First Day Out

Mwabuka buti!!! (aka “Good Morning” in the Tonga language). This is Avery (sophomore/softball) and David (sophomore/track and field). Today was our first full day in Choma, Zambia on the Poetice base. We started the morning off with a devotional about hearing God’s voice. It was really refreshing to begin our day focusing on bettering our ability to distinguish and listen to what God was speaking to us. After the devotional, we learned about the significance of personal cultures as well as the Zambian culture and how it differs from and relates to the Unites States culture. Poetice’s mission is to cultivate a kingdom culture where we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. We recognized the importance of finding similarities between different cultures instead of always contrasting them because God created us to be in unity with one another.

Following our cultural orientation, we heard a message about the importance of sharing our stories and being vulnerable with others in order for them to feel comfortable doing the same with us. We heard a couple other peoples’ stories and saw how life changing the Gospel can really be. The stories all had one thing in common: Jesus changes everything and nothing else can.

After some volleyball with our team and some of the Zambian students and staff at Poetice, we left the base around 3 in the afternoon and walked through Mwapona, one of the neighboring communities. It was incredible to see then run out of their houses to greet us with big smiles as our big group walked through the village.  Poetice wanted us to have a better understanding of the community that the athletes who we will have at the sports camps are from. We had a crowd of little kids chasing us for a mile waving and having fun. It was also eye opening to see the small brick structures that they call home. It made us thankful for everything that we have back in the states.

Our paths through the community lead us right up to downtown Choma where we were welcomed by the hustle and bustle of the market. The street was flooded with different vendors selling all types of goods such as fish, vegetables, shirts, shoes, speakers, etc. It was cool to see so much of the population in one place.

Our day ended with dinner, where we tried “Nshima”, a favorite dish in Zambia. We debriefed with the team, prepared for the first day of sports camps tomorrow, and finished with games and fellowship. Thank you for the continuous prayers!!!

Z Squad members- David and Avery 🙂

Answer to yesterday’s joke: Because it’s two tired
Joke of the Day: Why did the coffee go to the police station?

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