Training Needs

I trust that you were able to read the report from the six graduates from the weekend training. They are all doing well in church ministry and have a passion to help their churches. The more time I spend here the more and more I understand just how great the ongoing training needs are. These men are doing so well with what they have been taught, but so much ongoing training is necessary. It is vital that the Bible School staff are involved in regular village visits to see the training happen.

To this end we have developed a list of the various areas that graduates are from and have begun to prioritise where visits are needed. The problem is how many of these seminars can you run in a year? If you only do four then it will take about 5 years to get around. If you do ten or more how do you pay for all the transport costs not to mention the toll on the teachers!! There are no easy answers; however more Bibles and finances to make these visits happen is vital.

As I reflect on the last two weekends of training, there really needs to be follow up visits another year down the track. The momentum is there, the desire for truth is there, the need for change is clearly evident - would you pray about these vital leadership training opportunities. Pray that God would use then to bring real change to rural churches, leaders who are committed to truth, that graduates would have the wisdom needed to work in difficult places. I was saddened to hear that some of these men were not sending their own kids to school because they were not making enough money due to the time that they were trying to put into ministry. Now that is wrong, but the calling that many of these graduates have in their lives is unmistakeable!

The need for the second year to be added to the Bible School programme is undeniable. These men & women need further sharpening for the work that they do. This will mean the need for at least another staff member and the administrative burden only continues to grow! Please PRAY!

We are now in Livingstone worn out by two days of driving. The Atkinson family arrive tomorrow, we have 1 ½ days of R&R with them and then three full days of leadership training in three areas down here. Please pray for strength and discernment as we encourage the church members from this region. They have been actively church planting down here, so it will be interesting to see how the work is progressing.

Weekend at Chipundu/Kapata

Hi all, The ministry weekend went well - I have copied a graduate report for you below and will make comments on the blog tomorrow. We are now in Livingstone to pick up the family coming up to Samfya - email in Lusaka didn;t work!!

Report form Past students from Samfya Bible School - Kapata/Chikunyu Zone
(slightly abridged and edited to flow!!)
To the Saints at Riverbend Bible Church, New Zealand

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We are very happy tp see brother Pastor Donald Stevenson and the family come to us again. We still thank God for how He uses you people of New Zealand to help the people of Samfya. We even received the Bemba Bibles from you. We know that you are still remembering us people of Samfya. We also thank the teachers of Samfya Bible School for the servant spirit they have by helping people of Zambia by telling them God’s good news. We get knowledge from them. We are six past students in these zones:

Br. Francis Pengele from Kapata Central Assembly
Br. Dickson Chikundu from Kampolombo Assembly
Br. Dominic Chilufya from Chikunyu Assembly
Br. Davies Kawama from Chikunyu Assembly
Br. Lazarous Mwelwa from KAbende Mushi Assembly
Br Alfred Mutanda from Chisuku Assembly

What the Lord has done here:
We are conducting the following seminars
- Seminars for leaders
- Seminars for elders
- Seminars for Deacons & Deaconesses
- Couples Meetings
- Seminars for Youth Groups

We also preached to the people, “Repent and believe the gospel.” The people who believed His message and turned to follow him became his disciples, accepting Him as their Saviour. Praise God for the blessing.

We formed a youth group called Kamaka. It is a joy to see parents letting their children come to learn God’s Word. We have six assemblies were we started youth groups. When we meet together it is called Kamaka.
Sunday School is now done in most of the Assemblies in these zones. Three assemblies were started by the past students of Samfya Bible School...

Future plans:
- Sunday School Teacher Training
- Teaching the preachers how to prepare a lesson (27 churches in our region)
- Teaching those who have never been to school (literacy)
- Francis and Doreen Pengele planned to go and Evangelise in Central Province in Kapiri District in Sep/Oct 2010. The problem is concerning accommodation costs...”I spend most of my time in the work of the Lord. Only my wife supports the work...” (an appeal for assistance).
May God bless you all - signed by the six graduates.

Just at home

My Goodness!

I have just sat down to play some games on my computer. I said to Donald that it sounds like it is raining. I didn’t think it was as this is the dry season. The noise outside is all the swamp flies that have hatched and are hitting the windows and roof! They are here literally in the millions and our pale yellow walls are black with the insects. Not so much fun! They come and buzz around us and land on us and the computer – time to go I think!

Also this afternoon Katie and I were watching the long version of pride and prejudice and I heard a plop sort of noise not far from me. When I had a look there were two lizards right by me!!! Then I went to go out the front door and there was another one just by the door handle! Needless to say I screamed and didn’t go outside!

Cultural Differences

Donald was talking to one of the men yesterday and he was telling Donald how he had a nasty rash on his armpit!
Donald asked him how he got it
Now wait for it!!!
He told Donald that after he had shaved his armpit, he put deodorant on and it had a reaction! That is right, you did read it right - he shaved his armpits!!!
Apparently here in Zambia married men shave their armpits!!
Can you hear the laughter when Donald was telling Katie and I!
Donald told him that in our society, it is a sign of masculinity - having hairy armpits!
The two of them were able to laugh about how different cultures can be!

Can you imagine a good kiwi bloke shaving his armpits hahahahahaha Now Donald you are in Zambia so you should do what the Zambian’s do hahahahahaha

Well for those of you who have asked – the photos on this blog are photos of our view from our house. Isn’t it just amazing! We see the lake as far as you can see. At night time it looks like there is a city out there with all the paraffin lamps glowing in the fishing boats. We tried to take a photo but it didn’t come out so well so you will have to use your imagination!

I thought I might point out some differences between Hastings and Samfya.

POWER: The electricity here is very inconsistent. It goes off most nights between 6pm and 8pm approx. Sometimes when the power is on, it is low so boiling a pot of water can take well over an hour or biscuits that should take 15 minutes can take nearly 2 hours! I must admit that when there is power on we make the most of it getting washing done and also the cooking. Because of the power going on and off people who have fridges quite often have to get new ones as they blow up!

ROADS: Although the roads to Samfya are tar sealed (careful of potholes) most of the other roads are dirt. It is very pretty though as it is red.

SHOPS: Shops always seem to be open even late at night. They are more like little booths and sell a variety of things rather than specialising in one or two things eg the dairy kind of shop will sell everything from an ice cold coke to BIG bags of grain, or some even sell pesticides as well as clothes. They also name their shops funny things (well they are funny to us but normal to them), God Given Investments is one (a diary type store), Back to My Roots (a shoe shop) is another one. The butcher here has all his meat in freezers thankfully. But he mostly just goes to the big towns and buys the meat and comes home and freezes them. The fish market is another tale. Nothing is refrigerated! And ohhhhhhhhhhhhh the smell. Whenever they see us white people (hehe) they want to sell us something even if we don’t want it! Sometimes they get a bit stroppy if we don’t buy!

LIZARDS: Well need I say more. Even while typing this, a lizard thought it might be nice to say hello to me! HA he got it wrong. I screamed and ran and Katie shoed him out under the door! They seem to think this is their place and they can roam as they please – inside and out!

SAFTEY: It is really safe to go out walking here. At home I would not let Katie and her friends go any distance on her own but when Lily comes they will be able to go to the stores up the road and I know they will be safe. There are a few mad men (yes I actually mean mad) but others would make them go away if they were being a problem. There doesn’t seem predators here like at home. I think if they tried anything on young girls the villagers would beat them to a pulp – hmmmmm maybe we should try that at home.

GREETINGS: Whenever anyone passes you when you are out walking (no matter what colour you are)they will greet you and expect a greeting back. At church you are made to stand so everyone can see that you are a visitor. After the first service every one leaves and stands in a line outside and as you leave you shake hands then stand at the end of the queue until everyone has gone through.

THE SUNRISE AND SUNSET: Ohhh man photos just don’t do them any justice. They are amazing and the colour of the red/orange is brilliant. You can’t even look at it sometimes as it is so bright. It is like nothing I have ever seen before! Absolutely beautiful!

FOOD: The fruit just seems so much sweeter here than back home and certainly bigger. I guess they haven’t been imported and have just been picked although I must admit to buying them on the side of the road not at the supermarket. The granny smiths there were gross. I don’t think they would even be sold as seconds at home! Needless to say we left them there. Bananas, pawpaw and watermelon is what we have had most of. Granidillas (a different variety of our passionfruit) just tastes amazing as well – they are light green when ripe not like our dark purple!

Then there is nshima. This is the staple diet here. We don’t mind eating it. I have had a lesson in cooking it but need more practise in making it! They eat it with ‘juice’ as they call it which is usually a tomato type sauce which they make by grating the tomato and then adding onions and boiling it. They would usually have some small chicken pieces with it. They also have spinach (we would call it silver beet), rape and Chinese cabbage. They would just have one and cut it up into very small pieces and add red onion and boil until cooked. They would however eat fish more than chicken. They love to drink Coke. I can’t have coke due to my diabetes but sometimes the shop will sell coke light. It doesn’t have sugar in it but I am sure it doesn’t taste like coke zero, or diet coke back home. Most times I just choose to have bottled water. They don’t usually have dessert or baking. They don’t have ice cream or cream here in Samfya. You can buy it at shoprite but that is in Mansa which is an hour away. They also don’t have cream that you can whip here.

Oh their lollipops are amazing too and I must admit I have had one. Katie really likes one brand in particular. Chippies and things like that they do have here. Some are nice but they are not like our bluebird chippies back home. We have not seen any twisties, burger rings or anything like that here.

DOGS: There are a lot of dogs here that just seem to roam around but people are petrified of them – in particular Copper and Spice. Copper and Spice are very big dogs though and if you run will chase you.

LAKE BANGWAULU is really big. The meaning is ‘where the water meets the sky’ and it is a fitting name. The water really does meet the sky when you look out to the horizon. They catch a lot of fish here – the most popular being bream. It really looks like it is the ocean. People here have never seen the ocean. I just can’t imagine that! They also think it is strange that the ocean would be salt water as the lake here is fresh. It is where they get their water from. It is very beautiful.

BIRDS: The bird life here is just so amazing. I wish we could get photos to show you all but they are just too quick for us! They range from being tiny to absolutely massive and everything in between.

HOUSING: Most people here would live in a shack with an iron roof. The walls are made of mud bricks covered with cement and then painted. You are fortunate if you have a concrete floor. Some are just mud. There are also lots thatched roofs, oooh yuck can you imagine all the lizards that live in those! Some people have quite nice houses as well and as people are getting more affluent the houses are getting better. Most people would still have a pit loo outside and have a wash from a bowl, and cook over hot charcoal! Even if you have electricity you would still have charcoal to cook with as a backup because of the power situation, but most of these homes would not have electricity.

TELEPHONES: No one here has a land line! Communication all happens with cell phones and there are cell phone towers everywhere. It is rather amazing that someone would not have a Bible but would have a cell phone. It is hard for me to get my head around that one.

COMPUTERS: Unlike NZ not many homes have computers. Most people if they need a computer will go to the Samfya Basic School to use their ones but most do not have any need for a computer or internet.

MALARIA is very common. Most people will have it at some point in their lives and more than likely more than once. It is caught by a female mosquito biting an infected person and then biting someone else. It is the leading cause of death here – even above aids. Prevention in the most part would be easy. Mosquito nets should be a must but a lot choose not to have them. They are readily available and are very cheap. The govt (or whoever it is who should do this) needs to put drains in to drain off stagnant water as that is where mosquitoes breed. These two things would reduce the amount of people who get Malaria. Education is also important. People don’t seem to understand how easy it is to do some things to prevent getting it. None of these are fool proof however and the only way not to get it is not to get bitten – easier said than done.

People with Malaria do get quite sick although the cerebral malaria is the worst as it attacks the brain. The other is like getting a bad case of the flue although can and does often cause death.

Well there are amny other things that are different as well, but as usual this blog has turned out to be a marathon. Sorry.

Gotta go and have lunch now.

Gwen

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.

On The Road Again

Graduates and Bible School Staff
One of the churhc visits with Murray & Joy
On the road again...

We left Samfya at about 9am Friday morning, heading towards the DRC via Mansa. We needed to stop in Mansa to get our new passports and get the visas transferred from the Emergency Travel Documents. We could not believe it. We went to the immigration office and had left with all things done in less than 15 minutes!! If you know Zambia at all you will know that this is truly amazing! We went to the Braham’s (missionaries from Canada) for lunch. They were the people our passports were sent too. They are so lovely and gave us an amazing lunch – actually more like a dinner! They had also done some printing of the elders pamphlet written by John MacArthur and translated by Francis. This is what Donald, Levy and Francis were going to teach on this weekend.

Ok off on our way again. The border this time is not so bad (the Zambian side) – actually quite a breeze to get through. Now we head off down a dirt track. I was wondering where on earth we were going and when were we going through the DRC border. Katie and I were both a bit apprehensive about the DRC border because of the last time we went through it! Ok Levy is telling us to stop as these were his friends on the side of the track. Actually what it is, is our stop. We unload the car as we are leaving it for a man to look after as we are going across the Luapula River. I was still wondering where customs was! We head off in a long boat and the men (Levy’s Friends who were actually from the church and also graduates) started singing. They sang us all the way across. It was rather nice. Donald helped to row the boat. Well we are getting close now and who on earth are all those people and who are they waiting for? Oh there is Murray and Joy – Yay.

Kasenga – Democratic Republic of Congo
Oh my goodness all those people are there for us!!! You should hear the singing to welcome us. They are amazing! They get us off the boat and all our luggage went with them. I hope the people taking it are actually church people – we certainly don’t know! The singing volume was incredible. I wonder if our church could sing like that without music! INCREDIBLE

Well now we need to go through customs- There it is the little building over there! We go into this tiny room which has two customs officers in it, Donald, Gwen, Katie, Levy and Francis! Ohhhh man some of the other men came in too! It was so crowded and hot. I was kinda wondering why the other men were there but they had organised a special price for us to get through so needed to be there. The customs officers couldn’t say my name so kept calling me Patricia! Well no problems at this end of customs either. We pay our money and go. Murray has all our luggage and the boxes of Bibles but we are told we have to walk and that we have to go the long way!

Ok now it is VERY hot for us and we are going to walk! It took us about 20 minutes to walk, however with all those people the dust was amazing and I started coughing – that darn asthma. Now where is my ventolin – oh that’s right I left it in Samfya!!! Oh well just deal with it and carry on Gwen!!! The singing started as we started to walk, again absolutely incredible! They sang the whole way and I mean the whole way right into the Catholic Mission!

Now, in our original plans Katie and I were going to spend the weekend with the Braham’s in Mansa. Donald had found out that the Catholic Mission was the best place to stay in Kasenga and had flush loos and inside showers. We get there and everything looks nice on the outside, we opened the door and ohhhhh what a different story!! The flush loos were kinda flush loos – we had to pour water into the toilet bowl after it had been used. Ok I guess we could deal with that, at least it is in our room and isn’t a pit! Now for the shower. A good start, we have a shower box and a shower rose. Ummmm the tap for the sink doesn’t work. Uh oh the shower is for looks (and it wasn’t that pretty either). When we shower the men heat the hot water and then bring it to us in a basin. Yep that’s right we are having washes out of a basin again. I don’t think I will trust any of these people again who say oh the place is fine!!! Oh well we are here now and no way back until Monday.

Today is Saturday and Donald will be at his conference with Levy and Francis. Katie and I will be going on the road (so to speak) with Murray and Joy.
We had a great time looking at all the projects Murray and Joy manage. There were schools, churches and clinics. At one school Murray was not too happy as progress of the building had been very slow. When he inquired as to why, he found out that the elders weren’t very happy that the headmistress of the school was put in charge of the project. They came and took the cement that was supposed to be for the mortar. The new school building is to be bricks. The old school building caught on fire. They have put on a new grass roof for the time being. Murray actually felt sorry for the lady as it wasn’t her fault. The elders had their noses put out of joint because they weren’t in charge. It is the culture here. It is strange for a woman to be in charge and these elders took advantage of her!

Everywhere we went people were so happy to see Murray and Joy. They had lots of meetings of reports given of progress and also what still needs to happen and how much it costs. Then discussions on whether the funds Murray and Joy have charge of will be used for the particular projects at hand. People are always wanting more money, but as Joy said to me they also have to be trying to do some things themselves, or they will always just rely on others to help them instead of trying to help themselves.

Kids were everywhere and I mean everywhere. Wherever we went there were heaps of children. The children were becoming overbearing at times as they wouldn’t talk, smile or try any form of communication – they just stared at us! Then started to touch my arm. Even when Joy, Katie and I were just sitting they came up and stared. This was a bit difficult to cope with at times. Katie was always surrounded by children which most of the time she loved, but when it got too much would hide in the car. That didn’t stop the kids though – they just came and looked in the window!

We stopped to have a picnic lunch under a tree and guess what – kids came to watch. Yep they watched us eat!!! Then we looked around and the parents were watching as well. Oh to be so popular!

That night Murray set up the big screen and played the Jesus movie. Lots of people came to see. The kids of came early. Murray had a Christian music dvd so he cranked up the music and that really bought everyone in. Unfortunately we couldn’t see the screen as it was still too light.

It was a good day even though it was hard sometimes not knowing what anyone was saying! Murray and Joy got given 3 goats and 4 chickens today. They will be taking 2 goats and the chickens back to Lubumbashi with them. The goats will be tied to the roof all the way. It will take about 4 hours.

The next morning we were told that church started at 9am. So we are there but where are the congregation? Eventually some of the choir arrive and they start to sing and then someone goes outside to beat the drum to tell everyone to come. By now it is 10:am and they have just started.

Donald was doing the teaching. He loves to hear them sing and got the Sunday School of 250 kids to sing. They were all so pleased with themselves! Well then it was back to the Mission for Lunch and then Donald, Levy and Francis were to go back for a meeting with the elders, then the graduates then the both groups together. Katie and I decided to stay at the mission. Bad move! There was nothing to do. I mean nothing. Donald said we would go for a walk to the market when he came home and we were by the river most of Saturday – there was nothing to do. We ended up on our beds dosing on and off! We were so pleased when Donald turned up after 5pm! We headed off to the market to get a cold drink. Oh did I tell you how hot it is here!!! Tooo hot!!!

Dinner time now and it is a repeat of lunch – oh well at least it filled our tummies! It was one of Murrays goats! It was very nice.
We are planning to get to the customs office as soon as it opens in the morning so we need to leave the mission at about 7:30am! Yeah right! No one told us they wanted to give us breakfast and we have already had our cornies! Ok then we will have some of their breakfast so that we don’t offend anyone but we need to get going soon! Ummmmmmm where is the breakfast!!! Donald who is very time orientated is starting to get very frustrated. We are all packed and ready to go but can’t! Breakfast arrives at about 9:00am – now what time were we supposed to leave! We had chicken, nshima and hot rice – for breakfast!!! We have a little and then head out.

We are now at the customs office and everything is fine – we didn’t even have to go in. One of the guys did it! Now we are ready to go but where is the boat!! Oh dear it isn’t here! The women who sang us down the road are still singing. They are going to have very sore throats by the time we leave. They do sound amazing though. They are singing songs that say we will meet again in heaven and that there will be lots of flowers there – not sure about the theology there. Oh look here comes the boat. It is now 10am.

Our car we can see has been parked on the other side for a very long time! We are now on our way. An easy trip through customs again. Donald stopped in at Mambelima to show us where the conference is (you know the one with the big rock that we have seen photos of). Then we stop in to see Francis’ parents. Now off to Mansa to see the Braham’s again. They have prepared lunch for us again and it was very yum! Donald has dropped the car off to get it serviced. It will take 2 ½ hours. Mrs Braham has Anne of Green Gables so Katie and I got to watch some of it and have bought it back to our place. Unfortunately we do not have a vcr but we will try to borrow one! She also gave us Pride and Prejudice on a dvd and so Katie and I have started to watch that. What a treat!

We got home at about 5pm. This week I will be baking for going away to Lusaka and Livingstone and getting beds etc ready for the arrival of the Atkinsons. It looks like Katie might have some work to do at the orphan project cataloguing some of the books in their library but that is yet to be finalised.

Well that is it from here. We got a very warm welcome home from Copper who met us at the top of the road then got distracted when he saw the chickens and went after them! Apparently there have been some complaints about the dogs so this morning Morgan (the gardener) has been putting up more fencing and when we got home there was a gate across the driveway. Today the dogs have been contained in our yard and I think has settled Copper a lot - we can hope can’t we.
Love to everyone
Gwen

D.R. Congo - Ministry Weekend

Us crossing the Luapula
Bibles to Graduates
What a wonderful weekend with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Kasenga, DR Congo. We met in Nsansamina church where four graduates minister - Saidi & Claudine (2006),and Talaka & Carol (2009). There were also present three other graduates, Mainsa (2001), Kafusha (1999), Mumba (2004). The reports from the elders of the work these people are doing was very encouraging. They all seem to be working hard in church life. Talaka and Carol even help support 12 orphans in their community through the gardening skills taught at Samfya!

Over this year, two graduates have been involved in Evangelism Training as far away as Lumbumbashi. Locally one graduate has been active in establishing and equipping Sunday Schools and teachers for various local churches, as well as the ongoing teaching programme that they are all involved with in the churches. As a team they have been training 21 people through June/July in Bible interpretation, Theology (the Doctrine of Salvation)...

The challenges they face are primarily support issues. They still need to work on farming as the churches do not give financial support. Bicycles are also needed for their ministry visits (they had some in 2006 , however these are now worn out!!). We are working on this one through the ministry fund.

The training that we worked on through the weekend was primarily aimed at leadership, using the booklet on Elders (by John MacArthur, now translated into Bemba - having this resource is a huge blessing to these village church leaders). This enabled us to cover the NT teaching on elders, the role of elders, their qualification, the team nature of the work, and the need to support those who lead well and are given to the task of teaching and preaching (1 Timothy 5:17f). The Impact of the teaching was significant. The leaders (around 90-100 men & women) were hungry for the Word and wanted to be applying the things they were learning. It is very important that follow up training occurs, and we know that even more people from many other churches will attend.

We were also blessed to have Murray & Joy Stevenson with us for Friday night, Saturday & Sunday morning. Gwen & Katie got to travel with them on Saturday to many projects that they work with (see Gwen’s blog for all the details!!) including doing an evening projection of the Jesus film. It was nice to have some family time in the depths of Africa!

One of the graduates children was in the local hospital with severe dysentery. We were able to leave a small gift for medications - life is truly on a knife edge here! Three boxes of Bibles were left for sale to the local village Christians. As always the distribution of these causes some jealousies among people who don’t have much, but please pray that they will be used to see men & women growing in Christ. I only wish you could have seen the joy in people’s faces and hear the songs of thanks and praise that were sung for the whole weekend and its impact on them all.

These graduates are strategizing to try and establish a Bible Centre for distributing Christian material, and would also like to begin a mini Bible School at the end of 2012 when people they have training will return (they are training at a theological school that Roger Wharrie and I visited in 2008 - it does a three year French programme). What an encouraging time to spend with these saints - with huge challenges they are committed to Gospel truth and impacting their communities.

To DR Congo Today

Greetings all, it is Thursday night and I have just finished teaching through 1 & 2 Timothy - 20 sessions in four days, a little bit of a marathon. The students had a good number of questions and seemed to be following the teaching well. There is so much very practical instruction in these two books about what we need to do and apply in church life and we talked much of the application of these principles in village church ministry.

We cross into the Congo tomorrow (early Saturday morning NZ time). The border crossing will be a little unknown for us as Congo can be a little difficult; however the graduates from Congo have been trying to prepare the way. The crossing is by long boat over the Luapula River which should be interesting and we will be taking Bibles as well. We expect to see around 8 graduates and we understand that there will be quite a crowd at the meetings, not just the church leaders. We will still focus on leadership training however, as this is the essential ingredient to the churches growth.

We value your prayers for this time and the effectiveness of the training. There will be five of us going over, Gwen, Katie, Donald, Levy Kasoma (Principal) and Francis Chola (teacher). Gwen & Katie will get to see some projects that Murray & Joy work with, so that will be interesting and fun.

We are thankful that our new passports have arrived in Mansa, and we will pick them up on our way through. We also will visit the Immigration office to have our visas transferred into the new passports. Please also pray that this will go smoothly. Thank you for all your prayers and emails - we really do appreciate your support.