Musonweji

Dear Aunt Alice,

On July 9, 2011, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Musonweji to see where you first served the Kaonde people. The whole of the story is really too much for any one letter, but I can’t let the adventure pass without any mention at all, so I’ll try to do it some justice. =)

We left at 7:30 am and made it to Musonweji around 2 pm. Part of the delay was the excruciatingly bumpy roads (think pot holes on the worst country road you’ve ever seen times about 100 – you can’t drive more than 5 mph in many places because the roads are so bad and you constantly have to swerve to miss huge divots in the road). The other part of the delay was the fact that we stopped to pick up the local chief (who I must tell you was wearing a red cowboy hat and a black leather jacket and it totally made me smile!) and we stopped at a local village to buy freshly picked oranges (the best I’ve ever tasted!) – 20 for less than $1!

Traveling in a car in that remote part of the bush, having the local chief, two white women and a local who was returning for the first time in months, we attracted a LOT of attention. Every where we went, people kneeled before the chief, greeted the returning son and gawked at the whites. It was probably the closest I’ll ever be to a celebrity experience except I was definitely NOT wearing the high fashion of a celebrity in my tennis shoes, long skirt and t-shirt with my pony tail and lack of make up!

When we got to Musonweji, the last standing building had been torn down (just this last planting season). I felt a huge sense of discouragement until I realized that, to get to the station, we had to drive past the local Evangelical Church. The legacy you and the other missionaries left there wasn’t the mission station – it was the church!! God answered your prayers and the work that He started is still in place.