New Departure Date

Welp...after weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks I've gotten the go-ahead from Munjongo and am set to take off. I have purchased a plane ticket (my third, the previous two being cancelled...don't ask...) and am set to leave this Sunday, March 1st, from DC in the early evening. If all goes according to schedule (and it should, as Eloise Hawking has informed me that this flight does not, in fact, fly over The Island...) I should be in Johannesburg, South Africa around mid-day on Monday, March 2nd, and then off to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Munjongo has gracially offered to pick me up from the airport there and to find somewhere for us to spend the night before travelling back to Namumu.

Thanks for your support, one and all. I'll try to post once or twice again before I take off...

John Luneta

John Luneta is wise beyond his years. The nephew of Namumu's head accountant, John lives on the Namumu site with his family. Having just recently finished school, John is making every effort to attend college somewhere in the U.S. and, until then, spends his time studying for the SAT's and helping out around Namumu.

Despite his age (I think he's 20), John knows a thing or two about the world. He's intelligent, polite and he loves God as much as anyone I've ever met in my life. He was one of my two best friends during my stay and guided me through the wild world of Siavonga. He showed me around town, introduced me to his friends, and laughed at all my jokes even when they weren't funny. We got along quite well.

My last full day at Namumu this past summer just happened to be July 4th, my birthday. Later, after the Namumu staff threw me a rockin' party (where everybody was twirkin' it), John handed me what I would consider to be the best birthday card I've ever received (sorry, Grandma, it's true...but yours are wonderful, too). On a piece of white computer paper he had written,

"Brother, happy 24th birthday. 24 years is not a joke. You are a big man now. But remember maturity is not with age, but by accepting responsibility. May the almighty God continue adding more years to your life. Read this scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:11. From your brother, John."

In Corinthians 13:11 Paul writes, "When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

Wow. 

Reading this letter again made me snap to attention today. I guess it's time to go ahead and stop spending hours and hours and hours surfing through my parents' movie channels (holy crap there are about 80 and I have watched...so...many. Bad ones. Good ones. I've stopped and watched "Airheads" with Brendan Frasier, Steve Buschemi and Adam Sandler about 4 times in the past two weeks...and in no way is that depressing...) and get to work, refocusing for this trip and getting things together.

On that note, I will try to do more blogging as well. If you need more prayer material this week, pray for John, that if it's a part of God's plan John will be able to study in the U.S. and that he will continue to be a positive role model in Siavonga.

Update

Yes, I am still in the country. No, I do not currently have a departure date in mind. I am still waiting patiently (or with as much patience as I can muster) for the Virginia State Police to return the results of my background check, the last item necessary for me to gain a work visa for Zambia. As soon as the background check results arrive I will fax them over to Zambia and schedule my flight for a day soon after. 

I'm hoping the results arrive this week. Am I worried? Slightly. Any number of aspects from my checkered past could cause a problem (e.g. my relationship with Chuck Jones and Rick Palmen, the fact that I spent three long years living at the Shed, my struggles with addiction [to hotsauce], etc.), but I suppose that no news is good news at this point.

Until then I will be around and blogging whenever I get a chance. However, I need your help and your feedback. What would you like to hear about Zambia or Namumu? More about a certain topic? Less about a certain topic? Nothing at all? More pictures? More stories? More sentences ending in question marks?

I have fielded a few requests from loyal blog-readers in person, but I encourage you to either leave comments on the blog or to shoot me an email at ssc2x@virginia.edu to let me know what you would like to hear. 

Give me a holler.