So at the beginning of this month team Zealous Love made 3 goals. One of those was to travel to different cities to find Unsung Heroes. We didn’t know what exactly that looked like, but we had all separately prayed for The Lord to give us goals and that was a common theme that we received! That being said on Monday morning we left Lusaka and headed for Kitwe. Kitwe is a city in the northwestern province of Zambia about a 5-6 hour bus ride. And needless to say, Kitwe has been a blessing.
We came up here only knowing a missionary, Kayla (and when I say ‘knowing’ I mean a friend of mine gave me her email a week before we left), who works with college students but knew of a self-sustained orphanage (called Chande) run by Zambians. So her and Alyssa (her roommate) met us at the bus stop and was able to take us to this place called New Life Center to stay. We weren’t really sure what we were getting ourselves into, but y’all this place has been an incredible blessing. Beds, a kitchen, and it is quiet!! All were luxury after tenting it up the previous week. And let me tell ya, Charles and Josephine who run this place ministry are amazing. They were asked if we could stay there a couple days before we got here and they have treated us like family. Charles shared his story with us and told us about his ministry, and at that point you could see it in all of my teammates eyes. We were being housed by an unsung hero! The Lord had literally led us right to them. Cool side story about Charles: long story short, in 2007 he was praying and got arrested wrongfully and spent 4 months in prison. While at first he was very bitter towards God, God began to reveal the ministry He had provided Charles in prison. He was let go 4 months after being imprisoned and by that time he had led 86 people to Christ in the prisons!!! Dude has got it going on.
So a trip that started off with us only knowing of 1 Unsung Hero in Kitwe quickly grew. We met Charles, then we found out there was a boys secondary school for orphans a kilometer away from where we were staying, and then we met a girl named Irene that is combating sex trafficking in Kitwe!! So what was once 1 UH was now 4! All of which The Lord literally led us to. There was no research done on our parts, we just followed.
On top of all this Kayla and Alyssa made us dinner one night (and there was sweet tea! Praise.), we got to be a part of a church bible study last night, and tonight the Kim’s (a Korean missionary couple we met) are cooking us dinner!
The Lord has been at work and it has been mind blowing how He has pieced all these things together. Seeing how God is furthering His Kingdom in Kitwe, hearing their stories, and observing how members of the body greet, welcome, and love those from other countries has been very encouraging in my faith.
Team Zealous Love leaves today for Livingston to find some UH’s there. Please be praying for us that we may be the light of Christ and that we may continue to follow The Spirit to more Kingdom builders.
