Carey Blog!

Hi all,

Well, yesterday. What a day!! Where do i start?? After getting up nice and early, meeting for breakfast at 7.30, the four of us "left" for Chililabombwe (trying saying that three times with a marshmallow in your mouth!!) at 9am. Now I put "left" in inverted commas, because I am not entirely sure the word has the same meaning here as it does back home! However i am assured by dad that we didn't actually leave late, we were simply "delayed", there's a difference!??

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we completed the drive (which we were assured would only take four hours! ) at midnight. Happy days! Although we were all a bit grumpy by the time we arrived, ok mostly me (i need my beauty sleep!) it was a great feeling to get here in the end, and sleeeeep! Amazingly we were still greeted by the minister and elder of the church when we got here - they refused to go to bed until we came! Zambians are very generous with their time.

Of course such a journey through central Africa would not be complete with out a few adventures along the way. About about, I suppose 8-9pm, probably about two-thirds of the way through our trip, I was hurtling down the road to Kitwe, nice and alert after downing a few red bulls we had found at the previous town :) . I would like to point out at this stage that i WAS NOT speeding, I was simply being efficient. Yes - there's a difference! Anyway the roads had been very good up until this stage, we were all very impressed with them! Unfortunately unknown to us, the road of this "short-cut" we decided to take, wasn't so fantastic (it looked good on the map!). So next thing I know there is a pot-hole large enough to swallow our entire car directly in front of us! Perhaps a 'small crater' was a more apt description of this thing, it was massive! And unfortunately it claimed one of our tyres (and the wheel!).

Ahh the "fun" of a real adventure! I suppose we can see lighter side today, wasn't a great feeling at the time though!

Thankfully after waiting about half-hour or so someone FINALLY stopped to help us, because for some reason the wrench in the boot didn't fit one of the nuts on the wheel! And an hour or so later we were back on the road!

Anyway, thanks to God we did get here in the end! Please pray for the team, especially the "Johns" as they become full-time evangelists for the next two days, preaching at the crusade that is to be run here. It promises to be the most full-on, draining, yet hopefully most rewarding few days of our trip!

Carey