Reflections on Our Week

To say we’ve had a tough week would be an understatement. In addition to the shock and grief of Kelly Hamby’s death, David has been sick. He started running a high fever on Wednesday night. He also had achy joints, headache, and a dry cough. Thursday he felt better, but the fever shot back up that night. All the Zambians said, “It’s malaria!” So Friday he went to the clinic and had a blood test. It showed no signs of malaria, so he just came home and went to bed. That afternoon we had a Skype (internet telephony) conversation with Dr. Richard Prather, the interim director of the mission, and I mentioned that David was sick. Less than fifteen minutes later we had a call from Dr. Sid Tate of Searcy, Arkansas. Dr. Tate worked here for three years before returning to the states last February. Dr. Prather had called him and told him about David. Dr. Tate listened to the symptoms and suggested that David start on doxycycline for malaria. He noted that the malaria test is not that reliable unless you are running fever when you have your blood drawn. David started on the medication, and within a few hours started to feel better. He’s now back to good health. We have both been taking a malaria preventative, but obviously it’s not 100% effective. The irony is that I’m the one who gets bitten by mosquitoes all the time!

There were some happier experiences this week as well. On Friday and again on Saturday I took a small group of George Benson Christian College students with me to do Children’s Bible School outreaches. We traveled with Ruhtt Mbomwae to Kitundu on Friday and Simikakata on Saturday. The college students did a great job of teaching, and the children were receptive and delighted to participate. I found the experience of going to the villages and teaching to be very healing for me. I looked out on that sea of children’s faces and thought about Kelly Hamby. He and Ellie are the ones who taught me how to teach the Bible to large groups of children when we worked with them for two years in Hillcrest’s Bible Hour. The curriculum that we use for the children’s program is based on the format that they taught me years ago. I thought, “This is part of Kelly’s legacy in Zambia, and it will live on.”

Today (Sunday) we took a different group of students with us as we traveled north to Siamakuli, a brand-new congregation that started as a result of the medical mission. One student translated for me in the children’s class while others led singing and presided at the communion service. There were two men who wanted to be baptized, so after the worship time was over, David loaded them and others from the congregation into the Land Rover for a three-mile drive to the nearest water hole. Later David reported what happened on the trip. There were six little boys already swimming in the water hole. When they heard the vehicle coming, they jumped out of the water and ran away as fast as they could. Some had been skinnydipping, so they just grabbed their clothes and took off to hide behind a giant anthill until the baptisms were over. David and the Zambians had a great laugh at this!