{"id":477,"date":"2011-07-11T22:35:03","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T02:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?p=477"},"modified":"2011-07-11T22:40:31","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T02:40:31","slug":"virginias-first-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?p=477","title":{"rendered":"Virginia&#8217;s First Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello Everyone,<br \/>\nI have been here now for 3 weeks. I love it here, the  people are so kind and there&#8217;s so much to do. This week has especially  been a fun one! We started of the week by on Monday we went to the Ndola Trade Fair. We woke up early Monday morning  and all piled in a 7 seater Nissan Patrol. Plus our neighbor  Annie(pronounced Onnie), Bonnie and Bennett. It was a cramped car ride.  We had a blast at the Fair. <!--more-->The Fair is like as my mom says,&#8221; A run down  carnival with a hundred thousand people!&#8221;\u00a0 We got to see African tribal  dances, eat cotton candy, and see a lot of neat handmade African  crafts.\u00a0 We spent our entire day there and around 4:00  we left. Probably the most fun part if the day was leaving! We were  driving through a one lane road with a bunch of cars and people coming  at us. Our windows were rolled down so all these people were sticking  their heads in the car giving us high fives. We also had all these blue  buses coming at us and there was one point when my dad had to hold down  his horn because on either side of us 2 blue buses were trying to get  in, and if you let 2 inches in front of you and the car the buses will  somehow make it in. There was one point where the car behind us bumped  into us because he was trying to not let the buses in. After\u00a0 around 30  minutes we made it through&#8230; all alive!<br \/>\nThe whole crew!<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday afternoon we got to visit the Sara Rose Orphanage, which is  ALWAYS fun to do. They are such sweet and adorable kids! They&#8217;re always  ready to play, so energetic. When we got there they were all waking up  from their nap so I read to them a story. Next we took them outside and  played Simon Says and Red Light Green Light, their favorites. Soon after  Ella and I headed over to the babies. We got in their little play pen  and played with 5 of the babies for about an hour. It was very fun  playing with them and I think they enjoyed it because when we left they  all started screaming! haha!<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday was a very fun day!  We were ALL dying for it to come because we were finally able to go to  Chisakone D Market! We had to have 2 nationals come with us. So Simon,  the Trust Schools very first employee, and Martha, another CCM employee  came with us, Bonnie joined too. We got there and it reminded us of an  Indiana Jones movie, with little stands and people everywhere! It  definitely wasn&#8217;t nice. There was sewer running through the street and  we would have to step on wood to cross over the water. There were little  sections of the market, one section was food. There were a lot of  stands with fish. There would be stands of little fish and big fish and  this type of fish and that type, it was nasty. Then there would be  stands of all different types of beans, caterpillars, and fruits and  veggies, even live chickens. Then there would be sections of  fabrics\/outfits with a ton of stuff. There was also jewelry,  decorations, every thing you could imagine &#8230;even hair you can buy to  braid in you hair and have long extensions (which Lydia, Mary-Frances,  and I will do!) The market was a very fun experience with everyone  coming towards us saying &#8220;Madame madame come to my stand!&#8221; It was very  funny cause we were the &#8220;White Americans&#8221; coming through and even though  people would be yelling back in forth about us in Bimba we could catch a  little like Mazunga&#8217;s (which means whites) from America! It was very  funny. A ton of people would just come to you and be like &#8220;Madame, how  are you? Where you from? America? What&#8217;s you name?&#8221; It was fun. There  was also a lot of bartering for example a man was trying to sell me a  purse for K50,000 kwatcha and Bonnie thankfully brought it down for me  to K17,500! Can you believe it? I payed that much for a beautiful  handmade purse!!! I loved it and fortunately I had enough for it! JK for  every K5,000 Kwatcha you spend that is $1.oo U.S. dollar! So the purse  really cost me around $3.50!\u00a0 Don&#8217;t worry, I would never pay that much  for a purse! Pretty soon all the shops closed down so we had to leave  the market \ud83d\ude41 It was a VERY fun experience though and I loved it! I  loved all the excitement! and can&#8217;t wait to return.<\/p>\n<p>As for  our family, we are all doing well. Berkley had to go to the clinic  Monday night, but he&#8217;s fine. I have met some new friends here: Precious  and Edith are 11 and 12. Their family are Jehovah Witnesses&#8217;, so I am  hoping I will be able to share with them about Christ! I have also met  another friends Chi Chi and her and her family own the wonderful little  out door shed convenient store, where we got a lot for frita&#8217;s! Chi Chi  and her family are 7- day Adventers though so please pray that God will  allow me to share with her all about Jesus and what He did for her!\u00a0 So  far Africa has been good and I know that this is what God wants our  family to experience, and it&#8217;s only for 1 year. There are a lot of  opportunities for us to share Christ and love on people! I hope all of  you across the world in Georgia are doing well. I miss ya&#8217;ll SO SO much  and I can&#8217;t wait until I can see ya&#8217;ll again! Love ya&#8217;ll lots!<\/p>\n<p>love,<br \/>\n~Virginia<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-477 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?attachment_id=478'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/VirginasFirstPost01-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?attachment_id=479'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/VirginasFirstPost02-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?attachment_id=480'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/VirginasFirstPost03-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?attachment_id=481'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/VirginasFirstPost04-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello Everyone, I have been here now for 3 weeks. I love it here, the people are so kind and there&#8217;s so much to do. This week has especially been a fun one! We started of the week by on &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/?p=477\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running-the-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488,"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stearnsinafrica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}