life by julia

Many of you may remember Munwato's story from my blogs while I was in Zambia. She was five, HIV+, and had lost both of her parents to AIDS. Her grandmother had been caring for her until she was hit by a car and killed while she was carrying Munwato on her back. If you had met Munwato, you never would have known that she was fighting a deadly disease or that she had been left by all those who cared for her. She was so happy and full of life. The first time I met her, she came running to me and jumped in my arms as if she had known me her whole life. Whenever I was in Muzoka, she was glued to my side. On November 24th, 2008, Munwato went to be with Jesus. "Zambia...has one of the world’s most devastating HIV and AIDS epidemics. More than one in every seven adults in Zambia is living with HIV and life expectancy at birth has fallen to just 42 years. This has compounded Zambia’s existing economic problems. In four decades of independence, Zambia has found peace but not pr...

do you miss anything about Zambia? this is a question i have been asked quite a bit over the last month. i had been emphatically answering, ‘no’, but when asked this question yesterday, it suddenly occurred to me, ‘yes, i do’. i miss the simplicity of life. existing in a place where time does not control life. i miss a culture that values people more than things. a society where it is considered rude to not greet a person, and where interaction with someone is considered a privilege. i miss a people that treasure the simple things in life, that dance when it rains, and smile at everyone. people who, when faced with difficulty, just keep moving forward. if the roof comes off in a storm, just pick it up and nail it back down… it’s simple. i watched a woman walk across a fast-moving stream, balancing herself on rocks, with a 50 pound bag of cornmeal on her head and a baby on her back, because that was the only way to get to her destination. i miss people who walk miles in both d...

through a conversation i had with a friend last week, i began to ponder the value our society places on certain things. this is definitely something that came up in my mind a lot when i was living in Zambia. it was the topic of education that stirred these thoughts most recently. i have many friends, who homeschool their children. they have all expressed to me at different times their feelings of insecurity when it comes to giving their children everything they 'should' be getting in their education. after talking to my friend about this last week, it hit me that we as followers of Christ need to be confident in not placing value where the world does. the world of education says, 'these are the facts that a child should know by a certain age'. the reality in our world as Christians is that none of this matters if the child does not have a strong foundation in Christ. of course, we want them to be successful and competitive in the world market, but for young chil...

sorry that i have kind of dropped off the radar for the past month, but i needed that time to readjust and be with my family. i arrived in Chicago on April 9th and headed back to Racine for five days, which felt like a complete fog. i'm not sure that i remember very much about those days. between jetlag and culture shock, i was pretty out of it. including when i packed my bags to come to St. Louis for three weeks. i have NO idea what i was thinking when i packed other than the fact that i was exhausted and couldn't be bothered. consequently, i did a lot of shopping in my first week here, which was fine with the women in my family who got to participate! these are the women in my family. my sister, me, sister-in-law's mom, sister(in-law), her aunt Helen, my mom, and sister-in-law's grandma. i have been browsing through pictures from the past year of events that i missed with the family. here is a glimpse into my crazy family: now you can see why i missed them so ...