Birthday Parties in Zambia

The Zimba family is quite amazing.  The father, two daughters and one son were baptized last year.  They are always so happy to have the missionaries come and they ALWAYS feed us.  So, this day was Sister Zimba and Dickson's birthdays and we decided to feed them.  I made banana cake and spaghetti (Sister Zimba's request) and we went out to their house for dinner.  They still fixed us food even when we told them we would bring it.  They braied (BBQ) chicken and made salad.  It was a fun evening.

 
We were giving a lesson on how our testimony is like a balloon, the more we put into it the more it will grow.  Then it sort of got out of hand and everyone blew up and tied their balloons and we had a balloon war.  Below is Sis. G. Sister Zimba, Dickson, Elder Komakech, Joseph Zimba, Elder Brewerton and Elder Maele

This is the whole Zimba family.  Front row:  Joseph and Dickson.  Back row:  Fides (our wonderful Primary Nursery teacher--the kids absolutely LOVE her), Brother Dick Zimba, Sister Zimba and Precious.  About half the family is active.  The others come sometimes.  

Here we all are.  It was a fun night and afterwards, Fides told me that her mother said she didn't think "those people" loved her so much!  It's fun to help them celebrate their birthdays here.  Many people don't even know when their birthday really is so they make one up like 10-10 or 5-5 and then the year.  It makes it easier for them to remember.  And then they don't really celebrate birthdays here much, so it's fun to make a day special for the birthday persons.

Pohamba is one of our Primary children who Alan baptized earlier in the year.  He is a little handicapped and is small for his age.  His mother is also handicapped so they don't make it to church often because they can't really walk that far and they often don't have money for transport.  We made him a cake for his birthday and took it out to them the day before his birthday as we had another appointment on the actual day.  So we lit the candles and he blew them out and then they saved the cake so they could invite his friends over on his actual birthday and have cake to share with them.  Like I say, they don't celebrate these days here much so this cake was the highlight of his birthday party.  We took him a soccer ball and he was delighted.  (So were the neighborhood kids who play with it as much as he does!)

Here are celebrating Bishop Chifunda's birthday with his family.  We took out Hungry Lion chicken and I made a banana cake.  He doesn't like chocolate and Africans don't eat nearly as many sweets as we do. So he requested the banana cake. He is such a wonderful man and has a gracious wife and wonderful family.  His son, Davis, is learning to play the piano and is doing very well.

Well, so much for the birthdays in September and October.  It's always fun to spend time with the members, especially when one can be honored on their birthday!