Camp Hope, Chongwe

Camp Hope, Chongwe is about to end - tomorrow is the last day - and so much has happened! It's been pretty crazy and tiring, but exciting and full of blessings.

Most mornings we've been getting up around 5:15ish to get ready to leave by 6:00 am. Most of you who know me know this is EXTREMELY difficult for me, as I HATE waking up early, but by God's grace, I've been able to wake up with little difficulty. :)

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get to Chongwe from Lusaka (depending on who's driving), so it's important for us to leave early. Humphray, the awesome dude from the EOH Zambian office, who has been driving us interns to Chongwe every morning, has to get all the breakfast rolls and other food in by 7:00 am. The volunteer cooks prepare breakfast and lunch for the 271 kids who have been attending Camp Hope, and many of the kids are already waiting when we arrive.

A group called Teen Mania has partenered with Every Orphan's Hope to teach 25 groups of Zambian kids who attend Camp Hope. The orphans from the My Father's Houses do not attend, as it is a ministry to reach the other kids of Chongwe who do not get a chance to hear about Jesus every day. Anyway, there are about 70 people in Teen Mania, and they are all camped out around the MFH houses. They also eat and shower around the area, so Bob, a missionary through EOH, has built a dining common for them to eat and hang out, as well as makeshift showers so they are able to bathe. It's quite a sight to behold. :)

Anyway, as interns, we are not in charge of any particular group of kids. We take care of registration, organizing and passing out t-shirts, bandanas, nametags, passing out food to the kids, and making sure the Teen Mania crew is ok. We also have chances to talk with "street kids" (kids who are not living in the My Father's Houses) and witness to them during our "spare" time. We have also had many chances to help the volunteer cooks with cooking and washing dishes. They tend to find us amusing, as we're not used to cutting vegetables without cutting boards. :P

Brian and I have been in charge of registration, which is pretty crazy. The first day we did registration was INSANE!! We were given a list of all the kids who signed up. The kids were already grouped into 25 groups based on their ages, but their names were not in alphabetical order. This made it very hard for us to locate names. I thought we could do it based on their ages, but it turns out that many of their ages were inputted incorrectly on the spreadsheet.

Needless to say, the registration process took a VERY long time. Each kid came up to us one at a time, stated their name, and had to help update the rest of the information - grade, age, who takes care of them at home, school name, and village name. Often, the kids would not be able to understand us, so we had to rely on our interpreter, who would again repeat the questions in Nyanja.

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I have to go to bed now, as wake up time is going to be quite early. I will finish updating later.
Thanks!

In Jesus' Love,
Andrea