Wow! Great day! We went to the office of the Family Legacy school staff. They are doing amazing things! The children who have been blessed with sponsors attend one of the 15 schools that FL has set up. Currently there about 3,000 children in the program. The Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent spoke to us about the challenges (not to be confused with or referred to as problems) they face. For the children with parents, so many of them do not understand the concept of a "free" education, or the idea of taking the child out of the home. The parents want the children to go out and make money or care for siblings while they try to provide for the family. They truly have to be convinced of the investment of an education in their child's life. For the children that are orphaned, the caregivers seem to have the same opinions or one of complete apathy. The American teachers along with the Zambian staff have a long road ahead, however, they seem to be moving by leaps and bounds at a pretty quick pace!
We headed to one of the residential housing compounds, we were greeted by 25 (ish) beautiful little girls! They were all in matching camp shirts and sang welcome songs to us. I cried- yep, behind my big sunglasses, I couldn't stop the tears! Here are these beautiful little creations of God in hand me down clothes, dirty little feet, no electricity, and what a lot of us would call unbelievable baggage, and THEY were trying to make us smile and make us feel welcome, and in fact, it was that simple, with a song and a smile and Anna holding my hand, I felt like I was in Heaven! So Anna... She was a sweetie! I walked up to her after the greeting songs, she is very shy, didn't make eye contact, and kept her head facing the ground. I asked her to show me her room in the house, not quite sure I saw her room or not, but she quickly warmed up and latched on to my hand! We were buddies! She may have only said 5 words to me, and barely looked up (much less made eye contact) but she wasn't letting go of my hand! We sat down with the group in one of the homes to hear a presentation, while we waited, I asked if she liked to sing, she said yes and out of nowhere Anna went about singing me a song! I could not believe it, she sang really soft at first, but as she got into it, she kept getting louder- it was SO cute! After a short presentation we all went outside and cranked up some camp songs we had downloaded to our iPhones, the girls had requests and knew all the words and moves they had learned at camp the year before! They were all smiles! Anna mouthed the words, silently, but you could tell there was a little Zambian Idol hiding in her!
We all headed to our housing village to pack up the food bags we will give our sponsor children. Erin, Trish and I were in charge of bagging beans! Note to self... Beans are dusty!
We grabbed dinner at a restaurant in town, now heading to bed!
I have been told this trip was going to change my life- the fact is, my life was changed when I was just considering taking this journey, his trip... It is probably going to rock my whole world! Tomorrow we head out to meet our sponsor kiddos!
Pictures below... If they stay in the same order
Loading up in our blue bus for the days adventures!
Bagging beans
Anna
Off to bed- I am exhausted! Keep in touch, xoxo
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