The Ladies Bible Study

cooking Nshima by candlelight and coals!!
the ladies study group

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I meet with the ladies and we are studying the book by John MacArthur called God’s High Calling for Women.

As you all know I am not an upfront teacher and prefer to be one on one but oh well here I am teaching up front. Well actually all I am doing is reading the book. I have done this study many times before so I know it well. The ladies seem to be enjoying it and have asked questions.

The most common one that they don’t seem to understand is if the men are not doing what they should why shouldn’t the women step up and do it if they are teachers. Doesn’t that sound so familiar? We have these same issues in our society. I have been able to tell them about Elizabeth Elliott and also Donald’s Aunty Esther who were missionaries and were on their own and how they dealt with the issues of the church meeting together. These issues are very real here as in some of the villages the men are not qualified to do the teaching or do not know the scriptures well enough to be able to pass on their knowledge to others. One village a student comes from, at different times of the year all the elders are out at their land planting then harvesting and also fishing and there are no men left to run the church except those who are not believers! We told them to go back to their elders and say to them that they need to have men at church all the time and not to just leave it to the women! These times that the men go away is their livelihood and they are not just taking a weekend off. It would be quite a hard thing to manage I think.

One of the other questions is that if a woman is not allowed to teach or have authority over a man in church what is she allowed to do. There doesn’t seem to be anything else in their eyes. I have tried to answer their questions but this one we will do in more depth after our study of this book is finished.

This Friday we will have our final study of this book, so all the ladies are coming up to my place for afternoon tea. I have promised them that I will have the dogs locked away as they are very scared of them – I understand this fear of dogs!

The ladies want me to teach them how to cross stitch. I have been given a name of a shop in Lusaka that sells cross stitching supplies. If they do, this will be the next job for me to do. If they don’t I don’t see the point in teaching them something they cannot continue to do.

Now Patricia is the lady who interprets for me at the study. She is wonderful. She has also had us over to her place and gave us a sort of western meal. It was really nice to go there and meet her family. She has a husband, Peter and together they have four children. Then they have also raised Gift whose parents died when he was two years old. His father was Peter’s brother. They have also raised a set of twin girls from the age of 11 years as their parents died as well. Their mother was Peter’s sister! So with everyone counted they are raising seven children. Peter also has a mother who is getting old and lives in Lusaka, and he is trying hard to be faithful to her and care for her. Patricia has a mother who lives in Mansa. Patricia is a housewife and Peter works for Zamtel which is like Telecom. It is a telecommunication company. Peter is away a lot between caring for his aging mother and his work. I think Patricia is an amazing woman!

Last night Agnes and Fanny come here to our place for dinner. Agnes taught me to make nshima and I have taught her some baking. I even got to cook the nshima on the coals as by the time Agnes arrived the power had gone off. I had everything else organised and cooked except for the nshima! Tonight I will try to make some on my own! Hahaha

Tomorrow Donald will head off to a village out on the other side of the lake. Katie and I are staying at home. He will be going with Peter and Francis and they will be sleeping in tents. Katie will hopefully be able to complete her school work so she can have some time off when the Atkinson’s come. I will be getting the house ready for their arrival and also doing some baking as we will be away for a week.

We leave for Lusaka at 5am on Monday morning. We are leaving that early as it is an eight to ten hour car trip and there are some things we want to get done in Lusaka. On Tuesday morning we leave to go to Livingstone which is about a six hour drive. We pick the Atkinson’s up at about mid day from the airport.
That is it from hot Samfya for now.
Have a great weekend everyone.