Goat Tastes Like Beef

It's been an interesting and eventful week at Kalene. Last Saturday, some of the girls from Sakeji School came for the weekend to have a break from the chaos of teaching children...we didn't give them much of a break!
We spent the afternoon climbing Kalene Hill, a fairly steep climb that ends with a stunning view!  The descent was only slightly hazardous...we each spent the time trying to stay up right as the patches of slick mud seemed to come out of no where. Thankfully, no one go hurt, but we all got dirty!
Saturday evening was spent playing "Articulate", one of my favourite board games involving teams and guessing words...not unlike Taboo or catch phrase. Because of this game, I now know where Munich is...we might have one the game had I known this during the game!
I wrote about Tuesdays events already, Internation Women's Day...because of the enthusiasm, some of the young women at the mission have begun a Bible Study of Women of Faith. We had our first session on Thursday night in our home. I've mentioned Mamisa and Maria before. Mamisa, 19,  is still in High School and Maria, 20, has just graduated.  They both have huge hearts for God. It was really encouraging to have them at the study, along with Emma and Rachel Reed, midwives and Dr. Chris, Becs and myself. The time of prayer following the study was awesome. It's amazing how quickly random people sitting in a room can become close friends just for simply taking time to pray for each other! Please pray that others whom we've invited will come this week.
Yesterday was yet another stat. holiday. We celebrated International Youth Day at Musangala Community School. Nearly 200 children were in attendance and 50 adults for a day of sports and gospel outreach.  Although, I managed to get a pretty decent sunburn, every moment of blistering heat was worth it. We had spent the previous day baking cupcakes for the children's snack. This was the first time any of them had seen one! Ruth, the leader, had to demonstrate how to remove the cupcake's paper and eat one to prove that them were edible!
What an amazing feeling to be able to introduce new things and ideas to children and adults! At the end of the day, James was able to take time to share the gospel through the story of the Good Samaritan. Each of the audience members really took James rendition to heart. The Harvesters, a group of Zambian young people striving to share the gospel through sports, lead by James and Ruth, acted out the story as James spoke.
The day ended with The Harvesters singing selection of farewell songs for James and Ruth, as they are returning to the UK, having working with the Harvesters and the founders of Musangala School for the last 2 years. It was lovely to see and hear how much they will be missed, but that their work here will continue as the Harvester Group is now prepared to stand on their own, sharing the gospel with communities near and far away. (They don't have vehicles, and very few have bicycles, so some of the young men walk up to 17 km to meet the group for Saturday outreach!)

The commitment of these young people puts me to shame!

Maria and Mamisa resting after the steep climb up Kalene Hill. Emma and Chris taking in the view.

Rachel (Canada) and Rachel (Scotland)

Women marching in celebration of women's day

James and the Harvester's sharing the gospel at Youth Day

Children at Youth Day, eagerly awaiting their lunch of rice with sugar, nshima with goat and cupcakes! You should've heard them sing!

The Blood Lab at Kalene...We have a patient in Female Ward who presented with a Hemoglobbin of 2.8...or roughly 30 in Canadian :). Since the norm is between 11-16 or 120-160, this was an obvious cause for concern. Also, our blood bank is currently void of O +. We screened the two family members with her, only one was x-match compatible. We transfused his unit of blood, but her Hb only increased to 4.4. We wanted to give her another transfusion, but without blood, it wasn't possible. I volunteered my blood as I'm O+. In the end, I only was able to give 1/2 a unit as my veins colapsed, but she made it through to the next day when her brother came to donate blood. Thankfully she is looking much better now, but as we don't know who she is so anemic, she likely will continue to have these issues.  

Well, that's all for now...