May 1, 2008

This is Karen checking in:

Yesterday, the highlight of my trip among many was to see Chriss in Kitwe a mining town just 40 minutes west of Ndola. Chriss is 28 years old and the brother who raised our adopted Zambian son Memory. It was a great 15 minute reunion at the “round a bout” next to the bus stop. Memory is starting to look like his older brother and both are very handsome as are so many of the people here.

On the way back to Ndola, we stopped at the OMNI building site to catch up with Foster and Jon who had been “ferrying” sand and lumber all day in our 4 ton truck from various places in Ndola to our village for our building. The team went on with the bus and Foster and I remained to pay the 3 guards, 4 teachers, and builders etc. that are employed by OMNI. On the way back to Ndola in the dark we were first upon a tragic accident, very common here where a bus like ours struck a mini bus with what appeared to be 14 people in side.

This AM, 2 more team members, Pastor Sherman and Chriss left for the states leaving us with 11 remaining. Each time someone leaves the OMNI team family the dynamics change and we feel less whole.

Today for the first time in many years, I have had a day off here in Zambia and had the opportunity to travel with the team to an orphanage village for Chimpanzee deep in the bush area of Chingola which is almost 3 hours west and north of where we are working. This remote orphanage was established over 25 years ago for chimps who were being killed and abused at the hand of humans around Africa and the globe.

On the way, our bus was detained at a police check point for carrying mattresses (to be delivered tomorrow for our new labor and delivery room at Kasango) in addition to our driver not having his driver’s license on his person….(WHAT??) Foster and our driver made some phone calls to friends and very soon we were off again. Our mattresses are now under our seats…

We all saw the 32 chimps, and much to my pleasure I was able to hold an 18 month old baby named Dominic. They are so human like that we were amazed.

Tomorrow will be a full day for OMNI work starting with an 8 am meeting with Foster, medical rounds at Children’s Hospital, and an appointment at the ministry of Education to register our school again for the new semester starting on Monday and much more. Tonight we packed “gift bags” for our 150 students.

We pray for Colin, baby Peter in our hospital here, and our traveling team members. Each day we pray for our families and friends at home who we miss and love.

Blessings to all,
Karen