Making Movies

For the past few days we have been making some videos of our children to send back home to Denmark First Baptist for their VBS week. Denmark FBC raised money last year for some ministries in Zambia, and we are giving them reports on where their money was spent. We have a few more videos to produce that we are working on, but I would like to show the kids' movies that were made this week. They did such a great job telling others about their life here in Zambia. Thanks Denmark FBC for all you do in supporting missionaries like us.

Wonder Woman!

And the princesses too!

World Child Care

Today we went to a poor compound in Lusaka called Mutendere East. We went with some friends, Mr. Phiri and Mr. Felix, to visit a school called World Child Care. This school was started by the singing group, Amazing Voices, which I have posted videos before. The group decided to give back to the community by starting a school for orphaned and vulnerable children in Lusaka. Mr. Phiri is the leader of Amazing Voices, and I have been trying to help him with promoting this school via internet. They had produced a documentary about their school on DVD and I have been trying to upload it to YouTube, but I am having some difficulties. (If anyone can help me with this upload, please email me at cook@bmoz.org)

So, we arrived at the school during the morning session. The school is currently located in a rented house with 2 rooms. One room is about 8 ft. by 15 ft. and the other about 10' by 10'. They use both rooms during the day as classrooms for the children. There is only grass mats on the dirt floor and a few benches for sitting. The volunteer teachers have the morning session from 8-12 and then another session from 12-4. Previously, at the church they were using, they had sometimes 300 students, but now that they have such a smaller space, they have to turn children away. Today there were about 60-65 children in this house for the morning session. The childrens ages range from 4 years old to 11 years old, and most of them are double orphaned, which means they lost both parents (maybe to AIDS or something else). Some of them have at least one parent, and others have parents, but cannot afford to go to school. The government schools in Lusaka are too expensive for a lot of children to attend. World Child Care has just been registered with the government, but because they are not funded by the government, they do not receive much, if any, school materials.

Upon arrival, the kids loudly sang to us... "Hello, Welcome to our school!" We got to talk with the children asking questions about their life and school. Ricky spoke with one group while Niki spoke to the other. And then Coby read a Bible story for the children. We sang a few more songs, and then while we talked with the teacher and Mr. Phiri, Coby & Kelsey began playing soccer with the kids. Before we left, we presented the school with a gift from Denmark FBC. Their VBS 2007 offering will be used to help provide books, materials, supplies, and even food for the students at World Child Care. They were very appreciative of the gift, and we intend to go back and volunteer in the school, maybe helping the teachers with lessons, and just being an encouragement for these children.

Below is a photo of Mutendere East as far as the eye can see. It is a compound having more than 5000 people in just a small area.

Snaggle Tooth

In the past 3 days Kelsey has lost 2 teeth - one on the bottom, and one on the top. The one on the top has been crooked for a while trying to make its way out with the help of the tooth behind it, and finally this morning while taking her medicine, it just fell right out. Check out the before and after pictures.

Before...

After...

Finally, Part 2 Video Lower Zambezi

Finally, the video has uploaded, and you can see the continuation of our trip to Lower Zambezi. This video features the many hippos we saw, and the big crocodiles, plus an awesome sunset over the Zambezi River.

Happy 4th of July

It has finally warmed up a little bit here in Lusaka. Today it was 79 degrees outside in the sun. This morning Austin found a snake skin behind one of the guest houses. It seems to be a spitting cobra about 6-7 feet long. We have just had a huge pile of trash compost removed from that area, and so our guess is that the cobra was living in the brush pile. Yikes! We'll be more careful walking around at night!

Tonight we celebrated the 4th with our mission family. We had an All-American cook-out with hamburgers and the works. After we were all stuffed, we played our favorite card game "Hand and Foot". Kelsey was excited that Hannah was here for the night, and they plan on having breakfast in the morning.

Technical Difficulties

I have been trying to upload our 2nd video of our trip to Lower Zambezi, but apparantly I am having some technical difficulties. Sorry! We are having internet problems as well so I am lucky to be getting this blog out today.

Instead of posting Part 2 of Lower Zambezi, I have decided to post an older video that I promised I would put on the blog. This video was taken during our trip back in April to South Luangwa, and it features 2 impala fighting. You can read more about impalas here: http://www.africanwildlifeguide.com/species-guide/mammals/antelope/impala

Enjoy the video!!!