Greetings,
The snake
started to constrict slightly around my neck as the cameras continued to take
pictures. We spent the day today
planning and finally going to a reptile farm known as Kalimba farms. They have reptiles from all over the nation
of Zambia
including snakes, crocodiles, and even some tortoises. The first stop on our tour was at the snake
section that contained black mambas (considered the most dangerous snake in the
world), green mambas, puff adders and even some pythons. The last of those was the one that I had the
privilege (?) of holding across my shoulders.
The guide went down into a pit of 8 pythons and brought a ten foot one
out by his bare hands. He then held the
head and allowed all of our team to hold the snake across their shoulders. Some were slightly less comfortable with it
(cough, cough, Abel, cough, Kayi). It
was great to have some more team time with the prospect of Nathan leaving this
Sunday.
This week
has been one of the busiest of the whole trip.
Orientation on the UNZA campus began on Monday and took up all of our
time from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. From start to finish we were meeting students
at the booth that we had set up and going out and talking to others that were
in various locations. After three days
we estimated that between the summer team, staff, and students we were able to
talk to more than 300 students. How big
of an impact we were able to make is not known but at least we had some contact
with them. Some even just came for the
biscuits and juice that we were serving but that is fine too.
Starting
out on the first day of orientation I was not very comfortable just going up to
random people and talking to them. I am
a very talkative person and sometimes to a fault but when it involves someone
that I do not know and do not have anything in common with then I am a very
quiet individual. I was even more
nervous because approaching someone with the intention of finding out about the
person’s spiritual background or even sharing the gospel is intimidating to say
the least. That being said, this is what
I am here for. Sure it is out of my
comfort zone and it could fail miserably but I had to at least try. By day three the conversations were actually
casual and I feel that I was far more casual in my approach. Instead of forcing things, sometimes the
conversation can just flow.
Talking
with some of the students that I was privileged enough to meet during
orientation is one of the highlights of the entire trip. I was able to meet a variety of people from a
variety of different backgrounds and see how each person viewed their current
stance and how they viewed Christianity as a whole. The students that I met with were all over
the scale as some were nowhere near interested in what I was saying while others
wanted to exchange contact information so that we could continue discussions on
certain topics. At first the negative
results of people folding up the fliers that I was passing out or even dropping
them right after I left was disheartening but the seed growing is not my
responsibility. I can plant the seed and
even water it but the growth comes from God.
On the other side of that were the students that were genuinely
interested in learning more; whether that be more about the gospel or learning
how to disciple others.
This
Saturday is the welcome party for first year students and even those that are
already on campus. We have been meeting
to plan that and even lay out some objectives for the year with other members
of staff. The meetings are productive
sometimes and other times they just end up with everyone too tired to continue
after a long morning in the sun. We are
hoping that around 150 students will be able to make it out to the party and
maybe even a little more. We plan on
having fun most of the time playing sports like football and even some board
games. Sandwiches are being made for
each person and we will have juice and tea as well. We are also going to be sharing a brief
gospel message that will hopefully be long enough to not leave a ton out but
short enough to not let people get too bored.
We want to have some outreach but we want this to be a fun event that
welcomes people in a loving atmosphere.
My knee has
been slightly bothering me so I have missed the last several days in practice
but I hope to be back tomorrow. The
study with the team dropped down to only two other players and me this week
mainly because of the chaos on campus.
The conversation did not suffer though as again really deep topics such
as Christ’s fulfillment of the Law came up.
I hope that next week we will be able to have a slightly bigger showing
as far as numbers and the conversation remain open and interested.
A huge deal for students here at UNZA is trying to find accommodation. For some reason, the university does not have enough housing for even half of the students to live on campus. Even more, unlike the US and universities like Purdue, there is not a lot of housing that is off-campus in the form of apartments. The students arrive to orientation and do not know if they will even have a place to stay. The situation is not easy for anyone and I pray that the university looks for more ways to accommodate these young students or at least lets them know in advance if they will have a room or even a bed to sleep on when they arrive.
With only
two weeks remaining, the focus will again shift from meeting new students to
following up with the students that we met during orientation. This is where the watering of the seeds comes
into play. A short conversation that can
vary from five minutes to thirty minutes can only make so much of an
impact. Meeting with that person again and
spending an hour or so over a meal can make that impact stick. I want to be able to make an impact in the
lives of these people that will stay with them through life in a way that I
have been impacted. Christ is teaching
me so much about myself and himself that I just want to relay some of that to
others. As Nelson said today, if we are
only able to impact one person of all of the 300 some that we talked to,
everything will have been worth it.
Until next time,
Aaron
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