Outreach Visitors

We entertained a group of visitors at Namumu this past week and a good time was had by all.

The Outreach Foundation, Namumu’s main supporting organization, sent over a group of nine representing various churches in the US, a group led by one of my personal heroes, TMTMTL Bill Warlick. Bill has actually made the trip from Orlando to Zambia three times in the past year. I keep telling him to stop coming and bothering us but he keeps on showing up anyway.

Kidding.

Along with my Granddaddy Carl, Bill is one of the wisest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of associating with. While here he sits through meeting after meeting with any and all Namumu departments, reviewing the past year, crunching numbers and evaluating performances. He is intelligent and thoughtful, always guiding and suggesting, never forcing or commanding. He takes the time to talk with everyone and makes everyone feel important. Kind of like Jesus would.

Although he did show some signs of aging. Bill took a nap one afternoon during the group’s stay, something I’ve never seen him do. Don’t get me wrong, on trips like that napping more than understandable. I’ve just never seen him do it. He’s always running around and evaluating everything all day long.

Also, there was the driving incident. Early Tuesday morning we went as a group to see the kapenta boats come in. Bill was driving us all in the large van they had brought down to Siavonga, and as we pulled out onto the town’s main tarmac Bill cruised on over to the right lane and accelerated, coasting right along through the hills of Siavonga, which would have been fine if we drove on the right hand side of the road in Zambia. We don’t. We drive on the left. Fortunately it was early, there was nobody on the road at the time and someone yelled at Bill from the back seat to get over in the left lane, which he immediately did. So we lived to see the kapenta boats, which was nice. I suppose I’m partially responsible as I was navigating from the passenger seat, but oh well, it all worked out in the end.

The group’s visit went about like most other visits do. The group took a tour, met all the staff, sat and chatted with the children and gathered in the chapel for singing and devotions each night.

A number of groups have come through to Namumu since I’ve been here and it’s always the same thing, but you know what? It’s always wonderful. In this environment it’s easy to get bogged down by the day-to-day frustrations, to lose focus and lose sight of the big picture, to forget why we are doing what we are doing. When groups show up to see us for the first time and we have to present the organization to them it reminds us that we are here working for something greater than our own personal comfort and enjoyment. Plus, when you have to explain to someone all the facets of the organization and how it works, it forces you to think about how you can improve things and it gives you a fresh perspective.

The group hung out around Namumu most of the time, but we did get a chance to move around town some. We made it to see the kapenta sales in the morning and took a spin around the lake on the Lucy boat, attended a mini-church service (that is, mini relative to other African church services) at St. Marks Presbyterian Church and rocked out to keyboard-jamming and loud-speaker-enhanced praise songs, visited the Kariba dam with it’s spill-gates open and wandered around the main market in town. It was a lot of fun.

Besides enjoying the company of the group and making a number of new friends I was the privileged recipient of a number of gifts from the group including chocolate, books, hot sauce, letters from the US, and, most importantly, the most recent episodes of LOST’s final season (Holy crap this show is unbelievable. Richard is originally from the Canary Islands? Loophole Guy may be the devil? Jin and Sun are finally together? Ahhh it's getting crazy. I hope Lindelof and Cuse can tie it all together for us here). Thanks to everyone who sent something along from back home, I’m very grateful.

And I’d like to make a special shout out to Cindy Schmidt’s classes in Orlando. Thanks for the messages, you guys. Very uplifting. I appreciate you all taking the time to do it and send them over with Bill. You guys rock and I hope to get to pay you a visit one of these fine days.

Anyway, it was great spending time with such a nice group, one with people passionate for Africa and its inhabitants, people determined to see the good Lord’s work done in Zambia. We miss you guys already. Come back soon.