There was a special connection between us this year. I could read it through their smiles and their hugs. I could sense that there was a deeper trust between us. It didn’t feel like I was just some fun American leader that was here today and gone tomorrow, but this year I was their friend. I could sense that they were thinking, “Brett really means it when he says he loves us. He came to Zambia again. And he’s going to come every year to see us, Lord willing.” I could sense it and I loved it. That was my goal from the start.
It was another great week with the boys that started off the same way as last year with them tackling me, picking me up, and carrying me around camp! I have a feeling this will become a ritual for them. http://vimeo.com/14160091
The theme this year was “The Joy of the Lord is my Strength” from Nehemiah 8:10. Check out how loud and proud these kids are! http://vimeo.com/14224947 We emphasized that even under hard circumstances we can look to the Lord for our joy. We used the acronym JOY to communicate focusing on Jesus first, Others Second, and You third. Jesus. Others. You. We said that Your source of JOY to serve Others comes from Jesus. http://vimeo.com/
My most vivid memory with my boys started during the daytime at camp the night before. The Americans were visiting a Community Resource Center to see it in action in one of the compounds. My eye (and heart) was immediately drawn to an adorable little 6-year-old boy named Richard. He was a mess (see pic). He had snot crusted to his upper lip, his clothes were tattered, and his feet were cracked and caked with dirt. My sister and I took turns holding him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a spicket, so my sister and I began to clean him up. As I was washing his legs and feet, a Zambia walked by and said, “Have you read John 13?” I said, “Well, yeah”. He said, “You are washing feet, like Jesus.”
The next morning my sister woke up with the idea to wash her kids’ feet at Camp. The idea spread among our villa and we all got washcloths, soap, and towels ready. I did a lesson on John 13 with my boys and asked them what they would do if they were the most powerful person in the world. I then told them Jesus knew He was the most powerful person in the world and He used His power to wash feet. John 13:3-5 says
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power…so…He began to wash His disciples' feet.”
It wasn’t like it was some mountain-shaking experience, but there is definitely something spiritual – and humbling – about setting someone above you, kneeling down to the ground with a towel around your waste and washing someone’s dirty, cracked, stinky feet. It’s humbling for both parties and is a ritual that Jesus meant to be passed on, so I told them…
“Now that I, your teacher, have washed you feet, you should also wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you… Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
Here’s a video of the foot washing. http://vimeo.com/
The other “big talk” I had with the boys was about the spread of HIV and sex. These things just aren’t talked about between parents/caretakers and their kids. And if no one talks to them, society will. And society in Zambia is sexually active at a younger age than in America. The living quarters are so small, the kids see adults having sex and want to try it with their friends. If the kid has contracted AIDS congenitally through birth the HIV/AIDS virus spreads even through 9, 10 and 11 year olds! Whenever I talk about sex with kids I cover these main points:
- God invented sex and He created it to be a good thing, but it is only a good thing within His boundaries of marriage.
- Sex is not just a physical act. The word love in the Hebrew language, that includes the act of sex actually means, “the mingling of souls”. Souls intertwine when two people come together and have sex. It is not just two bodies banging together.
- In the Bible, marriage is our best representation of our relationship with God. In the same way we don’t mingle our souls with multiple gods, we shouldn’t mingle our souls with multiple girls.
- The benefit of being sexually pure is we will be able to see God more clearly. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” The opposite of that is if you’re not pure in heart, you will not be able to see God.
- Abstaining from intercourse isn’t the only way we stay pure. 1 Timothy 5:2 says, “Treat younger women (all unmarried women) as sisters, with absolute purity. If you wouldn’t do something with your sister, you shouldn’t do it with an unmarried girl. (This one usually sticks pretty well!)
Of the 12 Disciples, I only got to have 9 of them in my group this year and 5 more new kids were added to make 14. Of the 3 that weren’t in my group, 2 had come to Camp in earlier weeks (1 of those I got to see in his community) and the 3rd, Chanda, is now living in the Tree of Life Children’s Village so he came to Camp while I was there but was in a group of Tree of Life kids. More on Chanda later in the Sponsorship post.
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