Thank you for all your love and support this year. I wish you a wonderful Christmas. May you and your family be blessed.

TIA moments for your entertainment:
  • When I went to the court office this week to get my passport stamped, the clerk offered me weed that had been confiscated in a case. I laughed and asked him if he had ever smoked any. He said no and eventually gave the bag to his colleague to destroy
  • When putting up posters for the Christmas Party we didn't have the right glue or tape so we bought bubble gum. It's hard to stop chewing it before it looses its flavour but it worked like a charm
  • When I go down to the village, this is generally what happens...I turn into the Pied Piper (see photo)
  • When transportation is scarce, even grown men will turn your vehicle into a clown car (see photo)
Love, blessings and hugs
Natasha
Walking through the village
Clown Car 1: How many men can fit into a 2x5 foot space?


Clown Car 2: Answer--3!

Correction

Yesterday we interviewed Sydney for the bicycle program. Sydney actually travels between 15 km in each direction everyday!!! That's three hours in each direction. He's not the only one. His brother also travels about the same distance, but to another school.

Please consider supporting these young people by donating to Hope Ignited. Our bicycles need a little more TLC before we can distribute them for this program.


Local Projects

Community meeting in Give Hope school
This week we held the first of two community meetings. We are working together to initiate three programs: a co-operative sewing program, a co-operative knitting program and a bicycle program. We handed out questionnaires to people who were interested in becoming involved so that we might be able to start a screening process. Obviously, not everyone can participate in the initial launch of these programs, so we will be looking for people willing to make a commitment, take initiative and who have the desire to help their community grow.

We took some time during the meeting to talk about the blessings that come when others are blessed. There can be an underlying attitude of jealously in Zambia when others succeed--bad enough to include acts of sabotage. The result is that no one succeeds, everyone stays poor. So I taught from Jeremiah 29: Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.


Sydney walks a total of 3-4 hrs a day for school
The third program is aimed at youth. I was inspired by this young man whose name is Sydney. Sydney walks 1.5 - 2 hours each way, each day to go to the closest high school. This takes up much of his precious school time, study time and must be incredibly exhausting. We want to use the bicycles to help youth who want to attend high school or work. We will organize peer support (so that they don't end up doing beer delivery) and help them to find ways of generating income for bike maintenance.

We will hold one more meeting this week for those that could not attend the first one. The interview process is scheduled for the 16th and 17th of December with the hopes of having all the pre-work done by the end of 2011. This will put us in a good position to start the programs at the beginning of January. Time flies! 
Young girl selling charcoal