Starting on February 11, I left for Africa, for a two week mission trip to Kitwe, Zambia. We were visiting a family that used to live in my home town and go to my church, and moved to Zambia about 11 years ago. They started a ministry directed at boys who live on the streets in Kitwe, of which there are about 350. The boys live on the streets for various reasons, mostly becasue their families cannot afford to care for them. The mission is to try to get kids that want to and are qualified to get off the streets to come live in a home of 14 boys. Then we can help them start or continue their education and finish out through grade twelve, and then help them get a job or attend university. The missionaries will also be starting a ministry for the street girls in Kitwe within a couple of months. It will be similar to the boys ministry, getting a certain number of girls off the streets, and helping them get and education and get jobs. So, we were able to help them get the new house the girls will stay in ready by putting down an new floor. That project took up most of the first week.
On monday of the second week, I taught a medical briefing to the staff at the boys home. The schooling in Zambia, in comparison to ours, is not good. Someone in eleventh grade over there might be in more like seventh or eighth grade in America. And what they do learn, they memorize for their tests and then forget it. So, they know very little about simple medical things like how to care for a wound, how to stay hydrated, and knowledge about basic medications. So, I was able to teach them some basic medical knowledge, not only for the staff’s benefit but also so they can then teach the boys in the program. The next day was Mayampapa day. Mayampapa is an outreach day that the Walkers do for the street boys where they can wash clothes, bathe, get a meal, play soccer, and hear the gospel. There are also a couple stations set up where the kids can get prayer, hem clothes and get medical care. I manned the medical station all day, mostly bandaging up wounds, some of which were more than two weeks old!
On Wednesday we went downtown, into the market where some of the street girls hang out. We were able to meet about seven of the girls, talk with them and hear their stories. One particular girl’s story was very tragic; she was prostituting herself just to stay alive. As a result, she had three babies, two of them died on the street, and she gave up the third to live in an orphange. It absolutely broke my heart to see the girls living in those kind of conditions, but was so glad to bless the ministry to help get the girls home up and running faster.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to take this trip and bless the Walkers and there ministry, and to see what God is doing in the lives of the street kids, and the missionaries. Also, I was ecstatic I was able to put to use some of the knowledge and skills I learned in the EMT program to bless the missionaries and the street boys.
