Church and Chickens

Wow. Sometimes so much happens in a day that I want to blog, but when I sit at the computer I find a hard time putting into words all that has happened. If you have been to or lived in Zambia, then you know what I mean. All the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences are sometimes just hard to even put words to.

We worshipped this morning at Mujika Baptist Church, about 1 ½ hours away from our house. This church is not technically in our “area” as missionaries, but we worked with them when we lived here from 2003-2005 and hadn’t been back to visit yet. It was great to see them and though there were few in attendance, they were thrilled to see us.

I’d love to completely and fully describe a bush worship service to you, but it’s so hard. Pastor Robert asked us when we got there if we would take over the service, so I led the Bible study and Blu preached. In Zambia, you have to ALWAYS be ready to preach or lead a devotion! We sang many songs from the Tonga hymnbook. I found it ironic because we spent the 1 ½ hour drive to church singing our favorite hymns from our childhood, and we sang the same songs in Tonga with these believers. I was reminded this morning that the worship styles are so different, but our God is so much the same.

After church, we headed to Jenipher’s house. Her and her husband, Fine, have TEN children!!! From age 4ish to age 28ish! We spent a week with Jenipher and her family when we first moved to Zambia to get to experience a week in the village, so it was nice to go back where bush life began for us!! We have learned a lot since then, but still have so much to learn!! Even though we were unexpected guests, they invited us into their home and fed us lunch. Our kids did great and ate most of the food. We ate beans and samp, my FAVORITE Zambian dish that is similar to hominy. I couldn’t help but wonder as we ate who was going to get less food so that we could eat. As we ate and I looked at the house around me, I noticed advertisement pages from magazines hung on the wall. Coffee advetisements, school supplies advertisements, etc. Just pages hung randomly on a wall because of their bright colors.

As we left, Jenipher gave us a big sack of peanuts as a gift, and then Fine went over and got a chicken, tied its legs, and told us to take it home to feed our children. Oh wow. What could we do with this chicken?! We couldn’t take it to Mapanza, because we are going to Lusaka tomorrow. We couldn’t just give it away after this family gave us this gift that would put food on their table!! So what could we do besides kill it and eat it!!

We got the water boiling, got the kids all excited about killing and eating a chicken, and then I got my biggest, sharpest knife. I had done this a couple of times before, so I was feeling like a pro.

It had been five years, however and I forgot that the body of the chicken moves after you cut its head off. So I was busy looking at the head of the chicken wiggling when I took my foot off the body of the chicken. That chicken body FLEW up off the ground right at me!!! Blood was flung all over me and I started screaming!! I ran over Baby Cason (sorry Case!) and he started screaming too.

Caedmon then went absolutely crazy crying seeing that chicken body flopping all over the yard. Cambree just stood there open-mouthed, I was laughing SO hard, and Blu was snapping picures!!

This will definitely be a day my kids don’t forget for awhile! We then plucked the chicken (we kill chickens in our underwear in our family…)

cut him up,

and he is currently being boiled to serve as a lunch on the road tomorrow along with some fresh coleslaw. What a day…