Come Back Alive

So imagine yourself just finishing a hard week at work, there is a sense of accomplishment, a satisfaction to all that has been done and now you are ready to rest and reflect when all of a sudden something major happens. This is how it was for us who are here serving the Lord in Zambia. We had just finished up a major welding project as well as leadership training when our instructor informed us that we had 5 minutes to run to our tents and grab 1 personal item. What we had thought was that we were going to have a cookout and reflect on our week but in reality it was the next test in our time here. 

Overland provides a unique aspect of hands on training in the field in the case of emergencies. The time was now, we huddled as a team and discussed what the 1 thing we each needed to grab and returned within the 5 minutes. When we got back, our leader informed us that now we had to condense these items down to 4, so we went from 17 to 4. What do we need in order to SURVIVE AND COME BACK ALIVE!!!??? 

We were handed a GPS and our journey started. We had to follow our coordinates to our camping site in the middle of the bush. We had an axe, string, matches, knife, and headlamp, our instructor showed us GRACE in giving us 1 more item. We had an 1 hour and 30 minutes til sundown. We got to camp, gathered upon ourselves the things of the creation and built a shelter for the night, it could fit about 8 people and we got a fire started. (It is in the 30’ s-40 at night) 

After this was done, our leaders came to us and instructed us that we needed to go meet someone who was going to give us some more supplies. It turns out that it was our food: nshima, water (20 liters), and a live goat, no utensils just the knife that we had. So we had to kill our dinner as this goat is yelping out, conserve our water, and eat the local nshima. So we proceeded to kill our goat, his name was Bob. We have to cut the skin and pull it off, hang it up, drain the blood, and then take out the insides and cut it into pieces. (Doing this with the supplies that we have) We washed it down and then cooked it over an open fire. As well as our nshima, which used water, remember we have to conserve. The food came out great as we have goat on a stick. 

The big test was passed now it was on to the night. We have 12 hours to withstand the weather, which is freezing with what we had on. We slept outside the shelter because it was warmer near the fire. We used rocks for pillows and soft brush for some comfort. It was extremely difficult for even those who did this back at home during hunting season. Conditions were the way it would have been if we had gotten stuck out in the wilderness and we have to know what to do. I ended up with 1 hour of sleep that night and couldn’t wait 'til morning. We passed the test and walked back to base, completed our task with hope of never having to do it again. 

Living out Faith in real life!!!      

In Christ,

Joe Hennis