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Thursday, June 28, started out as a pampered day in Mrs. Laura Bush's four-nation Africa marathon.

Lusaka, Zambia, was the third stop in her week-long trip through Senegal, Mozambique, and Mali. After a private breakfast in one of the top hotels, she was sped to the country's luxurious presidential residency for photos, coffee, and a brief closed-door meeting with President Levy Mwanawasa.

After that, accompanied by her Zambian counterpart, First Lady Maureen Mwanawasa, Mrs. Bush hit the road. "I hope you have comfortable shoes," she had warned at the beginning of her trip. "We will work hard." In Lusaka, she certainly did.

Her first stop was Regiment Basic School—a grade 1–9 Catholic-founded school populated by children with HIV and children who have lost parents due to the virus. Mrs. Bush observed a few minutes of a math lesson offered through a U.S.-funded, locally produced radio program.

Next she was entertained by the school drama group, which put on a 10-minute, anti-AIDS play. Then she held an informal roundtable discussion with 13 female students, some HIV positive, all supported by either the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) or the Africa Education Initiative (AEI). Both PEPFAR and AEI provide hundreds of millions annually in U.S. taxpayer funds to help children in Africa with education and health care.

The final event at the school was a visit to the new Play Pump—a merry-go-round attached to a water pump. The invention is designed to provide clean drinking water from a deep well, and it's kid-powered. Mrs. Bush noted, "It runs on the energy of children at play and is a fun [piece of] equipment in the schoolyard."

A cloud of red dust announced the arrival of the heavily guarded entourage that took Mrs. Bush and her daughter Jenna to the Mututa Memorial Center. Center director Martha Chilufuya's late husband, having received a lot of home-based care during his long illness, donated half of their farm to care-giving initiatives.

Today, thanks to PEPFAR, local, and international support, the center has 36 caregivers serving 200 people. Faith-based organizations such as World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Expanded Church Response, and the Salvation Army are involved in a consortium known as RAPIDS (Reaching HIV/AIDS Affected People with Integrated Development and Support). These organizations help operate a community garden producing food and income for caregivers and their clients.

Speaking to the Bush delegation, World Vision's Bruce Wilkinson, a leader with RAPIDS, said, "Today is a day to celebrate."

And it was. Salvation Army–supported youth put on a skit. Women, mostly widows, sang and danced. A choir of children moved the audience with their song, "I know the Lord will make a way for me." Young women, led by American Idol finalist Melinda Doolittle, performed the hymn "Amazing Grace."

Mrs. Bush presented an American face that poverty-stricken Zambians rarely see. "Zambia is a strong partner with the United States," she said. "Our two countries are working to advance goals shared by people everywhere: improved opportunities for families, economic empowerment, and, most of all, good health."

Mrs. Bush, seemingly oblivious to the blazing mid-day sun and the raging debate over faith-based HIV-prevention through abstinence programs, drove home the role of faith-based organizations in the fight against HIV, malaria, and other diseases.

This is a theme she'd taken up starting the day before in Mozambique. "Faith-based organizations have local connections," she said at a Maputo, Mozambique, seminary. "Churches, monasteries, temples, mosques, and synagogues have gone where no one else would." Places of worship are community centers, she said: "They serve as focal points for education, for distribution of commodities, and for advocacy for the needs of their people."

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June (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51