FNC is the people at The Factory every Sunday night!
Some people have been at FNC for long time, some are relatively recent members.
Sarah has been around FNC for a while now…

Name: Sarah B.

Sarah, you’ve just returned from a mission trip to Africa, but before you tell us about that, how long have you been a follower of Jesus
As long as I can remember, so probably about 12 or 13 years – since I was maybe 5 or 6.

And how long have you been coming to Factory Night Church?
2 1/2 years

What are you reading or watching or listening to (or all three!) at the moment?
I’ve been reading Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (go the classics) and Re-Entry: making the transition from missions to life at home by Peter Jordan.

Tell us what part of Africa you went to and which group you went with?
I went to Zambia with a Christian organisation called International Teams. We (I was in a team of 13) were there for 3 weeks: for the first half (in Ndola up the top of Zambia) we helped with building a home for old people. For the second half we took 40 disadvantaged kids to Livingstone, a 12 hour drive south of Ndola, for a camp. They (and us leaders!) loved seeing the sights of Livingstone and having Bible talks each morning.

What made you want to go on a trip like this?
I’ve wanted to go on something like this for a while now. I suppose just to see what life is like for Christians in a totally different country and to kind of check out if overseas missions is for me. I’d never been out of Australia or on a plane before either, so that was a bit of incentive to go.

Tell us some of the highlights of the trip for you.
The camp was pretty fun. Just hanging around with the kids and doing crazy stuff and getting to know the rest of the leaders. We had lots of funny moments and some dodgy African ones… like at the end of camp us Australians went white water rafting – on the way to the river a huge wheel fell off the truck we were in (as wheels usually do, you know!!). Then the safety officer for our raft was drunk and pulled some people out of our raft into the river. I fell out in one rapid, then a few seconds later we paddled past a crocodile…
Learning Zambian culture was another highlight: it’s ok to tell people they’re fat, there’s nothing sus about men sharing beds or holding hands and it’s perfectly normal to light fires wherever you like.

What was the hardest thing about the trip?
While on camp I got malaria (well, I never had a blood test but it was all the right symptoms). That was annoying and frustrating because I didn’t plan to come half way across the globe to get sick.

What was the most surprising thing?
I was surprised I didn’t really feel heaps sorry for all the kids. I mean: they don’t have great living conditions, they’re all a bit sick, they don’t own anything, but they’re just happy normal kids. Just like kids on a camp in Australia.
We got a few other surprises too… like for the whole 3 weeks the showers were a bit unreliable – cold or no water at all. So we were all looking forward to on the way home where we would stay at a 4 star hotel in Johannesburg. Except we went to the bathroom and guess what? No water came out of the taps!

How has it changed your Christian walk?
Maybe my view on some things has been changed or broadened. Hopefully I’ll understand better what missionaries go through and how to react to the poor and needy. Something that became obvious to me is that Australia, compared to Zambia, definitely needs just as much work (or more) put into spreading the word.

What do you think you might have to change in your life here as a result?
I think I’ll always feel bad about singing unenthusiastically in Church – no hands in pockets in a Zambian church!
Also I want to be keeping up enthusiasm, knowing there is a great need and that telling people about God is important and urgent right where I live.

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