Trip to Zambia - hopes and fears

In June this year ten of us from St Nicolas Earley will go on a trip to Zambia, spending 10 days in Mapalo, a community in Ndola in the Copperbelt Region.  We will be the guests of the Jubilee Centre visiting schools, projects, churches and spending time in and around the community.

Last night we got together as a group for the first time to talk about the trip, our hopes and fears and what we need to do to get ready for this life changing experience.  The evening has increased my excitement ten fold, the trip really is going to happen and we are going to have the honour of meeting these people we've heard so much about and seen photos of.

I will obviously be blogging every step of the preparation and loads of details about the trip itself; hopefully whilst there but if that's not possible, definitely after we get home.  For now I'll provide the main subject of our discussions last night....

What are my hopes and fears?
My hope is that I will be able to spend time in the schools, getting to know the children and teachers; spend time with families and experience their lives; visit the HIV/Aids project and enjoy sunday worship at church (hopefully also joining in with sunday school).  But let's be clear, I'm happy just to be going and am ready to see what I see, experience what I do and be led by God where He wants me to be.

And my fears; well the main one is the temperature, but I feel stupid to now share that June is winter and so there won't be any heat to worry about.  Honestly Emma, don't you know how to use the internet??  Other than that it's the age old fear of being useless; but that's about not raising expectations.

For more about the jubilee centre I've written this and there's also my sermon from when the last group went.