Hi everyone.  I don't know if our friends and family even check this anymore.  I'm sorry we haven't kept up with it since returning over a year ago.  However I've realized that other potential Peace Corps Volunteers have come across our blog and I wanted to put a post up for them.

If you are planning on joining the Peace Corps, going to Zambia, or just looking into the whole overseas thing, you are more than welcome to contact us via e-mail (hkcastle@hotmail.com or stephencastle@hotmail.com).  We'd be happy to help you in any way.  

Well that's all.  If any of our friends/family are still checking this site and would like for me to put up some Zambia pictures then shoot me an e-mail and I'll actually do it this time.  :)Thanks!

We’ve come to the end. We left our village for good on Tuesday and in a little over a week we will be leaving Zambia. It feels strange, sad, surreal, exciting… The weirdest part was that moment when everything’s packed up, you’ve taken the last picture, and now all that’s left is to say goodbye and get in the truck. And although you feel like you should say something profound, encouraging, or even reassuring…all that you can say is “bye”. But that’s okay because you’ve already said everything else and leaving really does feel right.

We had a wonderful last 50 days in the village. 50 days straight in the village and we didn’t go insane…which is rare. But the whole time was very blessed and we felt really content. Our church threw a Farewell party for us on Sunday, Feb. 24 and it was a “good bye-bye”. They really went all out and made it a huge event, especially for the village. They organized and funded it all on their own, which when you live here you know it means a lot. There were around 300 people that attended and they made enough food for everyone. They bought 30 kg of rice (buying rice is a huge deal), made two giant tubs of beans, killed 8 chickens (which we claim as our final revenge on the stupid birds), and even made cake. They worked all the previous day and night just preparing all the food. Not only did they make a ton of food, but they decked out the church in white sheets, colorful wraps, lacey doilies, and even hung up a banner that read “May God Bless U the Castles”. He certainly has.

The day itself was a mixture of overwhelming blessing, odd speeches, hilarious moments, dancing, singing, and just all-around good fun. We soon found out that Farewell parties are run pretty much like weddings. First of all, the week before the event the “matron” taught us various dance steps so that we could dance to the front of the church which is where we were stationed for the event. Then they also had a young girl in a horrible wig dance up a knife (yes quite dangerous indeed) so that we could cut the cake and feed it to each other. They even made us matching outfits and had me carry flowers down the aisle. All of this was quite strange but very fun.

However by far the best part of the day was when Stephen did a song and dance number with our Zambian father. He brought the house down!! People were laughing and cheering like crazy. Then we all started singing and dancing together in the middle of the church. It was great!! It got even better for Stephen (and me who was watching) when our friend MR Konongela decided to give him a big bear hug and keep dancing at the same time. Let’s just say it was a very awkward cultural moment…and we got it all on video tape. J

They also gave some people an opportunity to speak a bit about us and also a chance for us to say a few things. The most touching moment though was when one of our friends gave a little message to the congregation. He talked about Jesus Christ being the foundation of your life and how everything you do springs from His Spirit within you. Good works are nice but are meaningless if they don’t come from the Holy Spirit in you. He then tied us in as examples of seeing Christ reflected in people. Then he talked, not about the physical things we had done, but about the people we were and the way we had loved the community. At the end he had us stand as the congregation sang “God will take care of you” to us. We felt so blessed and were moved to tears as we realized the Grace, Providence, and Goodness of God. I don’t really know how to explain what we felt….we were just overwhelmed by His love and in awe of the way He uses His children to bring Glory to His Name. It reminded me of Gal. 5:6 which says the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love. We really felt as though the things we prayed and asked God to do through us had been accomplished and it was very humbling.

So after two years in Zambia we are positive that God brought us here and it was His will that we live in Kang’ombe. We have seen new aspects of God and learned so much more about His character. He has led us, taught us, and challenged us. He has given us wonderful friendships and shown us the church as His Body. We will always cherish our two years here and remember it as an instrumental time in our lives. Because of Zambia we have learned so many valuable lessons.

Like…

We really should be quick to listen and slow to speak

In our own strength we can do nothing

We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously

35 people really can fit into a 18 passenger vehicle

You’re never too young or old to poop your pants.

The ways God wants to use you may be different from what you’ve expected

Man looks at the outside and un-eternal but God cares about the heart.

We can’t change people, we can only do what we’re called to do. The real change

comes from God.

True poverty isn’t necessarily a reflection of the amount of money one has.

There is a big difference between luxuries and true needs.

Chickens and goats can be better bus companions than the smelly drunk guy.

It’s hard to believe we’re flying out in just over 1 week. We really do appreciate all of your support and prayers these past two years. We believe they’ve been answered. Don’t remember if we wrote this last time but we arrive in Detroit the evening of April 3rd. Our home base will be Stephen’s parents house so feel free to call there and we can set up to get together. The number there is 810-648-4844.

See you soon!

Heather and Steve

P.S. We will try to put photos on here once we get back to the states so if you're interested check them out.

February is finally here meaning that we have only month left in th village. The time is really flying by. Our neighbors have been really sweet to us lately as they've realized how little time we have together. People have been inviting us to eat with them and even trying to give us gifts. A few weeks ago one of our closest friends, an older man who has been like our father here, came over to chat with us. When we told him how much time we had left he seemed quite distraught. He said, " when you go I can cry too much because I love you and you love me." Then he perked up and said that he wanted to give us a gift to take to our parents in America. He said, " I will give you a chicken to take back with you." We unfortunately had to inform him that you can not take live chickens on an airplane. Undaunted however and figuring that an airplane is just a Zambian minibus with wings, he informed us that we could "just put the chicken under the seat." Guess we never thought of that...who knows, maybe he is right. We'll check the regulations for North West Airlines. :)

We've really been enjoying these last few weeks just relaxing in the village. We've been making the most of our laid back schedule; finishing all the books we've wanted to read, getting up when we feel like it, not doing anything we don't have to, and just taking it easy. We realize that we probably won't have an opportunity to live like this again. It'll definately be a shocker getting back into the work schedule in America. But for now we've just been living life, reflecting on all our experiences and lessons learned here while also looking ahead to our next chapter in life.

For those of you who have written us snail mail, we just want to remind you that this week should be the last to send us anything. After this week there's a good chance we will be gone before the letters arrive.

Please keep us in your prayers these last few weeks as we wrap things up. Also if you could be praying for the job situation as we head back to the States, we'd appreciate it. Thanks!

The Castles

P.S. Beth Faber, thanks a lot for the information you put on the blog. We will definately follow up on it. If you get a chance could you drop an e-mail to me at stephencastle@hotmail.com or leave me your e-mail address here on the blog. Thanks!

We hope that your holiday season was wonderful! Heather and I had our Christmas and New Year in our village and it was actually a lot of fun. We ate with some families that we are very close to and went to a church service (however we opted out of the 8pm- midnight Christmas Eve service). We made cakes and cookies and even bought a goat for the festivities. I think I was a little late in hunting for a goat (as it was Christmas Eve) so after a lengthy search traipsing through the bush and asking at numerous villages, finally we found our Christmas beast. He was a mangy little guy that may have had a slight case of emphysema. We figured though that as long as we didn’t eat the lungs we’d be okay.

Now we are heading into Lusaka for our last Peace Corps meeting. This will be a fun week with the entire group that came to Zambia with us in January of 2006. We will even get spoiled a bit for this one; nice accommodation, safaris, horse back riding, and a “cheese cave”!! Going to this close of service conference definitely brings to home how little time we have left. And although we are mentally starting to check out and begin to think about life’s next chapter, we have seen that we must fully engage here until the end. We’ve come to a point where the relationships we’ve worked to establish over the past two years can be utilized to bring about change. It’s funny how when you’re first here, you’re so motivated to bring reform and improvement but that’s when you have no credibility with the people. Yet by the time the credibility is there the motivation has definitely slackened.

There are two issues we have in mind regarding the above mentioned. The one being very encouraging and the other being extremely disheartening, yet a bit hopeful.

The first is regarding the mango jam project. Two out of three women from last year retained their vision and enthusiasm and have been doing great. Now they’re seeing the fruits of their easy labor. If the women keep up the same work ethic, it’s very possible that within the two months of mango season they can make around 400,000 kwatcha. To put that into perspective, this is a little over $100.00 coming in only two months for people that don’t make much more on average than a dollar a day (not that living on a dollar a day here is at all comparable to trying to do the same in America). So, at this point in our service this has been very encouraging. We hope to continue to encourage and refine their business skills so that next year they can do just as well or better in our absence.

The second issue involves a funeral we attended the day after our return from vacation. There is a common occurrence at Kaonde funerals where someone puts “magical medicine” inside the coffin so that when the pallbearers are walking to the cemetery, they will become possessed and find the person that used witchcraft to kill the deceased. So this is what we witnessed at this particular funeral. Fortunately however, one of our close friends who is a Christian and the first born son of the deceased, forced the men to stop. This is a very good thing because when the coffin finds the “witch” often the pallbearers, using the coffin, will either beat the person to death or severely injure them. It was truly sickening the way the people turned the funeral of their mother who is a Christian lady into a circus. We have never seen so much hatred and maliciousness before. The women especially were screaming and cheering for the coffin to continue. Even once the pallbearers were stopped, they were angry and yelled for it to continue in hopes that it would go and beat their 85 year old grandmother, who was the mother of the deceased. Yet despite all of this the most upsetting thing was that two of the pallbearers are leaders at our church and very close friends. There is so much we thought and felt after this situation but it would be too much to write it all. There was a bit of hopefulness that happened throughout this however. I decided to call the two church leaders who were participating over to our house. We had a long talk about the event and it turned out to be a great discussion. Both men were amazed and very thankful that I would actually rebuke them like the Bible says to. They said that never happens here and we see that you are a “true Christian”. The fact that they saw the error of their ways and seemed genuinely repentant was very encouraging.

So these are some of the new happenings here. And funny enough it actually portrays our past two years quite accurately. We’ve definitely experienced some of our life’s highest highs and lowest lows, sometimes both within the same day. We’ve been so thankful to have so many friends and family supporting us and helping us to keep things in perspective.

Lastly, one of our neighbors just had a baby girl and wanted us to give her a name. We decided there would be no better person to be named after than my mom, Kristy Castle. So now in Kangombe there is a little Kristy Jilowa Kamalondo.

We just got back from vacationing in Malawi. Lake Malawi is so beautiful and we had a wonderful time there just relaxing and… diving! We spent the first 4 days at a place called Kande Beach on a chalet right on the beach. The scenery was amazing even though the lodge itself wasn’t all that great.

The best part, however, was that we took a scuba diving course and are now officially certified as Open Water Divers. Diving was awesome, freaky, surreal, fun, and a great experience. It was like swimming in a huge aquarium and being able to breathe the whole time. There were a lot of little fish there and some were amazingly beautiful with bright blue stripes or gleaming white. Also there were a lot of rocks that you could dive around and through which was crazy! The technical end of diving was not as hard as I thought it would be and we soon caught on to all the little details. At first we definitely had some buoyancy issues (on our very first dive we immediately shot toward the surface when we started to swim) but we got much better after the 2nd dive. We also learned how to plan our own dives so now we can go diving together, which we definitely plan on doing. A funny thing about the week was that after the first day the fins started to hurt my feet so for the rest of the course I wore socks with my fins. I was quite the sight to see… a nasty tight wet suit, big goggles, and white socks with flippers. I got teased for that one a lot but I guess it was funny looking. Overall it was great and we are so glad we took the course.

After our course at Kande Beach, we went farther north to a place called Nkhata Bay. There we just checked into a cute little lodge for a couple days of R&R. The place was also extremely beautiful, more rocky and wooded but beautiful. Our lodge was by a place called Myoka Village and it had the best food ever!! On Friday night they had a BBQ and it was incredible! Needless to say, Stephen was very happy….giddy almost. J That restaurant was also the place where I saw possibly the cutest old man in the world (well, after Grandpa Castle of course). He sold chocolates in the corner of the room and he wore a colorful tie (a little bit short) and a huge purple garden lady’s hat. He’d come around 6:00 and set up his little table of chocolates then sit down and fall fast asleep. Sooo cute!! I got pictures. J

Well that was pretty much our vacation. It was really great to get away and see some new sights. However now we are tired of long bus rides and just ready to be back in the village. We look forward to having Christmas there with all our friends.

Hopefully this Saturday the women and I will make our first big batch of Mango Jam. We have everything ready to sell it and we want to get a batch out before Christmas. I’m really excited to see this project work. Also we will be able to check the progress on the Special Education boarding school. They were planning on doing some enrollment work while we were out and putting all in place to get the children started by January. We’ll see what was done and what else is left to do when we return. Please keep praying for that project. It’s really important to us that these kids are able to learn but it will take everyone doing their part. Also we think we will find a completed church building when we return which is awesome! When we left they were half-way through the roof and we will not be surprised if they have started meeting there. It really is so neat to see these things come to completion. It’s a bit bittersweet to realize how really our work here is finishing but we feel good about our time here.

Which leads me to the next subject of excitement….we have our tickets home!! We actually have possession of our tickets and it feels great! We are leaving Zambia on March 15th and going to Egypt with some friends for two weeks. Although I have been there before, I’ve never been there with my husband so I’m looking forward to it. Then we are going to visit cousins Joe and Kathy for a week in Manchester which will no doubt be a blast. After that it’s home! We fly into Detroit on April 3rd! Eeee!!! We are so excited to see everyone! We have really really been missing our family and friends lately. Once home, we are definitely going to want to see people whenever we can. We’ll have to keep in contact when the time gets closer so we can make plans.

Lastly, if you could be praying for us as we look into the future. We have a really good idea of what we want to do when we return and we need to keep placing our plans in God’s hands. We just want to be in the exact place He wants us and we are trusting Him to work out all the details. Also, we have a bit of anxiety when we think about actually returning to the States. The lifestyle at home is so different from what we’ve been living the past 2 years (we’ll actually have to wake up to an alarm clock again!) and it’s a bit daunting to think about. So just keep us in your prayers! We really appreciate all the support we receive from all our family and friends. We love you guys!!

Hi everyone!

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving full of turkey and stuffing. Like last year, we spent our Thanksgiving at the mission hospital and had a huge feast of chicken, potatos, rolls, pies, and all that good stuff. We had a really good time just eating and fellowshiping with our fellow Americans there.

And now we are preparing for Christmas! Actually over my b-day weekend (yes I am now 25) we had a decorating party with our friend from Peace Corps and my Zambian friend Doris. It was a lot of fun! It was especially fun to watch Doris decorate because she has never done that before. I kind of gave her free rein to use her creative side and it turned out to be quite amusing. She put a bow in a random spot on the wall, strung streamers up in the most uneven ways, and the best part was the hanging gingerbread men ornaments that she put on the wall still in the package!! In the end it was definately not Martha Stewart material, but it was funny! :) We got some good pictures too! So our little mud hut is all set up for the holidays and I am excited to have Christmas day with our villagers. We aren't exactly sure of our plans but I think we may be spending the day with our Zambian family and might possibly be killing a goat. maybe?? at least a chicken or two. :) Oh and I am definately going caroling even if nobody goes with me (but Doris said she would go).

But before all that we are going on vacation! We are actually in Lusaka right now on our way to Malawi and we are so excited!! We'll spend about 10 days there and while there we will get our scuba diving certifications. We can't wait! This is a much needed vacation and scuba diving will be awesome! It's also pretty cheap to stay there and the place we'll be at is right on the beach! It's going to be so nice to just relax and enjoy the new sights.

In project related news, we just had a big World AIDS Day event on Saturday, Dec. 1. It was a crazy, hectic, and awesome day! We planned a big sensitization event with prevention messages, a positive living speaker, a talent contest, and we even brought in a major Zambian entertainer (Runell) to do activities and a concert. The day went really well and a ton of people showed up. There was probably over 1,000 people there for most of the day. The only bummer was that we were unable to do any testing because of outside factors. But other than that the day was a sucess with only a few snags (like when the power went out for 30 minutes right before the concert) but all was overcome. At the end of the day we felt pretty happy but completely exhausted.

Finally we have found out that our official closing of service day is March 15th. Thus 102 is the number of days we have remaining in Zambia. Crazy!!! We can't believe how fast the time is going and has gone. Before we know it we will be on to a new chapter of our lives and this amazing one will be finished. We really want to just enjoy every last minute of Zambia and although we are looking forward to being home, we want to keep our eyes focused on what God still has for us here.

We love you all and miss you so much! Really we miss you a lot!! Thanks for all the prayers and please keep them coming, especially as we wrap up our time here.

Hi friends and family!! Hope all is well in the good ol' U.S. of A.

Just thought we'd give a little update on life here. Well the rainy season has officially begun. Yesterday it was a full day drizzle/rain and we were reminded of how muddy it gets here. But we are thankful for the cooler weather (over the unbearable heat) and the change of scenery. Also it is our last season in Zambia, which is cool and weird at the same time.

Lately we've been feeling really hopeful and excited about the special education project. Stephen has been working really hard at putting all the pieces together for a boarding unit. We've found that there are 29 other deaf children in the surrounding area who can't go to school. So we are in the process of renting a house in town to serve as a boarding facility until an actual building can be built. Stephen is working with the spec. edu. teachers, the Ministry of Education and an organization called the Liliane Fnd. to try and start the temporary boarding house and get children sponsored to attend. Please be praying about this project. The pieces are all there but now they have to be put together, which can sometimes be difficult. We'd really love to see this succeed though because these kids need to be in school. So just pray, pray, pray. :)

All of our other projects are going along quite well. The walls of the church building are completed and the roof will go up soon. My friend Edah has already told me that soon we will be dancing in our new church..."even you Mrs. Castle, you will dance." So I guess I'll be dancing at church. I can't wait! And we have tasted our first mango of the year! It actually wasn't completely ripe and it had fallen off the tree...but we ate it! That means the time is getting very close and the sounds of mango jam are in the air.

Last week we attended the first ever Farewell Party for the 7th graders at Kangombe Basic School (the little school in our village). It was quite the event with dancing, games, and even rolls and pop!! We didn't know it but we were the guests of honor and Stephen even gave an impromptu HIV/AIDS talk. There was one point too when these kids were dancing and they were awesome! They were doing all these great moves to rival Michael Jackson (sort of). I was seriously tempted to get up and bust a move with them but thankfully my little bit of maturity held me back. Anyway we got the kids on tape so we can show it to you all when we return.

Other than that we are just hanging out with friends and relaxing together. A group of guys have started to work out at our house. They even call Stephen "trainer" and it's been fun for him to teach them about all that stuff. Some of them we've never really hung out with before so it seems the fame of the weight room is spreading. Which by the way, it may be saved from the rains after all by a wonderful thing called plastic sheets.

Oh also, the HIV/AIDS awareness event we were planning may be at a standstill. Unfortunately the funds did not come in time for the orginally planned date and it had to be pushed back. However, we aren't quite sure when it's being pushed back to...maybe indefinately?? So at this point it's all up in the air but hopefully we'll be able to do something.

And for anyone wondering about our chicken eater cat Rambo...well he is doing all his usual cat things now (minus chicken eating) under the supervision of the missionaries. We even heard that he attacked a cobra and lived to tell the tale (well not really "tell" because he can't talk, but you know) :)

Well I think that's all for now. We really miss everyone and are really excited about seeing you all again. It's crazy to think that in like 5 months we'll be heading home and our time here will be over. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, both for the remaining time and projects here and for our future plans.

We Love you!!!!

Heather and Stephen

We have been officially defeated by the chickens. They have hit us hard this time. Here’s the story… so just last week something snapped inside our cute little kitty Rambo and he became a chicken eater. At first we didn’t think it was much of a problem and were a bit happy that we would have the upper hand on those stinking birds. But then Rambo just went mad about chickens. It was like he could not rest unless he had eaten a chicken. Seriously within 4 days he killed 3 chickens. Well there was definitely no way we could allow this to go on due to the amount of money and food this took away from the villagers. So we talked to our neighbour who also has a cat, and asked her if her cat ate chickens and if not then why. Her explanation to me was that Rambo was a bush cat and her advice was to take him back to where we got him. 0f course we were sceptical about this information. Rambo, a bush cat? Come on, this cat sleeps in our lap all day long, you don’t get more domestic than that. But then we looked in our African animals book and we found the “Wild African Cat” which is the size of the domestic cat and the picture looked identical to our cat. Go figure! Either way the fact was that he was eating chickens and we couldn’t make him stop, so we had to give Rambo away to some friends at the mission hospital (where there are no chickens).

Now we are in mourning because that cat was just such a cool cat. We fully blame the chickens for our loss and our hatred for them and love for chicken sandwiches has increased ten fold.

Aside from that little set back we have been doing pretty well. The church project is really coming along nicely. We really have been so impressed by the way the community is pulling together and working hard at building this church. They have groups of people working there every day of the week and the turn out is usually pretty good. Already they have the full foundation laid and have begun building the walls. We anticipate that at this rate the walls will be completed within the next month. We try to go and help whenever we can and we’ve really been enjoying the time working together. This week we ended up working with a bunch of the guys from Stephen’s English class and they insisted (of course just because we were there) that they would only speak in English for the whole day. It was funny to hear them chatting away in English and trying to use big words because they knew we were listening.

This month Stephen was also given the opportunity to speak to the youth about HIV/AIDS. He was given two weeks to talk about the basics like transmission and prevention. We’ve been encouraged to see that the youth group is continuing to meet and has pretty good attendance. 0ne week we went and although there were no leaders there, the youth had still gathered and began the service on their own.

Some other exciting news is that the Mangoes are coming! The little green nubs are starting to form on the trees and before you know it we’ll be making mango jam again. I’m really excited to help the women kick off the season and begin selling jam. I’m thinking of having a big mango party where we can make a huge batch together and hopefully get them remotivated about the project.

0ther than that life is just moving along at its usual African pace. Surprisingly enough we have been eating quite a bit of pork lately. Some guys in our village have been killing a lot of pigs these past few months and there’s no way we can resist fresh meat. So we have had a good amount of BBQ pork and hobo dinners which has been awesome!

The mornings here have been so beautiful lately and we can tell that the rainy season is on its way. We are excited for the change in weather however we are sad that the beginning of the rains means the end of the weight room. It’s kind of hard to keep a weight room from washing away when all the equipment is made out of dirt. 0h well, it was good while it lasted I guess.

0ne thing we have noticed as we are beginning to wrap up our time here is that there is not much left for us to do, which in a way is a good thing. Most of our projects are at the point where our involvement in them is very minimal. 0ther Zambians have started to take over the projects that we helped to initiate and we are no longer in the forefront. That, however, is the nature of this work and is the way it should be. Yet it makes it really difficult for us to know what our role will be for our last 6 months here. It seems rather counter intuitive to work yourself out of a job but if this wasn’t done then nothing could be sustained here. So please be praying for us as we still seek to make the most of the rest of our time here and to take hold of any opportunities that God brings to us. And if anyone feels like a visit to Zambia, we know of a couple here that knows the area pretty well and has a lot of free time on their hands. J Just let us know.

As most of you know, Stephen's brother David came to visit us for 3 weeks in June. We had a great time together! We spent the first week just hanging out in our village. We got to give David a taste of the "real" bush life, which included a lot of relaxing, walking around, reading books, guitar playing, and soccer. We spent one day at our friend's farm and had a few traditional meals. On his last night in the village we had a little "party" with the kids just dancing and singing together. Everyone was glad that David came to visit and we really enjoyed having him there with us.

After our time in the village, we travelled down to Livingstone for a little vacationing. The first day there we went white water rafting on the Zambezi River. The whole experience was quite...treacherous. Even getting down the gorge to the river was a dangerous endeavor. We had to climb down this rather steep hill on these "steps" made of pieces of wood nailed together. It was rickety and broken in many places and our legs were definately shaking by the time we got to the bottom. The rafting itself was a blast! Scary...but a blast! We were doing great through the first few rapids until we hit "The Mother" (which was really the name of the rapid) and that's when we lost it and flipped upside down. We were all okay and after a few minutes we were back in the raft, a little water-logged and exhausted. From then on it was...well not quite smooth sailing but we managed to hang on and enjoy the ride.

The next day we began our trip to Botswana to go on a two day safari in Chobe National Park. The safari was awesome! It started with a boat cruise where we saw many hippos, crocs, various birds (we thought of you Linds), and animals grazing on the shore. We set up camp inside of the park and then began our game drives. The drives were great! Chobe is so beautiful and is filled with animals. We saw so many types of antelope like impala, kudu, puku, and even a black sable. We also saw buffalo, warthogs, baboons, zebra, giraffe, and elephants. There were so many elephants and many would come right next to the truck! Then on the way back to camp we saw a small group of lionesses. What a great day! It was just so relaxing to ride around and enjoy God's creation.

Day two of the safari was filled with more beautiful sights and amazing animals. That day we also found a leopard kill which had been drug into a tree and when we went back we saw a leopard and two leopard cubs! so cool! That night we went to sleep to the sound of animals grazing in the woods around our campsite. Finally on the last morning as we were heading out of the park, we saw two male lions just relaxing in the grass. After watching them for a bit we went on and came across another group of lions eating a kudu carcass! It was a bit gross but really neat. All in all the experience was so wonderful! We saw beautiful animals, enjoyed amazing scenery, ate good food, and had a good time relaxing together.

We spent the day after the safari at the Victoria Falls which was also amazing. The Falls are one of the 7 natural wonders of the world and they are beautiful. The whole park around the Falls was great and we spent the whole day hiking around, looking at the Falls, shopping, and trying to fight off the monkeys. The place is crawling with baboons and David got a really close look at one when it came after his disposable camera. Luckily he got the camera back with only minor teeth marks.

Oh yeah, also while in Livingstone we went to a crocodile farm. They have a bunch of huge crocs, many which are in there because they had eaten humans. Our "guide" was very helpful in telling us all about the fierce crocodiles who are very aggressive. He also asked if we wanted to see them growl and then proceeded to enter the cage and poke the crocs with a stick! It was hilarious and so bizarre! It was definately a highlight of the trip, especially for the boys.

Overall we had a great vacation and were so glad that David got to experience our life in Zambia. We have a lot of good pictures and a ton of funny memories. Since then we've just been hanging out in the village. There wasn't a lot going on these past weeks however we do have a few new up and coming things. One is Spanish! We are now taking Spanish lessons with the Catholic priest in Kasempa. He's from Spain and so he's teaching us two times a week. We, especially Stephen, are very excited about this. Also we are going to start doing some work with the ARV program at the mission hospital. We spoke with the man in charge of that department and he'd like us to help with trainings, visitations in the villages, and sensitizations. This should be a really great area for us to work in and it sounds like they have a lot for us to do. In addition to that we are in the process of planning an HIV/AIDS awareness day in Kasempa along with some other Peace Corps volunteers. We are going to get a testing unit there, have some activities and sensitizations, and we're trying to get a major Zambian entertainer to come and give a concert. Please be praying that it all comes together and that it can really help in reducing stigma and promoting behavior change.

Well I've written a lot for this blog but I really want to say thank you to you all. Living overseas and doing development work can have it's ups and downs. We really appreciate your support and encouragment. It means a lot to know that we have friends and family who care about us and are praying for us. Thank you! We love you and are missing you!

Love

Stephen and Heather

Our brother is finally here! David arrived in Zambia last Thursday and what an adventure it was to get him from the airport! Let us tell you about it. So he was flying into the city of Ndola which is about a 4 hour drive from Solwezi and we decided to make the trip a bit nicer by renting a taxi for the drive. We had negotiated a driver and a price about 2 weeks prior to his arrival so we felt pretty confident that it would work out ok. However the evening before we were to leave we encountered some problems. The taxi driver changed his price on us (of course in his favor) and our reserve taxis flaked out on us. This left us with no transport to get David at about 6 hours before we were to leave. I was a bit frantic and praying for that peace which passes all understanding. Then finally we were able to contact a guy who would take us for a good price, he just had to use his friend's car because his tires were better.

So, 4:00 am rolls around and we were getting into the taxi which was of course on empty. After waking up the attendants at the 24 hour gas station (by pounding on the locked door of the station) we were on our way. About 1 hour into the trip one of the "good tires" went flat. No big deal right?...until we realized that we were already driving on the doughnut! Not to worry there was a spare, sort of good tire we could use. By sort of good I mean that it got us another hour before it blew. So here we were with half the trip to go, David arriving in 2 hours, and a taxi with two flat tires. Fortunately there was a kind Canadian man passing our way at just that moment and he was willing to give us a lift to the nearby town where we could find another taxi. So we got another taxi which took us the remainder of the trip...however David was now arriving in 1.5 hours and Ndola was still about 2 hours away. We asked our taxi driver if he could try to get us there in good time and he took that as 'drive between 80 and 90 mph' -- a bit scary but it worked out because we got to the airport literally 30 seconds before David stepped off the plane.

We were so happy to see David and so glad that we got there in time to meet him at the terminal. The way back to Solwezi was a lot smoother. We found our original taxi driver in the town where he broke down and he took us the remainder of the way. The only problem was that once we got to Solwezi he wanted us to pay more than we agreed...despite his two flat tires. We tried to explain how in the U.S. we probably wouldn't give any money because he didn't get us where we needed to go and that it was hurting development to reward sub-par work. We finally settled on the price and we could at last relax.

It's been really great having David here. We've spent this first week in our village, just relaxing and enjoying the normal bush life. Hopefully he isn't getting too bored. :) He's learning a lot about Zambia and all the villagers have enjoyed having him here. He keeps wanting to find some big snakes so we've gone on some hunts, but haven't spotted any yet. We told him he needed to be here one week earlier.

Just two weeks ago on Sunday we were helping out with the children's church. We were in the middle of singing some songs when all of the sudden the children started shouting "mulolo" or "snake!" There below the benches where they had been sitting and all their little feet had been dangling, was a good sized puff adder snake which happened to be slitering towards my husband. Luckily his ninja skills kicked in and he averted the snake while I was trying to grab as many little kids as I could and run. Then the little old teacher lady lifted up one of the benches and smashed the snake's head in. Praise the Lord! :) It actually was amazing that nobody got bitten because it was inches from the children. We also found out later from our snake book that the puff adder causes the most snake bite deaths in Africa. So it was just another normal Sunday in Zambia. Maybe another snake will visit us this week so David can join in on the fun.

All else here is great. In the next two weeks we will be doing some traveling and site seeing so that should be a lot of fun. After that we will get back to "work". :)

We love you and miss you!

Heather (& Stephen)

Greetings friends and family! Hope all is well in the U.S., and you are enjoying the spring time. In Zambia we are entering the cold season which means temps in the 40's at night and days in the 70/80's. Things have been fairly slow lately because it is the harvest season and everyone is busy during the day. So for doing projects you need a little more patience than in the other seasons, especially when it comes to meetings. However, we have managed to finish the proposal for the deaf class. Hopefully some funds will be coming in for resources that will help the teachers. The church project is coming a long nicely. About 5000 bricks have already been made and they continue to prepare stones and sand for the cement work. We have been meeting with the leaders of the youth group to teach ways to organize and gear their programs. We've also been showing them different activities they can do using the various resources we've received. A few weeks ago we taught them the game 4 square and they really enjoyed it.

As usual we have our personal projects we like to work on in order to make our life sweeter; and if possible we try to make it benefit others as well. :) A perfect meshing of these two was realized in our teaching the local bakery how to make Cinnamon rolls!! They are so good! Now not only do we have access to an amazing treat, but the bakery is making loads of profit. And the mission hospital is pretty happy because we got the baker to deliver to them on Saturdays. Our next venture is to get soft serve ice cream available in town. Please pray for us as we plant those seeds. :)

An update on the Zambian music video... training sessions have begun and now 10 women, ages 30-75, have learned the Michael Jackson Beat It dance. We only have to polish up some of the moves and they'll be ready to go. The hard part is going to be getting enough men to actually come to the practices. We may have to postpone the filming until after harvest. Also, Stephen's weight room is complete. Now the next step is for us to stop being lazy and actually use it.

And finally we are getting extremely excited because Stephen's brother David is comeing to visit us for three weeks in June. We pretty much have the agenda set for when he comes. We wil spend about one week in the village and then spend some time seeing Victoria Falls and viewing some game. We can't wait to see him and shae this part of our lives with him.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers! We miss you!

Stephen and Heather

We're back! Sorry it's been so long since we've updated. Hopefully over the next couple of months we'll be able to update more.

We've had a good time re-adjusting to life here after Christmas. It was fun returning and seeing all our friends in the community. We were sad however to see that our garden didn't survive our vacation. But it was okay because mango season was in full force and we have plenty of trees to pick from. One day we decided to try making jam because there were more mangos than we could keep up with. It was so good and so easy to make that we started to look into the possibility of the women here making it for an income generating activity. So we made a day and taught the women how to make it and they really enjoyed it and were interested in selling it to the people in town. Then we did something really fun-- we went with the ladies into the town to do taste testing and a survey. It was definately the first time that anyone here has experiencedthe whole free taste testing thing. The survey also helped to increase the women's confidence in the project as they heard the many positive responses and the estimated amounts that people would be willing to pay. So now we are just collecting jars and waiting for next mango season.

Also, within a week from getting back we were excited because the class for the deaf had started! It was so awesome the first time we got to observe the class! You could tell that the children were so happy to be learning and to have new friends who were also deaf. The enrollment is continuing to increase as well. So we have teamed up with a local organization to begin writing grant proposals for boarding facilities and other small resources. The teachers were excited to receive someof the supplies we were able to give them for the VBS at Countryside FM and Fitness Finders. (Thank you!)

With the church project things are moving along nicely. We helped them plot out a plan for building and so far the members are coming together really well. Right now they're crushing stones for the foundation and will begin to mould bricks as the rains let up. They will be doing 100% of the labor and doing what they can to raise funds for the materials. So far it looks as if they will have enough funds to complete the foundation and walls, which is a good start towards a permanent structure but a long ways from being complete. We will keep you all posted as the project progresses. Let us know if this project sounds like on you'd be interested in helping to support. We try to help with the project in any way we can but they might be hesitant to let us help with the manual labor now since Stephen crushed his hand instead of the stones. He just knicked the side of his hand so it wasn't too bad. It just bled a lot and took a few weeks to heal. I felt like a pathetic bush wife because the sight of his gash nearly made me pass out.

Now for the projects we are really interested in. :) We are in the beginning stages of making a Zambian music video. So far we are thinking of using the Michael Jackson song "Beat It" and centering the plot on two gangs. Picture it with us...one gang member steals a rival gang member's sack of potatos but as he is running away with them he is seen by the rival who replies "Steal my potatos? You'll see!!" Then starts the music. It has a lot of potential.

Also, Stephen is making plans to build a weight room in our backyard. Most of the equipment will be made out of bricks and sticks with the weights themselves being plastic bags full of dirt. To start with he'll have a bench press, curling bar, and squat rack to add to his chin up bar. So when the rains finish in the next few weeks he'll begin construction. It will give our neighbors one more reason to stare at us and think we're completely out of our minds. :)

Well that's about all for now. Oh, Stephen had a wonderful b-day on the 9th. We had a feast with some fellow Peace Corps friends and ate cake (a double decker chocolate covered cake) which I was able to whip up in the ol'mud oven. Also, last Sunday I made my debut singing in the women's choir. It went really well with only one minor glitch...I only was taught one song and they sung two...so I just made up the second one and Stephen said it looked natural. Anyway it was fun and the congregation really enjoyed it.

We hope all is going well Stateside. We'd really love to hear from you and get updates on how everything is. We love and miss you!

Stephen & Heather

P.S. For those who may not know, we have become an aunt and uncle to one more little boy! Cameron Harlen Beckett was born on Feb. 22! Congratulations Matt and Jamie!!!

We have had an absolutely amazing time these past 3 weeks here in the states. We've been really busy traveling between the thumb and Southern Michigan but it was great. We had the opportunity to see so many family members and friends. It was wonderful. Although we're not looking forward to the extensive traveling we have ahead of us we are excited about returning to our village. It will be great to see our friends there again. Thanks so much to all of you who opened your homes to us and traveled distances to see us. We are truly blessed to have such good friends. Our time here has been very rejuvinating for us and has encouraged us to stay motivated and fully engaged this upcoming year. We have done a little bit of updating to this blogsite. We deleted some of the old postings and have put on quite a few new pictures in the photo gallery. Also, we want to put all of our contack info. on here again so you can stay in touch with us if you are so inclined. Our snail mail address is: Stephen and Heather Castle P.O. Box 120045 Kasempa, Zambia Africa Our phone number is 011-26-099-460-744. There are different plans you can use to make calling pretty cheap. Penny Talk, which my mom uses is like 15 cents a minute from a land line. To get that you call 1-877-736-6925 and can put minutes on a card. There's also www.zprepaid.com which is suppose to have cheap rates. Also, skype or other interned calling has worked to contact us as well as general international calling cards. We love you all and hope to be able to stay in touch throughout this next year!

(From September 12, 2006) Greetings All! Things here in the bush are still going well but as the title implied things here have been mushy at best. But thank the lord the worst is past. After our training in the capital city it was nice to get home. The first week back, we attented the church conference for the church's in Kasempa district. It was similar to church camp in the states except for no amenities and basically it's just how you always live (camp fires don't have the same novelty when you always use them for 3 meals a day) I think the people really enjoyed us being there and they welcomed us warmly. Upon returning from the conference we got sick for a little over a week. Numerous other people in the community got sick also so there must have been some bug going around there. So after a very slow paced week we pretty much mended. And none too soon either because the mission hospital close to us invited us to a potluck last Friday evening so our complete motivation for the week was getting our stomachs ready for action. Also, we're excited because we are starting to see a few of our projects taking off. The church has started a sunday school class for the children, we have introduced some rabbits into the community to start breeding, an dnext week we'll be delivering 2 wheelchairs to a few disabled people in our community. The wheelchairs are awesome and I might have a hard time parting with them. They are these all-terrain three wheeled hand cranked tanks. We can't wait to deliver them. Another exciting thing is that our tomato plants our doing well. We take pride in our gardening and are okay with the fact that we are becoming very old for our age. Yes life in the bush is slow but it is good. And what makes it even better is that our nearest town is slowly developing to cater to American needs. A few evenings back, Heather and I had a hamburger and fries while watching a Marc Anthony/Westlife DVD in a tiny restaurant. It was incredible! Marc Anthony never sounded so sweet. And we've noticed that our appreciation for pretty much anything American is constantly increasing. I can honestly even say that I truly enjoy hearing Michael Bolton. He's the hottest thing here right now and I'm okay with it. I even encourage it. So not too much excitement going on but not too much stress either so I suppose it balances out.

(From July 11, 2006) Sorry it has taken so long to write, this is the first opportunity we've had to use a computer in almost 3 months! Work has started to pick up for us lately. It is not at the pace of America yet, but I'm sure it probably never will be:) We have had opportunities to ride out and visit numerous community schools to introduce ourselves and our work. The basic issues we've been encountering have been similar. Since the schools basically run themselves with very little government help they have problems with teacher payment and support, teaching and learning resource material availability, and school struturly problems. So we hope that in our time here we will be able to work with some of these issues and better link the communities with resources and help them learn how to make the most of their existing resources. But seriously now, mostly what we do here is play. A few weeks back there was a group of missionaries here from Philedelphia. They built a church building and then had a pastors conference in the new building before heading home. We had the opportunity to work a bit with them and get to know them. They were wonderful. And we also went to the pastors conference and it was great to hear some sermons in English! One day, while we were th4ere, we saw our first black mamba. A local chopped off it shead before it was able to eat us though. Then, just last week we decided since we are in Africa we should go try to find some animals. So, we had our own Pee Wee's Big Adventure (a movie in case you don't know). A huge national park is about 60 miles from us so we left one morning at about 7 with a tent and some food and started out on our bikes. The riding wasn't too bad until the road pretty much turned into a beach. The sand was so bad we had to walk for over an hour. Finally though, we reached a random market that sold rolls when it was starting to get dark. We asked a village person if there was anywhere we could pitch our tent and since people are wonderful here he brought us to his house, we pitched our tent, he fed us buffalo, made us a bath, and even gave us tea before bed. And then, it just so happened that staying in that same village that night was a national park ranger. So the next morning he took us to his work, strapped on his AK-47 and became our personal safari guide. We went right to the Lunga River Lodge workers camp. We were going to pitch our tent there but one of the workers thought we should meet the lodge managers (This is a $ 400 a night place) We weren't looking so classy after our day and a half of writing but met them anyway. The owners then insisted that we stay in a spare sweet for their pilots (beautiful room) and have the workers make us the same meals the guests were having. And then they had us go to the bar and grab a coke on them. We were singing many praises at thie point to our wonderful lord:) The next morning we went out with our guide and saw some impala, hippo, wart hogs, monkeys, and a few other things. After our biking safari our guide took us to a nearby copper mine to see if maybe we could hitch a ride back with one of the trucks back to our town. There were no more trucks going that evening so we thought we'd pitch our tent but lo and behold the owner put us in a guest house with satelite tv, a basketball court, and pool table. We humbly accepted. Next morning after some wonderful omlettes prepared by the chef we road back to Kasempa. Our lege were very happy not to have to bike back and our hearts and minds were weirded out at how this bushy bike advernture turned into a luxury outing. God is Good!!!

(From March 17, 2006) We just got back from a week at our new home in Kasempa and we love it! It was so wonderful to actually see our site and meet the people who live around us. Kasempa is a beautiful little town with hills and fields everywhere. It reminds us of a miniature smokey mountains and the town itself is really clean and peaceful. We can get pretty much everything we need in town for food and supplies which is nice. Our actual home is in a village about 3 miles outside of the Kasempa town and it is in a great community with a school and church close by.

There are some great families placed right around us with some really great kids as well. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. We were also able to meet some of the people at the ministry of Education that we will be working with. They seem very welcoming. We absolutely love Kasempa and for the first time we really feel like this could be home. Our hut is pretty cool too....as far as huts go. It's a good sice and it's divided into 4 rooms which is nice. It also has a tin roof and cement floor which will help with animal/termite control. Our kinzanza (outside cooking area) is really big and it has high walls which are really nice. We also have our own mango and banana trees right in our yard! Then to top it off with have a dog named Tosh and we like her a lot. So that's our home and we can't wait to get back there for good! We only have 2 more weeks of training and then we'll have our swear in ceremony. Me miss you all like crazy but been greatly affirmed that we our where God wants us to be. Pray for us as we finish up our last couple weeks of training and prepare to enter our community.

Hello all,

Sorry about how our last post didn't actually post. We tried it a few times and it never seemed to go through but apparently just the title did. Oh well...anyways, thank you Jamie for putting what the news was. So as we meant to say last time, we are coming home for Christmas! We are extremely excited and on the 22nd of this month Heather will officially start her 50 day count down. We will be in Michigan from the 12th of December until the 3rd of January. We are so excited to see everyone! Please inform us of any dates that may work out for us to meet up with you.

In other news, things are going well here. We've started teaching English classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. It started with 3 men and 2 women and it's been steadily growing. Last class I had about 5 men and 10 boys and Heather had about the same number of women and girls. We're going to start splitting up adult and children classes because when asking an adult if they mind learning with the children he said he would rather not because most of the younger ones know English better than the adults and will laugh at them when they try to speak. So we don't want any of those mean kids teasing their parents. It's been a lot of fun so far and it has helped our Kaonde speaking because since most know so little English you have to translate for them a lot.

Also, we've been working on trying to get special education classes either in our area or find out if we can send the children to a school that can accommodate them. It's so sad how here most of these children are totally neglected. And the hardest thing is that even when opportunities are available most parents will not send their children because it is embarassing for them and they think that children with hearing, mental, or any other impairment simply can't learn.

This past week, we attended our first funeral here in Zambia. It was a very sad situation and the lady was so sweet. And also, she was one of the two that we were able to get a wheel chair for. She passed away only two weeks after receiving the chair. Now that she's no longer having to deal with leporasy we know she's far better off but will still wish that there was more that we could have done for her.

We have a few other projects going on as well like trying to get mosquito nets in the village before the rainy season starts and hopefully introducing some cattle into the village. In closing, there is a neat incident that I think it is important to share. A few days ago, Heather actually ran over a chicken with her bicycle. We were riding down a hill together and it was in the middle of the rode so I decided to ride right at it. Since Heather and I were side by side this probably wasn't a good idea because I scared it so it ran right into Heather and she hit it nice and square with her back tire. It probably lived??

Okay well we love and miss you all and are literally counting the days until we see you!

The Castles