Well, sorry there are several updates all at once, but there was limited access to internet services in Africa. So now we are at a camp/hostel place in Lilongue Malawi. We will be here for three days for our first debrief. Our month in Zambia felt like it just flew by- but it was SO SO good!! We were blessed to start out in such an awesome place. The teams were somewhat split up, but there were three teams of us who started out in the town of Chipata. From there we also visited two other villages called Madzimoyo and Mtangulen. Each team was in one of the locations for about a week.
Team F.I.E.R.C.E. was the first team to spend the week in Chipata and it made such an impact on all of us.
Our main ministry contacts there were the pastor of the church we were staying at and his wife: Geofry and Martha. They also had a 7 month old daughter, Keke, who was just so adorable.
We also had some members in the church who acted as translators for us: Lukas 3, Lukas 1, Anderson, Thandi, and Mary. They really became like our family there.
The ministry we did there was varied, but we had lots of great experiences. The first day we were there we did street evangelism and we stopped to talk with one lady and her young daughter who was selling food by the side of the road. We had a good talk with her, and when we were done praying we looked up to see about 10 people just surrounding us and wanting to talk with us. I’m sure a lot of their curiosity was simply from the color of our skin, but it enabled us to explain why we were there and talk about Jesus. We met a lot of people who simply wanted prayer- people who needed jobs, or were having bad dreams, or people who simply were looking for a deeper relationship with God then they already had. A lot of people have heard of God and Jesus, but didn’t really understand who He is and the type of relationship that we can have with Him.
After we were in Chipata for a week, we went to a village pretty much out in the bush, with no electricity or water. While we were there, there happened to be two funerals in the village, so we were not able to do a lot of evangelism with the adults- so we mostly played with the local children- who followed us everywhere- and we taught them songs and told them Bible stories. We were able to go to a local clinic one day and clean and pray over people.Even though we did not always feel we were accomplishing a lot, we were really able to bond as a team and we started to really get to know each other better. As a team we are studying through Romans, and we will each be picking a different book to study together.
The last village that we visited was Mtengulen. we did have electricity there, and there was a well right near our building that we could get water from. We did a lot of children’s and sports ministry there- and were also able to do some door-to-door visits also. Liz, one of the girls who works with our contacts is in charge of a program called Living Ball- which is a soccer program that is able to go though the gospel using a specific ball with colors representing our sin, Jesus’ blood, being made new in Christ, and also our growth in Him. While we were in the village she held a soccer tournament there and we were able to help her with running it on that Saturday.
We had a lot of really cool experiences and we learned and grew so much! I will really miss Zambia and all of the new family we made there!
Please be in prayer with me for all our contacts and the programs we were involved in there, as well as our upcoming month in Malawi.
