Meeting Petauke

Wednesday, July 18^th we were picked up by a brother and brought to Petauke, Zambia.  We drove through the hills and hut filled, baboon infested forest until we finally arrived at our final destination for the next few months.  We were taken to our new home and greeted by many from the congregation.  They had been waiting all day for us to arrive!! They were very excited for us to finally be in their village.  The brothers we originally emailed and have been communicating with since March were thrilled that the hard work they put into trying to get us to their congregation finally materialized. 

The brothers showed us around our new house which was a little more primitive than expected, but of course they have been taking great care of us.  For the first night the brothers put us up in a local home and made sure we were bathed and fed. The house we will be staying in has water and electricity as requested.  I posted a few pictures to give an idea of what it looks like.  We have two papaya trees and two mango trees in our yard! The weather is wonderful, sunny every day without doubt.      ( Our beautiful outhouse >>)

On Friday evening at 5:30pm we enjoyed our first meeting with the local Petauke Central English congregation. The Kingdom hall is a large brick building with wooden swing open windows.  The lighting is fairly poor consisting of just a few light bulbs lining the center ceiling. The sound was in and out with the sound system failing a few times thru out the meeting. But thankfully we had several who were more than willing to lead the songs for us!  There were 100 people in attendance at the meeting that night. 

There are over 73 languages in Zambia, but we have been learning one of the more common local languages- Chichewa.  There are three additional Chichewa congregations meeting at the same Kingdom Hall as us.  The Chichewa congregations have been given specific territories, but the English hall has been given the freedom of the entire city as their territory.  We were excited to hear that for the 4 congregations meeting at that kingdom hall there were 1,200 in attendance at this year’s memorial.
Today, Sunday we attended the meeting and surprisingly there were 222 in attendance.  A record for the congregation!!  We were smashed in there like sardines on the wooden benches but it was the most amazing experience watching so many come from the territory.  Pictures to follow...