Nsobe Trip 1

The first weekend of December, Sophie was able to go on a ladies' retreat with some of the other ladies from Faith Baptist Church in Riverside. We went to Nsobe Camp which is about 1 1/2 hours from Kitwe.

We arrived Friday afternoon and it started raining as soon as we moved our bags into the chalets. We gathered in one of the chalets and enjoyed an ice-breaker activity and just talking until supper. The meals at Nsobe are wonderful! However, many of us were wanting to order the venison stew and enjoy some game meat. That wasn't available Friday night. :( Most of us had fish instead. It was tasty. After supper, we returned to the chalet in the rain and were blessed and challenged from God's Word by Mrs. Sakala, a pastor's wife from another area. She spoke to us on contentment from Philippians 4:11-13. For some reason I had never realized that the famous verse 13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me" comes right after Paul telling about how he had learned to be content in every circumstance. We can be content, because we can do all things through God's strength. Partway through her challenge, the electricity went out. None of us dared to complain - we had to be content! I was laughing inside about God's practical application of what we were learning. Thankfully, all of us are accustomed to living by candlelight.

On Saturday, we awoke to a beautiful day and another wonderful meal. After breakfast, we packed our things into the van and then sat down by the lake for some games, chatting and another challenge from God's Word.

Then, some of the ladies ventured out onto the lake canoeing. The atmosphere is so peaceful and calm. It was wonderful just to relax and contemplate God's goodness and sovereignty.

A couple of the ladies went fishing. This picture was taken at the beginning. By the end, the shoes were off and the ladies were ankle deep in the water. Quite a few little fish were caught and released, but one of the ladies did bring in a 9-inch (or so) bream.

About noon, we were able to go on a game drive. The camp consists of over 1000 acres and they have a variety of wildlife living on the property. We saw over half a dozen different species of deer/antelope. The highlight of the trip was seeing the zebra. They are very elusive and are not often seen. Our guide drove off the trail to follow the zebra for a ways. God's creation surely is amazing! Some of the ladies told me that it was the first time they'd seen some of the larger deer and zebra. My first time to see them outside of a zoo!

We were about 3/4 done with the game drive when it started pouring. We were riding in the back of an open truck. We all got drenched! Needless to say, we did not see any more animals once it started raining. We could hardly keep our eyes open for the cold rain pelting us as we drove back to the lodging area. Thankfully, we had all our bags with dry clothes in the van, so we were able to get out of our wet things before coming home. The weekend was full of memories of sweet fellowship and challenges from God's Word.