Sunday Service and a Day of R&R

Sunday’s are always nice in Zambia, as it gives the team a day of rest and some time to fellowship not only with the missionaries, but the local people and the children at the orphanage.  After breakfast, we left for Mukumba church, a short 20 minute walk away (that is short around here).  We listened to Jako continue his Sunday school lesson in Genesis and Bill was gracious enough to prepare a message on how to pray, using scripture from Matthew regarding the Lord’s prayer. 

“Pastor Bill” with translator Fanwell

Fred was able to take a lesson he had prepared from the TeamKid curriculum on Noah and the flood this morning to talk with the children during their Sunday school lesson.

Fred, with translator Charles

Pastor Petros and his brother Fanwell were sad to see the team leave again and it was a bittersweet farewell, as this was our last day in church before we leave the bush on a few short days away (Wednesday)!

  Pastor Petros (right) and his brother Fanwell (left, who is also a pastor)

During church service, they offer anyone willing to stand up and give testimonies.  Karen gave a “report” on the eye ministry and encouraged the church to follow up with the new believers, emphasizing the importance discipleship!  Katie gave a small testimony on her Jewish heritage and how she can still be Jew, but also be a Christian.  It was very well spoken, with scripture to boot!  Pastor Petros was excited to meet a “Jew” and thanked her for her testimony.  Another man stood up in front of the congregation and sang 2 songs in the English language.  It was wonderful to see him sing in our language, just as we try to sing in theirs!

Dean, Steve and Bill speaking with the man who sang the songs

The afternoon was restful.  Some took cat naps and others congregated in the kitchen chopping vegetables and preparing food for dinner.  Odds and ends were also completed around camp, like building shelves in Jako’s workshop and small projects around camp.  Fred went to the orphanage again with Alyssa to continue working with Precious.  She is enjoying his help and she looks forward to him coming up their daily to work on her reading.

Alyssa, Jakob and Amber even received haircuts today from Katie!  Isn’t it wonderful having a hairdresser on the team for a quick trim while in the bush!?

Katie cutting Amber’s hair

Tomorrow we will be completing more sand runs (this time they are going to take a vehicle instead of the tractor to try and help cut down on travel time).  We haven’t been able to start on Alyssa’s roof just yet because the supplier has not been able to deliver the wood.  They are supposed to bring it tomorrow, so maybe Tuesday we will be able to start putting together the rafters for the roof.

We are also excited that we will spend the next 2 days doing the hut-to-hut discipleship!  Our eye ministry took longer than expected, so we were not able to start it last week as planned.  This afternoon Jako sat down with several of us (Karen, Katie, Ben, Ethan and Bre) and trained us on how to speak to the Tonga people while in their homes.  We also familiarized ourselves with a program called “Sharing Jesus Without Fear.”  It is simply asking questions and letting the Holy Spirit talk through reading scripture to help people understand the importance of following only Jesus (which is a big deal here, since they have many gods). 
Tomorrow we will send the first group of people out and begin the ministry, so please continue to pray for us!  I know that many of you have been praying daily for all work and ministries while on our trip – so please add an extra special prayer for this new ministry of hut-to-hut discipleship that we will be starting tomorrow! 

A few of us also completed a prayer walk around the property today.  For about 30 minutes, we walked quietly around the entire property (using the roads nearby) praying for every aspect of the Mission of Love.  It was a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the Lord to pray for this mission; from the orphanage, to the missionaries, to the church and much much more!

Tonight we will be heading up to the orphanage for dinner and our daily dose of “nshima.”  Ryan took the left over meat from the goat and made a stew, so we will be dining on this (with cabbage) as well.  We will then spend some more time with the kids doing a bible lesson and playing some games before coming back to camp for our debrief and reading of the “comments” from the blog around the campfire!  So please know we do read them – so keep posting!

Until tomorrow…

Zambia Team 2011