Letters from Africa

This is one of what is going to be a series of letters (to no one in particular) describing the things done, the things learned, and the hopes hoped during my two-weeks work in Zambia with Poetice International.  More to come!



June 18th, 2012
Day 2

C'mon C'mon, a song by Switchfoot, has a line that reads "We will rise on the wings of the dawn, when everything's new."  Well, this morning spread itself wide, full and lean and looking skyward. Today we began our real work.

To begin we loaded up the can that wished it was a bus and trekked out to Fortress Vision's offices. There we toured, there we prayed, there we sang. There the dawn was crowned with blessing, and from there we took flight to our true destination: Choma Music Academy.

In the states, school is either competitive or boring. We spend our thousands going to college and yet we still groan at the prospect of going to class. Both are completely and utterly the opposite in Choma, Zambia. From the very beginning, we could see that these students, who have so little, were incredibly eager for knowledge. The simplest concepts, the tiniest grains of knowledge, every nugget of learning is invaluable to them. They took what we had to give them and ran like the wind, showing improvements at a mind-boggling pace. They don't have spectacular facilities or state-of-the-art equipment. They don't have professors with doctorates. What they have is heart, the kind that groans as the land groans for its final redemption. That, a short-term smattering of college students, and stalwart staff (and by stalwart I mean super-hero material). And yet, they blow us out of the water. Why don't we see this in places like America? The answer: Hope.

I have learned that every grain, every nugget, each last drop of knowledge is hope, hope for a future, hope for excellence, hope for something more than what life has given these students. They need not live with the weight of a shafted existence crushing them in the mud. Music is beauty, and not one that has to be carted in by smiley Westerners. They have it in themselves. God has gifted them in ways that no tragedy can erase. For us, it is miraculous and awe-inspiring. We are not teachers here to instruct through imposition and domination. We are well-diggers. Where life has battered many, tainting the surface waters, we are digging shafts down deep, past the disease, past the deaths, past the oppression and into a deep aquifer of clean water. There our students can draw cool drink, life in the knowledge that they are more than orphans, or refugees, or infected persons; they are children of God, more precious than anything we might hope to gain in this world.

Only one day as passed. We have barely begun, and there is far more waiting to be revealed. We rest now, eager to take up our shovels and buckets as we rise with the flight of the waking light.

For more information about Poetice International, its ministry in Zambia, and updates on this trip be sure to check www.poetice.com and follow @livepoetice on twitter.