Looking towards Glory

Well another Sunday has gone by and another 3 ½ hour service! The church was about 10miniutes drive from Samfya - village areas all the way, with children everywhere calling out “musungu’s” (white men) or “how are you” - the only English they seem to know! Well the service was great - a blessing to see these people with so little serving the Lord. The choir sang amazingly well with passion and strength. The focus of so many of their choir songs is the future, of being with Christ. Frankly there is nothing in their lives that is comfortable - the great comfort is their love for God and the certainty of glory in the presence of Jesus.

What a contrast to the churches we represent. There is so much comfort, so much materialism in life, so much in life that we get consumed by. These brothers and sisters have little and so there focus is much more intently on God and the future. Oh that all of our congregations had that focus - God and our future with Him! Rural Zambia certainly simplifies life - The big cities area contrast, but here the simple devotion to the gospel is refreshing.

On Friday we got great news that Levy has been accepted for the Biblical Counselling Course. But not just that, his travel and fees for the eight trips he will make to Pretoria over the next two years have been fully sponsored. What a blessing, and to Sit under Dr. Mack and Dr. Joel James will be a huge blessing for him and will build into the ministry of the Bible School.

Francis Chola has also been accepted for the Leadership Conference with Jerry Wragg, and we will be getting Peter Chomba’s application in for the Expository Preaching conference this week. Peter has been away for the past week preaching at a conference. Please pray for these mean and the vital training role that they play in preparing the Bible School students for village ministry.

Training for Bible School Staff

Greetings all - thanks for the feedback we are getting form so many. One of the goals in visiting in South Africa was establishing further links in ministry partnership with ministries there. Biblical Counselling Courses are run by Dr Joel James and Dr Wayne Mack and we are in process to seeing Principal Levy Kasoma apply and begin this two year programme that would see him travel to SA on eight occasions over the next two years for block courses. I will update you on this at a later time.

There are two other training opportunities that would excellent for the other two teaching staff, run at Joel’s church. The first is a Leadership Course on 16-20 August, to be lead by Jerry Wragg. This will be a valuable training time for Francis Chola, and we all know what a blessing Jerry has been to us in New Zealand through the years. The training received will benefit Francis and then the students at Samfya greatly. The cost to get Francis there and course costs (including a new passport) are around NZ$960.

The other course is on Expository Preaching, led by Joel James. Peter Chomba teaching the preaching class here and he will be blessed to have further instruction himself from material that Joel has prepared for an African context after doing his own D.Min programme in Los Angeles. This course happens in September and January, two one week periods. The cost for the first week (including a new passport) is around NZ$920 and the second week around NZ$830.

I cannot emphasize too much how staff training like this will be a huge blessing to the Bible School and then outward to the many rural village areas the Bible School works in. If you would like to help with these costs please pass on gifts to Riverbend Bible Church (Phone 06 8730054, or account no. 01-0646-0045240-000) marked for “Samfya Bible School Staff Training”.

Thanks for your interest in following the blog. I am adjusting to the slowness of life here - it can be frustrating at times just getting things done. Please pray for this weekend - I am preaching the gospel at a youth rally at Samfya beach, and then preaching at Chalwe CMML church on Sunday.

Hi there,

Well, I think we have settled in quite well although I do still scream when I see a lizard or something like that, which I might add, to great delight of the men who hear. Today, Wednesday, there was a lizard caught up in Katie’s legs. She didn’t care but I just stood there and screamed and Donald was trying to get it away from her.

Katie loves Zambian life and the people here seem to really love her. She loves the children of which there are many. Yesterday we went into town to get some meat for dinner. You will see in the photo, Levy, Donald and Katie standing outside a building – well that is where we were buying the meat from. I was just thankful to see that all the meat was frozen!

The lake here is just beautiful. And the name Bangweulu – where the water meets the sky is so true. Last night Donald was even saying that you couldn’t see where the water ended and the sky began.

The power goes off every night for 2 hours from 6pm -8pm approx. So if you haven’t got a gas bottle you have to be very organised with dinner or cook over the fire! Thankfully Agnes has a gas bottle so we can cook with that, however it is very expensive.

It has been good to stay here with Levy and Agnes, so that we can get used to cooking and things like the power going off – I guess just to know the daily routine of the way things happen here.

Today we went to Agnes’ preschool. They were very organised with their teaching. We were there for the Bible Study and then the teacher asked us to tell them about NZ. It was very hard for them to

This afternoon I have my first study with the ladies so that should be interesting. You know how I hate to be up the front. Sounds like there will be at least 16 women attending! Well we had our meeting and yes there were lots. The interpreter didn’t turn up so Agnes had to it. I will txt her before the meeting next time. They have decided that we would have study 3 times a week! One lady wanted it everyday!!! I don’t know if I have enough material to do everyday for 3 months. Hopefully they will have lots of discussion time. Lucy also came to the study which was great.

Yesterday we met Lucy Chama. She is doing well now. She came and looked at all the photos that we had of people at home and I was very surprised that she recognised so many and remembered their names. Donald showed me her new house and it looks nice. I think they are just waiting for water to be connected and then she can move in. Elizabeth has been nice to Katie as well which is great. Lucy will come and see us more when we move to the other house. I think she finds this home a bit uncomfortable as it used to be hers.

We move to the other house on either Monday or Tuesday next week. It will be nice to have our own space. Levy and Agnes are really great and let us cook and do whatever we want to here. Levy thinks Katie is funny – the way she loves the power going off so that we can have candlelit dinners every night! Katie’s job is to boil the water for drinking and fill up the water bottles. It is an important job here. Agnes is very impressed that Katie knows how to do so many things around the home and is willing to do them! She is going to take Katie one day to her classroom. That should be very interesting for her to be in a Zambian Basic School. They are about 13 yrs and up in her class.

Today Katie and I decided we would do our washing Zambian style. There are not too many days before we have a washing machine in our home. It was a good lesson for Katie on how the Zambian women have to work at home. Some women have 10 children and a husband and have to wash their clothes like this! Good exercise I reckon – I might come home with strong arm muscles hahahaha

Till our next posting

Gwen

Hi From Samfya Bible School

Hi everyone,
Rats, cockroaches, ants, bats, no power, no hot water, no showers, not even a toilet – welcome to Samfya! hahaha Well this has been our experience so far – well I personally haven’t seen the rats thank goodness, as I am sure all of Zambia would have heard me! Levy keeps laughing and saying that they wanted me to experience the true Zambia straight away! There was something wrong with the Zesco power’s transformer which has now been fixed so we are fine for now (2 days no power!!). The toilet was blocked and needed some major work done on the pipes etc Donald will have to give you the details as I don’t know about these things! The men worked so hard that day. The holes had to all, be dug by hand – no diggers here! The water was out because the pump doesn’t work when the electricity is out. I didn’t know a shower could be soooooo good!

We arrived in Samfya when it was dark so we didn’t really see the area as we drove in. The drive from Lusaka was long but looking at the country side was very interesting. Seeing how people survive in little huts and selling their goods on the side of the road, just waiting for someone to stop to buy their produce. It is the dry season so they are starting to light fires everywhere to burn off the long grass. At some points, along both sides of the road, the grass was taller than Donald and was very dry and brown. It looked very pretty though. Katie said it was like what you see on TV when a lion was stalking it’s prey, but we didn’t see any(-:

We did stop at a couple of stalls and bought watermelon, potatoes and tomatoes. Bananas here taste so much better than we get at home. Avocados are so much bigger than home as well. People here are so friendly. We have been welcomed with open arms. They are so glad to finally meet Katie and I. The other day one guy –when Donald was introducing us- said that he remembered me! I think he had just seen my photo!

It is so dry and consequently it is really dusty. The kids play outside and come in looking so grubby but it is just the dust. We went into Samfya town the other day to the market. A whole lot of tiny little mud huts joined together and people wanting you to go into their store.

We are staying at Levy and Agnes’ home and they are looking after us very well. Agnes is going to teach me how to cook nshima. Katie loves it and I don’t find it too bad either just have to watch those carbs for my blood sugar! We have been eating well but all have lost some weight which is really great.

Our health has been really good as well with no problems apart from the reaction to the anti malarial drug! The citronella soap and the insect repellent seem to be doing a good job as well as none of us have been bitten. My bloods were a bit high the day we got here but that was because of too many carbs and no exercise. It is back to normal now.

Today (Sunday) we went to Mwamfuli CMML Church – Christian Brethren. It was all in Bemba except for Donald’s teaching and choir ‘A’ sang one song in English. Then we went to Mark and Carmen’s home for lunch. We will be staying there when they go home on furlough. Lunch was lovely and we even got to watch NZ tie with Italy! What a game. Even I was watching!

Tomorrow we start Katie’s school work. She has been really great here and has really enjoyed the power being out, boiling water, lighting candles etc. She has met Elizabeth (Rogers and Lucy Chama’s youngest daughter). Katie was hoping to meet her and on Saturday morning Elizabeth came and they spent the morning playing along with two other friends. People here love her and really enjoy listening to her trying to greet them in Bemba. I think it might be a bit hard to concentrate on school work with so many new things to see and do. The first day that I asked Katie to boil the water, she wanted to know how she would know that the water was boiling! Poor girl was too used to the electric jug turning itself off when it was ready!

On Wednesday Katie and I are going to go to Agnes’ preschool. It will be fun to see these little ones. Katie and I are really looking forward to it.Well because the power has been off we haven’t been able to send or receive emails. We are hoping to do this first thing Monday morning. Hopefully it will work. All this to say, that it isn’t that we haven’t had time but because of the power situation here, if you don’t get word from us.
That is all from Gwen for now.

Our time in Lusaka

Hey what happened to all your prayers – we had a bumpy flight into Lusaka hahaha no it wasn’t too bad.

Here we are in Lusaka! I have found it to be a bit more intimidating than Joburg. Here they have broken bottles on the top of fences as well as the electric fences! People walk by and just bump into you or push you out of the way! Of course they can also tell that we are not from here so try to charge a lot more money than what a local would have to pay – unless you are in a mall or somewhere like that. It is not all bad as we have met some really nice people as well.

Well all I can say is that you must have all been praying for us to get the work permits. We now have them and when we went there this morning it didn't look hopeful but we had a call just after lunch and were able to get the new documents in just under 30 minutes!! We are at the moment filling out our forms for new passports that will then have to be sent to the NZ Embassy in London for issuing. We have decided to apply for new ones (the ones we have now are Temporary Travel Documents) as to get visas for the US will cost way too much. We don’t have to have visas if we have proper passports.

Levy is now with us and Agnes and Hoggie are on their way from Samfya to pick us up. We will be leaving for Samfya in the morning. Levy said that is nice to finally meet Katie and I – it is nice for us to be able to finally meet him too.

Lusaka is dirty with lots of rubbish around even though Donald says that it is much better than before. There are a lot of women begging. A lot are blind and just sit there with their hands out. Either their families just don’t care for them or they don’t have any. The weather here is actually quite nice –warmish during the day and coolish at night. There are people outside shops trying to get you to buy their things and not to go into the shop itself.

For those who have been here – Manda Hill is yuck at the moment as it is has lots of construction happening and so it is very dusty and gross. It will be finished in November and will be very flash! However Arcades Mall is wonderful.

The motel we are staying at is called Marble Inn. It is comfortable enough but the best thing is that it is clean, has a shower and flush toilet!

Our first night here Katie and I had a burger for dinner at Manda Mall. The beef tastes quite different to ours – quite gamey. Last night we had a really yummy meal at Arcades Mall. Apparently Donald and Roger watched Hook at the movies here in the past.

Katie is finding the driving here quite amusing. People here just duck and dive everywhere. I have squealed a few times which was to the delight of the driver! Seat belts in the back of the taxis generally don’t work either! Crossing the street is another adventure everytime!

The other day we were walking past a construction site, that were blasting the ground. We didn’t know that when they whistled it meant that the blast was going to happen. Well when the blast happened I screamed and Katie dropped her ice cream much to the delight of the men. Donald said that we made their day!

For those of you who have been praying for our health- Donald has been fine. Katie and I have now recovered from the reaction to the anti-malaria drug. My diabetes is well under control and sugar levels have even come down a couple of points!! Thanks for all your prayers.

That is it for now. Our updates for the next three months will be from Samfya!
Gwen

Hot in Lusaka

Our time in South Africa was a real blessing, meeting with so many Christian friends and investigating ministry links. It has also been madness here with the world cup - a sea of colour and noise; flags, vuvulezzas, street sellers. Certainly a special time to be in SA!

We have arrived safely in Lusaka and are awaiting our work permit visas. The visit to immigration today located our applications (after some long time!!) - the booklet has not been produced but we have pleaded that this be done quickly so we can drive to Samfya on Thursday. The officer was very helpful and we trust to pick this up on Wednesday afternoon - please pray this comes through quickly so our plans can continue without delay.

There is an issue with our temporary travel documents as on our return via the USA, we will need visas as the US won’t accept the temporary documents without a visa. These are very expensive so we are going to try and get our new New Zealand Passports issued and then couriered up to Samfya. Please pray that this can happen in quick time.

Lusaka is hot in the day and cooler at night - lots of traffic, dirt, smells! We have managed to purchase a printer for use at Samfya - a small laser printer. It pays to shop around as the difference in price was US$100 for a $200 machine! Levy arrives from USA today and so we hope to ctach up with him this evening. Thanks for all your prayers.

Our last night in Joburg

Well what an eventful couple of days we have had. We left Joberg to go to Polokwane on Wednesday. On the way Lebo (the local girl we had taken with us) got us lost in Pretoria and we ended up in a not so nice place. We were all in hysterics and Lebo was mimicking the way we were asking for directions!

Well we got to Polokwane in the end. It is about 3 hours from Joburg. Donald has already told you some things but there are a few he has left out.

Lebo told us that she wanted us to go to her home and try some traditional African food. We told her that would be very nice thank you. If only we had known. She thought it was so funny to dish us up some Mopani Worms!!! yes you are reading right - WORMS! You will all be so proud of us as we did eat them! Not all of them but some anyway!

On the way back to Joburg we were stuck in traffic on an on ramp and we saw a girl in another car with a NZ flag painted on her cheek. We were waving out at her and she realised we were from NZ too and was waving back but was not watching where she was going and nearly hit the car in front of us! It was so funny!

Katie and I have reacted to the anti malaria drug and so we can't take them anymore!I really did feel quite ill, but thankfully Katie didn't get it quite so bad! We will now instead have to bathe with citronella soap and make sure we are very diligent with the insect repellent.

The soccer atmosphere here is just amazing and it really would have been fun to go and watch at least one, but we have been able to watch a few on tv. All the shops are selling all sorts of world cup soccer souvenirs. It is really amazing to see how many people are selling things at the traffic lights (or robots as they are called here). It is a wonder they don't get hit by cars. I don't know if you have heard the sort of horn noises while you have been watching the world cup. These horns are called Vuvuzella. They are very loud and people blow them anywhere - even in their cars and also in the malls!

In Joburg there are electric fences, razor wire and fences with spikes on them all over the place and especially around their homes. Most of the homes we have stayed in also have dogs. There are lots of security guards everywhere even at malls and in carparks. I thought that coming to Johannesburg I would be really scared because of what we see on the news, however I have felt really safe here even when we got lost!

We are not sure when we will be able to get internet connections from tomorrow so am unsure when we will be able to update the blog. Catch you later - Gwen

In Polokwane

Hi all - we had an eventful drive to Polokwane yesterday - got a little lost on the way and ended up in a dodgey area!! Last night we meet with the Samaria Mission team of Christ Baptist Church. What a blessing to see the work they are doing in rural Mozambique. There are many similarities to our work in Samfya so it has been good to learn from them. They are using New Tribes Missions material very successfully and this may have a real application in rural Zambia.

Today Donald has been meeting with Pastor Nicki Cortze and learning of the Seminary ministry. This would be a wonderful place to see teaching staff trained for Samfya, and indeed they already have a student from the Copperbelt in Zambia who speaks Bemba! Partnership with exisiting works here in Africa is essential as we plan towards the future.

Tonight we meet with Pastor Nicki's home group and will share from Colossian 3:1-4 and also talk of the work in Samfya. Tomorrow we head to Pretoria to pick up our new travel documents and stay with Pastor Joel James and also visit with Dr Wayne Mack and his wife Carol. Thanks for your prayers.

Ministry Visits

Greetings all, just another quick update to inform you of the various people we have been meeting with since arriving in Johannesburg. We have been staying with Tim & Michelle Cantrell and family. This has been a real blessing and we have learned about their ministry at Antioch Bible Church and joined them on Sunday as Tim taught through Ephesians 6:1-4. In the evening Donald briefly told the church about Samfya and then taught from 2 Timothy 1:6-10 - a young woman who had been coming to church for about 6 weeks committed her life to Christ. Praise the Lord for His amazing salvation - His purpose of grace!
We also meet with Chris & Megan Wooley on Monday. Chris is Pastor of Midrand Chapel and we were able to talk and share about church ministry and also share about the work at Samfya. What a blessing to be with men and women who love the Lord and are committed to God’s Word! This morning (Tuesday) Donald also met with Virl Tait, the Pastor of Grace Christian Church. We will be staying with him and his wife on Sunday night and will attend their evening service. Again the purpose has been sharing ministry, encouraging each other, talking about Samfya - it has been such a blessing!
Tomorrow we head to Polokwane and visit with Christ Seminary and Christ Baptist Church. There is the possibility of staff training from this Seminary plus the church is involved rural church ministry in Mozambique and there are some similarities with the work in Samfya - a good opportunity to learn from them.
Please keep praying - we trust our new passports will be available on Friday when we drive back down to Pretoria.

Ohhhhhhhhhh how exciting!!!

Well today we decided to go shopping (mostly just window shopping). We went to a very touristy place called Sandton. It is a HUGE mall. We were there having our lunch and Katie needed to go to the loo!!! Anyway we got back and sat at our table and a man came up to us and asked Katie why she had a NZ sweatshirt on. We told him that it was because we were from NZ! Well... it turned out 2 of them were from the 1982 NZ All Whites World Cup Team, the president of the NZ Soccer Federation and a media guy! They let us take their photo and also gave Katie a silver fern badge. What a treat although they weren't too impressed that we were on our way to Zambia instead of being there for the World Cup! They said maybe we could say a prayer to help them win their games!

Tomorrow we leave Joburg and head for Polokwane - about a 3 hour drive, it is also where one of the All Whites games are!

Our First Hiccup

Johannesburg is quite an amazing place. In some ways it could be NZ but in other ways it certainly isn't. It is a big city and there are very big contrasts in standards of living.

This weekend we realised that we didn't have our passport wallet anymore. In it was our 3 passports, some US Dollars and also our immunisation records!

We have had to go to a police station. That was an experience for Katie and I. The police officers here all carry pistols. So Katie and I were looking at all these police officers with their guns on their sides and in walks a police officer with a semi automatic gun! He just plonked it on the bookshelf and walked off to do something else. Well Katie and I were beside ourselves and the policewoman that we were talking to wanted to know what was wrong! Donald told her that our police don't carry guns and she wanted to know what they used when they were dealing with people.

After that on our way home we saw a tiny police car - our equivalent would be a Mitsubishi Mirage- and it had 4 police officers in it. It looked so funny.

Well we have now applied for our temporary passports (the reason we had to go to the police station was to get a letter to say that we had reported our passports missing). Hopefully we will pick these up on Friday from Pretoria. Monday is when we fly to Lusaka so we are praying that our passports will be ready. We will also have to apply for visas from Zambia to go to the USA as they won't let us in on a temporary passport. Oh well we just have to take things as they go.

Talk to you all later.

Safe Travels

Thank you for your prayers. We are now in Johannesburg and it is cold! On route we had a lovely night with Gwen's family in Sydney, and are now staying with Pastor Tim Cantrell and his wife Michelle. Arriving in Jo'burg Katie was pulled aside because her face temperature was detected as high. We were taken too an office to assess her - the temp. was 37.8 so no dramas and we were let go - she certainly had a long and eventful 12th birthday!

We now look forward to the next number of days, meeting many brothers and sisters in Christa and sharing about the work in Zambia.

June 2010

Hi there everyone,

Well this year is a bit different. Donald, Gwen and Katie are off to Samfya, Zambia for three months and then a few weeks in the UK and LA. Gwen and Katie have never been before so will be a very new experience for us. Donald hasn't been for this long before.

Donald will be teaching at the Bible Samfya Bible School and will also be able to get to know the staff a little better as we are there for a longer period of time. We will also be there for the Engineering Ministries International people who will be coming in September, who will develop a new plan for buildings and infrastructure.

Gwen will be homeschooling Katie and also be involved with teaching the women there.

Katie has the job of getting to know children from a totally different culture and will be able to encourage them. She would like to learn some of the games the kids play there and also teach them some of the games that we play here in N.Z.

Well we leave tomorrow for Sydney and are able to spend some time with Gwen's family. The next day is Katie's birthday and we will be on our way to South Africa. We are there for 10 days then fly to Lusaka and then have a road trip for about 8-10 hours to get to Samfya!

Well that's it for now.