Beth on a Mission: End of Term 3 2019

Trying to feel festive

End of term 3 also known as the end of the school year. I have now been in Zambia for more than 3 months and I completely believe that I am where I am meant to be. I love teaching, even though it’s sometimes rather challenging and I always find something to complain about (I’m working on trying to be more positive and not only focusing on the negatives). Coming up now we have the end of year holidays (equivalent to the 6 week break in August in the UK) but it’s over Christmas which is really strange for me. Also it is super hot right now so it doesn’t really feel Christmassy. We have now got a little Christmas tree with lights courtesy of our neighbours who are leaving to go back to England before Christmas (leaving leaving, not just for a few weeks).

Little leaving party for the Kirk boys

Grade 12 Leavers Party

Recently we’ve had the graduation of the grade 12 students and the 6^th form students. There was a celebration in the dorm before they left and then we had a graduation ceremony for them, which Michelle, Melanie and I sang at with the worship team. On the 1^st of December we held a carols by candle light service here at Amano, again we sang with the worship group but this time we had a piece of our own that we sang just the three of us; “his name shall be” by Matt Redman. I was so nervous, Sam who was sat behind said that he could see my legs shaking, I don’t think it helped that we messed up on the first chorus. We also had the Christmas Nativity beautifully performed for us buy the primary students on the 6^th which was the last day of school. It was so cute. 😍

Primary Nativity

Cholwe, Me and Sam

On the 15^th of December Diana, Pia, Melanie, Michelle, Julia, the Wittmann’s and I will be traveling to Kenya for Christmas which I am so looking forwards to. It will be Diana’s first time flying which will be great to experience with her. Trying to think of all the things I need to take is giving me a headache! 😂 We will be staying in a little house next to a beach called Msambweni Beach. We will hopefully go on safari and go to Mombasa and Diani Beach and other things. Having Christmas on a beach is going to be so strange! We now have Christmas hats though so we can take a photo of all of us in our hats on a beach on Christmas day. Christmas day has been a big point of discussion as of late. When is Christmas Day? In Germany they celebrate on the evening of the 24^th but in England and Zambia we celebrate Christmas day on the 25^th. So I think the plan is to have German Christmas on the 24^th and English/Zambian Christmas on the 25^th. Two Christmas’ 😍!

Comparison from when we arrived.
What a little bit of rain can do

Life here definitely has some of its challenges, some of which I can do nothing about and others are part of living away from home for the first time. Shopping is a challenge, remembering what I need to buy and not just buy chocolate and also think of new meals to cook and buy the things for that meal. Here at the moment we mostly cook vegetarian at home because the school meals are sooooo meat heavy, the only problem with this is that all the meals I knew how to cook at home contained meat so they’re not very helpful here, I’ve had to get creative (my specialty is a vegetable/tomato sauce with pasta and cheese 😁). Power is another challenge, during term time we have the generator through most of the day if Zesco (electricity provider of Zambia) is out but now it’s the holidays we have 2 hours over lunch and 2 hours over supper time to allow us to cook something. Thankfully power at the moment is out mostly in the evening and overnight. Another thing that has been a challenge since I arrived is learning to live with new people. We have had loads of really good times together but we have also had our not so good moments, generally through lack of communication or sometimes even too much communication (it’s all very confusing). Over all we are doing much better now I think than we were some time ago.

Next term is going to look very different for all of us here. Classes are going to be doubled in primary which could change how my timetable looks completely. I’ll still have swimming lessons for another term but that’s about as much as I know. Please be praying for the provision of new teachers who fit into the mission here at Amano.

Photo time 🤩📸