Archive for March, 2009
Matt • 28th Mar 2009 • Africa, Theology
I don’t normally write about nature, but I am concerned about it as I believe that we ought to take care of all of God’s creation. So, here is a quote from a book that I’m re-reading here in Zambia. It’s called For the Life of the World and it’s by Alexander Schmemann. I read this book in college in a class taught by Craig Keen and it is perhaps the most impacting theology book I’ve ever read. Schmemann writes:
“Things treated merely as things in themselves destroy themselves because only in God have they any life. The world of nature, cut off from the source of life, is a dying world. For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is communion with death. Food itself is dead, it is life that has died and it must be kept in refrigerators like a corpse … Food in itself can produce only the appearance of life.”
Keith, Neal, and a bunch of my other friends I have a feeling will be instantly attracted to this quote but it took me a few minutes to understand. It brings to question the idea of life, what life truly is, and where life finds its meaning. I can honestly say that I have found desperation in life. I have been tempted to despair at the prospect of life as being an end in itself and this is why I like the above quote so much.
I don’t want the appearance of life. I want life in abundance.
Matt • 24th Mar 2009 • Africa
Staz is our housekeeper. Her real name is Anastasia.
She is pretty much one of the sweetest ladies I know. She’s a decent cook, a decent cleaner, a good laundry lady, and a FANTASTIC hider of things that we want to know the location of.
We’ve affectionately nicknamed her ‘Staz the Stasher’ because she’s always tidying up the house and stashing our stuff in the craziest places so we can’t find things that we used to know where they were located. She’s great at making messes disappear (I suppose we’ve offered her a lot of practice?) and great at putting items of these messes in the weirdest places (to us) that make so much sense to her.
We have a lot of fun with her and she thinks that we’re funny, and Vaughn routinely asks her if she’s seen the movie ‘Maid in Manhattan’ and we all laugh. Not at her, but at the fact that deep down, we think Vaughn has a crush on her.
The picture in this post is from last Saturday morning around noon as I was having some lunch and she was drinking some tea. I wouldn’t let her smile in the picture because I knew it would make her laugh more, and she did laugh like crazy, right up until it was picture time and then she did as I requested, with no reason given. I love this picture and I appreciate Staz very deeply.
Matt • 22nd Mar 2009 • Africa, Life Lessons
This morning I went to church. We went to Miracle Life Family Church, which is one of the most western churches in town. I woke up early and in a good mood, ready to approach church with a positive attitude.
On the way over we talked about the ‘liturgy of the church’ as being the ‘work of the people’ and I really enjoyed walking for around 10 minutes to just get to church.
As we arrived people were milling around much as you would expect, and as the worship pastor took the stage people quieted and he gave a call to worship more appropriate than any I’ve ever heard. We same a Zambian song in Bemba (with the English translations up on the screen) and we clapped on 1 and 3. Next we sang a Tommy Walker song a Hillsong, and dinine with a Matt Redman and I sang in a genuine way that I haven’t in a long while. I think here’s something about being in a room of people that you can just tell are singing from their heart and not from anywhere else.
Offering was good and joyful and announcements were as expected, too. The announcement about the “Africa Missions Team” immediately struck me as humorous, but as I listened I began to understand their intention. Zambia is a “Christian nation” the same as the USA, which may or may not mean much, but the truth is that it places Zambia in a place of spiritual leadership for it’s neighbors. It was great to see that the church recognized not only its blessings but its responsibilities as well.
Lastly, the sermon. Without going into detail, I’ll say that the senior pastor didn’t speak and that in his place some visiting guy from Oklahoma spoke. It really bummed me out because he exemplified what I hate in most American sermons and I resent the fact that it’s being brought to Zambia.
With that said, I feel like I’m on a journey of finding both personal spiritual wholeness and communal church contentedness and today was a great beginning of this process.
Matt • 21st Mar 2009 • Africa
Last week on Thursday evening I went with Vaughn to soccer practice out in the village that the guys originally fell in live with, Kapampa. It was my first time playing soccer in any serious way in quite a few years and though I was really rusty I had a great time and it was a feet time to be with a bunch of the guys we are working with out at the farm and in our bike facility. The connection that work ‘associates’ have when they play together in an informal way is great. I knew their names but I did not know them in any way more than their work.
It’s so important to connect on this other level with people that you are working with (especially in the development context). To know our workers in a personal way and to connect with them is to value them beyond their work’s worth. It is a validation of them as holistic humans and is instrumental to preventing them from being alienated from their work… The last thing we want is to fall into a Marxist alienation.
And so we value our men and women in our company. We ply soccer together and we laugh. We always laugh. And after soccer we go visit our men’s houses and tell their wives and children that they are loved. This was the best part of the night. Vaughn and I were invited into two houses and spent time in the soot-filled living room of Rabson, a man with a beautiful family and candle light to see each other by. It was a perfect continuation of what started on the soccer field and i’m sure it will be one of my favorite times spent here in Zambia.
Matt • 15th Mar 2009 • Africa
Pastor Felix came by our house today. His wife is apparently in the hospital with something wrong with her mouth. She’s in a hospital that is a 7 hour bus ride away from Lusaka and his purpose for stopping by was to ask for some money to pay for the bus ride there and to have some help with the hospital fees. He’s a very genuine and honest man and when he asked for 450,000 kwacha (around $85USD) Jeff and I split it in half and provided him the money.
This is a common happenning in Zambia. Money is viewed and used differently here and I won’t be able to fully explain the cultural intricacies of this matter, maybe I can sort through the issue a little bit. It’s not a Zambian stereotype, but rather an observed sociological behavior that I read a book about (the title of which I used for this blog’s title.
The truth is that many Zambians believe that just because a ‘muzungu’ is white, he/she must have an abundance of money. This wouldn’t be a problem except that most Africans share an understanding that resources are to be shared, not hoarded. I think that this is a fantastic way to live, but the problem comes when there is an inordinate amount of expectation places on one person, especially when there is no relationship between the two people.
I am constantly bombarded in marketplaces by eager Zambians because I’m white. I don’t share my money with them not because I don’t like them or I don’t trust them but because we don’t have a relationship and I the true goal of sharing resources has nothing to with finances and everything to do with community.
(With that said, I often do give money to strangers here that ask)
And so, pastor Felix and many f the guys that we work with have received help from us financially, but we are constantly striving to enable them to help themselves by paying us back when they are able (this gives them so much joy!) and encouraging them to come up with new side business ideas. I belive deep down that this is the way to breed economic and social development, by walking alongside those who are seeking help and allowing them to truly help themselves.
There is so much more to be said on this topic, but I just wanted to give a little insight into something I’ve been thinking about.
Matt • 14th Mar 2009 • Africa
Elliott and The Bike Shipment
We’ve finally received our container of bike parts! We can now push forward in the assembly process and fulfill some orders that we have received already.
I spent the 12th watching Daryl build a bike and taking mental notes, and I spent the 13th building a bike by myself (with a little help) and taking physical notes. It’s really not that hard, but the worst part is that the parts we need are all over the warehouse so we are currently working on a system to make sure that we don’t lose pieces and that the Zambian bike mechanics have the greatest chance of success in this endeavor as possible. It’s kinda crazy trying to get the systems in place while we have an order of 20 bikes that is supposed to be done on the 16th (possibly the 18th)… balancing the theoretical with the real life is turning out to be a challenge, but we’ll get it. We’ve also had a little bit of trouble with the bikes, certain holes not being drilled straight, and a few other issues, but we’ll see if this continues to be a big problem.
In other news, Daryl’s missions pastor from his church is staying with us right now and he’s the coolest guy. He and I have so much in common it’s crazy… He almost became a professional bass player, he has a theology degree (and a Masters in Counseling, but I’ll get there eventually), is now doing business as missions (BAM, for all you acronym-lovers out there), he was a waiter in college at an italian restaurant, and he’s friends with John Eldredge and Phillip Yancey, just like me. It’s been really nice to have some good theological talks with him and he totally ‘gets it’ in the way that I do, and in a way that most of the people I spend my time with here don’t quite.
I’m off to go have lunch… some of the dinner that we didn’t eat last night because we went over to our friends house again for a going away party/dinner.
PS- New pictures in the pictures section. Awesome.
Zambian Nugget Of The Day: The best beer ’round these parts is Castle beer and it’s from South Africa. The Zambian beer is called Mosi and Zambians have a lot of pride about it which I’m ok with because it tastes like PBR. Long live the Hipass!
Matt • 12th Mar 2009 • Uncategorized
To start let me say that my camera was not stolen. It accidentally made its way with Vaughn to the US and and will return on the 18th.
In the last week, we’ve had two public holidays. The first was Womens’ Day (complete with a parade with marching bands and women dressed up in colorful beautiful dresses) and the second is today, Youth Day. i’m not totally sure what happens on Youth Day, but we’re not really allowed to have our people work so we get the day of as well, no matter how much we want to work and get some stuff done. We have taken the opportunities to run some errands (I got a new mosquito net for my bed because my old one kinda sucked, Jef got some tools for his building project out at the farm, and we got a new shower curtain that isn’t moldy) but mostly we’ve been relaxing and going on motorcycle rides.
Matt in the grass
Jeff and I went last Sunday afternoon on a ride out in Lusaka West and made a loop through the bush to one of the main road in Zambia, Great North Road. It travels basically from the bottom to the top of this side of Zambia, and so after a 35 mile ride through the bush on our bikes, (225cc Honda and 225cc Yamaha) we made it to the open road and cruised the last 10 miles or so back to the pub near our house (O’Hagan’s) at around 90kph. I don’t know how fast that is in mph, but it felt pretty fast. (I actually just checked and it’s about 55mph, sorry mom). It was awesome to be out in the bush for the first time and to be riding a motorcycle again, which is something that I haven’t done in a lot of years.
Then on Monday, we joined up with our friend David, a Zambian who has lived all over the world for most of his life and is now living in Zambia to be back with his family and to do social business, for another ride that David knew about to a town called Kafue. We made the mistake of not leaving early enough in the day, so we didn’t make it all the way to Kafue before it started getting dark, so we turned around at Leopard’s Hill (which is a lush, green forested series of hills that look like a leopard lying down… the three humps being its head, shoulders, and hips. After finding nobody at the visitor center of the Leopard’s Hill national monument, we cruised home, again going between 80 and 100 kph but this time it was part of the time on tarmac (asphalt) and part of the time on broken, pothole laden, and rock/dirt-bumped tarmac (still asphalt). It was really fun and a little scary to be flying across it, but I kept up with the guys just fine.
The sky!
Oh yeah, and we wear leather jackets when we ride.
I’m feeling a lot better about being here and I’m definitely finding my rhythm. My job here is making more and more sense to me and I’m becoming more and more confident in who I am and how it relates to this place, these people, and this job. I am who I am, and that is exactly what I am supposed to be here.
In other news, I’m really getting to know Jeff and Daryl pretty well. In the absence of the strong-personalitied Vaughn and Dustin (they’re still in the States on a trip for Dustin’s brother’s wedding) I have been able to spend a lot of time opening up to and being opened up to by the other two guys I share my house with. I’m really encouraged by them and am so glad that they’re here experiencing all of this with me. They’re really helpful and we have a lot in common which makes things a lot easier.
Zambian Nugget Of The Day: The main staple in most people’s diets is called nshima. It’s pronounced with a silent ‘n’ and is ground up maize (corn) and boiling water. It’s a really thick cornmeal that results in a really bland starchy mush that they eat at most meals alongside a ‘relish’ that is often cabbage, but sometimes beans, if you’re lucky there’s sausage or chicken involved (if you’re unlucky you get the chicken gizzard, bone marrow, or foot) and even then it’s usually nice to add some hot sauce. Also, the nshima stays hot for REALLY long and i burn my hand every time i take a handful (I forgot to mention that we eat it with our hands out of one communal bowl) and the Zambians make fun of me endlessly for this. I guess I need tougher skin (literally, not figuratively).
Matt • 7th Mar 2009 • Africa
Norma is our new puppy. She’s pretty much the sweetest little thing. She’s also a little terror. I guess it’s what you would expect from a puppy, but while it’s happening, i find it nearly impossible to respond to the dichotomy.
One moment she’s melting my heart by linking my ear while I’m tying my shoes, and the next moment she’s tearing apart one of our wicker chairs. One moment I’m sitting with her in my arms as she’s sprawled all over me during a bible study and the next she’s biting and ripping up the cuff of someone’s pants.
And she just started smelling bad today. We’ll have to give her a bath tomorrow because the good Lord knows just as well as I do that a bad smelling puppy smells BAD.
In other news, I may have had my digital camera stolen or I might have lost it… but either way I can’t find it right now. Hopefully it turns up, but Jeff had his laptop stolen out of his bedroom this last week, probably by one of the guys on our marketing team and I’m hoping my camera didn’t have the same fate.
Needless to say, I’m keeping my other electronics close at hand.
