Team HULK was not off to the Emerald City of Oz, nor were we there for merely one short day, but we did set out on a journey to Choma, Zambia for a few days packed full of life and excitement.
This February, my team and I had the opportunity to partake in what is known as Unsung Heroes month.The goal is to travel through a country searching for those who are faithful servants o God, all the while relying on the Lord to direct us in the right direction. We spend time meeting with people who are involved in ministry, in the hopes that God will provide new ministry contacts for the World Race to partner with in the future.
Within our first week in Zambia, we had multiple meetings, and one such meeting led us to meet Daniel from Word of Life International Ministries. Word of Life is an evangelical, church-planting and spiritual development driven ministry based in Lusaka, Zambia. Though their work, about three hundred churches have been planted all over Zambia. Word of Life cares very much about developing leaders in the church and helping people pursue deeper spiritual maturity, so they make it a point to have week or month-long follow-ups at each church plant in order to train and equip the locals to grow the church on their own. Many ministry projects have been born out of the work Word of Life is doing in different communities.
One such project is located in the rural town of Choma and the neighboring villages of Batoka and Kunjunj. In addition to the village churches that have regular services and door-to-door ministries, this community has developed an orphanage and weekly feeding program for at-risk youth. We had the pleasure of joining hands with the community at Word of Life in Choma for three days, two of which were spent diving into full-out ministry. After a day of bible study, door-to-door evangelism, hospitol visits, and leading a church service, we fell into bed exhausted. With a good night’s rest we awoke ready for another day of preaching and leading worship at different churches connected with the Word of Life community in Choma. We ended our visit by taking a tour of the orphanage and the farm that supports the weekly feeding program. It was a short visit, but it was jam-packed with various ministry opportunities and we certainly saw the Lord at work.
Through the time we spent in Choma, we were able to see the real-life effects that Word of Life Ministries has on a community. The churches we visited were planted by Word of Life, and the leaders we met were trained and metored by Word of Life staff. The orphanage and feeding program was a result of Word of Life’s desire to see needs met and offer the hope of Jesus to the least of these. The buildings at the orphanage are also used to run a pastor’s conference each year, which focuses on training and teaching leaders to preach sound biblical doctrine.
There is so much going on in Zambia through the work of Word of Life Ministries, and we only got a taste of it through our two busy days visiting Choma. It’s an incredible encouragement to know that God is moving in and through his people in Zambia and that because of the Word Race, I’ve had the opportunity to be part of it. I pray that more Unsung Heroes are found in the countries the Word Race ministers in so we can see and experience the Lord’s Kingdom as it is unleashed all over the world.
