well, we are back now. and it feels like quite a responsibility to have had this privilege....















to meet such beautiful people, and be humbled by their circumstances; to see the difficult realities in this country and continent and to realize the difference our resources, our time, our love could make.

it's hard to describe the way these children work their way into your heart....to understand their joy in spite of their odds for survival.

i think all three of us leave with a strong desire to do something. not out of guilt, but out of desire. not because we have to, but because we can.

thanks to everyone who followed the blog and encouraged us these last few weeks. hopefully it allowed you to experience at least some of our amazing journey.

thanks to contributions from some friends here in Chicago, we were able to take more than 80 toothebrushes and toothepastes and give them to the students at the Twapia school.

a few more favorite pictures from the wall/fence in the backyard of the orphanage (where the neighborhood would keep track of our activities.)

and a few more....

two of my favorite pictures...
















the neighoborhood boys...

and this guy was working seriously hard laying bricks at the house next to the orphanage...

two more of my favorite pictures:



this woman was in the shanti town we visited. selling beans and eggs to survive.












when this this young man at the Twapia school found a rectangular scrap metal, and Dan helped him imagine he had a picture frame...

we got the opportunity to help the mid-level students at the Twapia community school with one of their math assignments. the students are broken into 3 classrooms in the building by age/education level. the resources and facilities are limited. no electricity, running water or bathrooms. the teachers are paid approximately $200/month--when the money is there. curriculum is minmal. the kids share erasers and often miss class due to malnutrition and sickness. but the attitude is positive and the energy is contagious.

after seeing the need for basic school supplies, we were able to go to a wholesale store and purchase pencils, erasers, sharpeners and notebooks.



and the kids and teachers were very appreciative...

Pastor Charles took us to the recently purchased land and explained his vision for the orphanage and school that will provide housing, food and education for even more children.

one of Scott's favorite boys from the orphanage was Calvin, who recently arrived. when we first arrived, he was clearly malnourished, had a distended stomach and very reserved when we first met him. over the few weeks we were there, it was great to see him gain strength and come out of his shell.

this is called the "slave tree". it sits on the edge of downtown Ndola, Zambia. it is where Africans were sold as slaves to the British who colonized this country, taking advantage of the copper mines. the lack of resentment and gracious spirit of the Zambians towards the white man is remarkable.

here joanna, one of the children from the orphanage, takes care of one of the babies at church.

here scott is teaching the neighborhood boys kung fu. one of the funnier scenes we witnessed on this trip.

the whole neighborhood came out and sat on the wall to watch us limbo with the kids in the backyard of the orphanage. here is Jane, one of the winners.

all of the kids loved duck duck goose.

we went on a short safari over the weekend. the monkeys were the best...

we spent another day with the kids at the Twapia community school on Friday.



currently there are over 100 kids that attend this school because it is free. Pastor Charles and his wife Margaret have hired and pay the teachers so the government lets them rent the building for a small fee. their hope is to provide a meal each day for these kids--if they did that, there would be about 200 more children from the neighborhood who would come and begin to receive education.

we spent a few hours at the local Musala Market... Katie (another volunteer who has been working with us), Dan, Theresa (the local coordinator for Courage To Be You--the organization we came with), and Scott.

i think i found the next naomi campbell....(this tough girl was watching from a distance as we played with the kids at the Twapia community school.)

this is pastor Charles and his wife Margaret. in addition to the church, he and his wife direct the Hope House Orphanage, the community school in Twapia that we have been visiting and run a little convenience store in their apartment complex. in their free time in the last 2 weeks they have attended an HIV/AIDS training conference and a workshop on child sexual abuse. they also fixed us dinner here in their home....they are quite amazing people. Charles will be leaving his family and responsibilities here in Zambia for the next 3 months to come to the U.S. to talk about their work here and fundraise.

Lillian (our African Mom) gets into it at church last sunday. this week scott & i will do some music with the church band and all three of us will be speaking about our experience and encouraging the congregation.

two of our housemates--Mercy and her son Shekinah. she is up every morning by 5.30am cleaning the house before Shekinah or any of us wake up.

you better check Scott's suitcase for hidden Zambian children when he gets back...

Congono (the youngest son of our host family)and Dan have bonded.

we visited what they call a shanti town yesterday, just down the street from where we are staying. the poverty was difficult to see--most of it i didn't even want to take a picture of.

this is Andrew....an up and coming photographer.

this is the house Mom at Hope House Orphanage (here with Scott). she and Mambwe (the house Dad) live 24-7 in this small house with the 12 children and are not paid. Judy, whose two sons also live in the house, is a seamstress on the side to make money. she makes shirts like the one Scott is wearing in this picture.

Gertrude...one of our favorite neighborhood kids.

Dan works on the wood for the bunk beds, then hugs Axiom (the local carpenter) when he sees the first one finished. After a little sanding and some varnish, it gets moved into the kids room and they sleep on it that night.

Scott can entertain these kids for hours....literally.

one night we came home late and as Scott closed the window to our bedroom he saw some ants crawling around the inside window ledge. having been warned by Uncle J about biting ants/termites he thought we should wake him up and tell him. sure enough Uncle J went outside and found there were millions of them crawling up the walls of the front of the house and into our bedroom....all over the floor, on the beds, bags, etc. Uncle J yelled that everyone had to take their long pants off and start lighting newspaper & burn them. those who didn't yield to Uncle J's advice about the pants were sorry as the ants crawled right up into the pant legs and started biting....some of the ants made it quite far up the legs & into some really painful areas. yes--we were burning them both inside and outside of the house. the whole situation was quite humorous and painful at the same time. Danny holding the mosquito nets in our bedrooms yelling at Uncle J that he was going to burn the house down and the whole family waking up and joining the battle in their shorts/underwear. we slept on the floor in the living room and in the morning the ants had gone away.