Introduction Necessary

Dear Family, Friends, Supporters and Followers,

My name is Nathan Couperus and I am writing this blog as a journal for a trip to Zambia. I will be travelling along with 5 of my fellow students of Dordt College and Professor Vos and his wife as the travelling part of our Gen 273 cross cultural class. We will be staying in Ndola, Zambia at our sister school Northrise University. The purpose of this trip is to strengthen the bond between the two schools. We are the first students to visit the Northrise and therefore are the first student representatives of Dordt College. (No pressure or anything.) Professor Vos and Wolthuis have both been to Northrise to teach agriculture and theology classes respectively. While we are at Northrise University the students will also be helping Professor Vos teach an agriculture class. We will be setting up a drip irrigation line as a demonstration to one of his lectures. Other than helping with his class I'm not quite sure what we will be doing while we are there. We trust the Northrise administrators as they will be planning any outings we take. Through this our team is trying to adopt the polychronic view of time that is dominant in African culture rather than the monochronic view of time that North Americans share.

[Side note] These views of time were presented in a book that we were studying as part of our Gen 273 class. The book is called When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. It has definitely altered our group's perspective on short term missions projects as well as given us a greater understanding of the larger picture of poverty. I will probably be referring to the book throughout various posts. (If you're still wondering about monochronic/polychronic views of time, monochronic is the belief that time is a finite resource and we must pack as much into our day as possible and be as efficient with our time as possible because there are only so many hours in a day. Polychronic on the other hand, is the view that time is an infinite resource because there is always more of it. Relationships and quality time is of much more value than productivity. As one can see, North Americans are very susceptible to a monochronic view of time where as Africans are on the opposite end of the spectrum with a polychronic view of time.) [End side note]

So, other activities that may be undertaken include a tour of Seeds of Hope and CRWRC and the work that these two organizations have done in the area. Another possibility is that the university will give us activities aligned with our majors. There is talk of a day spent with the civil engineer of Ndola for myself because I am a civil engineering major. Additionally, one of the students may spend time with several orphanages and local area schools because she is an education major. In conclusion...we may be doing so many different things but we really won't know until we get there. I guess you could say that could be a hook to keep following the blog. :)

The trip will be two and a half weeks. We will leave Dordt College on May 12th and hopefully return to America (in our respective states/provinces) on May 28th. We are all very excited for this opportunity to use our gifts to learn and serve the Lord our Maker. I do not know how much internet access we will have when in Africa, so if I’m not posting very much…that is why. I will be journaling on paper, so when I do get home I will put it up for those of you who will not see me for the rest of the summer.

A few items to pray for:

Safe travels to Africa on so many different flights spanning two days.

The families of the team as they worry about us.

The people of Zambia and our interactions with them.

Thank you so much for all of your support. It is appreciated!!