Teams Travel

We enjoy more sunshine, more "sh'ma" (the Zambian favorite cornmeal dish) and plenty African smiles.
(Following are personal greetings from a few team members.) Brian Shaw is a great leader! We've accomplished more this year than previous years, and we are all keeping up and motivated, too!

The Ndola orphanage team departed Thursday and the teachers team met up with them Friday.
The rest of us are in Lusaka making a series of several day tours into remote villages.

The outreach team spent three full days in the first village of Chilamwe. On the third day Brian Karrick braved the cold water (despite leeches) and baptized 12 new believers in the river. Beth, Liz and Roxann taught the women the gospel and about prayer. Beth commented, "These women were such good listeners almost to the point that we didn't think they were understanding up, but they returned the next day for the baptism. Our interpreter said that is common for the women that they just stare blank faced at you." For Roxann the encounter was "awesome"!

A separate event for the outreach team went to a soccer clinic at a nearby school playground (partnering with Athletes In Action). While half the team played soccer with some 250+ youth, the rest of the team walked in and out of classrooms talking to the teachers and children. The highlight happened when the team reunited on the playground field where everyone gathered and Ashley shared the gospel to 300+.

Kristy, Amy, Marilynn, Sheryl, and Dave lead a highly successful conference for 100+ teachers grades K-12 in downtown Lusaka last week. Many of the teachers of K-10 never finish high school. The teachers liaised with Gavin Brennery from South Africa whose aim is to create a teacher certification program throughout Africa. The OPC team paved the way for officials to associate with the conference and for future collaboration with this kind of certification. This was a remarkable endeavor which proved the teachers conference more effective and production that even planned for.

Fred accomplished a successful training conference. The majority of church leaders and pastor's wives have zero training in the Bible whatsoever. The closing assignment Fred gave were for pastors to present some examples of preaching following the training. One exuberant pastor had us all laughing when he grabbed the microphone
and began preaching exercise so charismatically that pastors had to remind him, "Brother, we are already pastors!" We both agree this kind of training is especially beneficial because so few church leaders and pastors are actually ever trained. As for microphones, well, the saying goes:
"Give an American coffee
Give an Englishman tea
and give an African ... a microphone!"

Diane lead a two day women's and pastor's wives seminar on Bible Study Method. We were able to distribute Bibles for every participant, which was truly an exuberant moment when they realized the gift for them. I almost went deaf when burst out a shrill sort of yelling sound between their tongues and roof of their mouths.The word is out that we passed out Bibles and more people are asking for one. One grateful pastor's wife told me that she never felt excited to read her Bible until now after she has received this kind of Bible insight and training.

The outreach team finish the second village outreach today. The first day there were countless drunk adults, even some pastors, but the team pressed on and shared the gospel. The second day the team formed separate groups one for women, another for men, and another for children, and Brian Shaw taught the pastors. All encounters were much more positive and receptive. Today Fred, Diane and Marilyn will join the team. Fred is leading a one day pastor's seminar and Brandon is helping reach the pastors.

Liz: Please pray for endurance to keep up the pace of the busy schedule. Rod, I hope you get the oven fixed. Don't let the kids starve.

Beth: Thanks for praying for me and continue to pray for me and the team. I cannot wait to share the stories.
I love you and miss you, Joe!

Roxann: Family & Friends, We are at the orphanage [in Ndola]. All is well here. The sun shines everyday. Miss you.

Kristie Reeves: We are very excited. Please pray that the kids are as excited as we are and we can share together. Please pray for good times sharing and encouraging the Lord together.

Sheryl: We are doing great. We've been blessed with good health, energy and much happiness!! My specific prayer is that my bag would arrive. I am getting by with donations from team members. See you soon. Love, Sheryl

Successful journies

More sunshine, more sh ma (our cornmeal staple meal), and more successful stories for our team. Everyone is well.
Dave arrived safely yesterday and joined the teachers team who are reaching some 100 K-12 educators. Gavin from South Africa with a education NPO met our team to investigate the possibility of a collaborative effort to bring teacher's certification through African universities, which is a very positive venture. Cheryl, Amy, Kristy, and Marelyn each share positive reports from their sessions.
The Zambia University with Campus Crusade staff and our outreach team was very positive yesterday. John is seasoned with CC from Michigan, but was really glad to see how receptive the students were to our team. Clark and Erica were motivated that this encounter was much more positive than their attempts in the States. Darcie daily improves her ability to speak some Bemba (one of 70+ Zambian languages).
Brian will lead the outreach team to a village where they have ministered in the last few days and will have a baptism service in the river today.
Fred is on his 3rd successful day training to some 100 pastors in Kalingalinga at Deliverance Church.
Diane will lead the women's and pastor's wives conference starting at the same location as Fred tomorrow. We are able to give 100 Bibles to the with women participants and pastors.
Lee and Trina lead the orphanage team who are eager for their several day ministry in Ndola departing tomorrow.
We will keep you posted, but unfortunately the pictures are unable to be uploaded to this blog from this location. Please pray that the time is effective and productive and we keep progressing forward strongly. Love to all the families and friends from us all.

We Are in Zambia!

Dear Family and friends of the Zambia 2007 team,

Thank you for your prayers and support! After a grueling 24 hour+ flight we arrived safely in Lusaka on Saturday. Unfortunately, our bags were not quite so timely and it took another 24 hours for our checked luggage to arrive. Everyone had a great attitude about it though, and we jumped into ministry. The place where we are staying is right on the campus of the University of Zambia. Everyone is healthy and we are even overcoming our jet lag! The teacher's conference, village outreach, and pastor's conference are in full swing. All are well attended and we will keep you updated with stories. One of the highlights of our visit so far is the night we stayed with Zambian families. We got to eat "shma" (pronounced "sheema") a Zambian staple made of corn maize, and we exprerienced warm Zambian hospitality. We will fill you in on more details as they come. Please keep praying for us - God is answering your requests by allowing us to already see positive results in our work here and keeping us in good health. We love you and we will post more info on here soon!

Heading to Zambia Again!

It's been two years since I was in Zambia, but I had a good excuse last year...I got married!

Now I have a partner to accompany me. We are heading back June 15-June 30 to do training in a rural area outside of Lusaka.

We'll be keeping you informed!


Fred and Diane

Keep Your Money but Bring the Mojo

It's June 2005, and I’m in Zambia bouncing along in a jeep about three hours west of Ndola. Davis Chipoya is driving – he’s a Zambian pastor and Jesus Film staffer. Davis takes sick delight in driving as fast as he can through twisty bush trails just to see the expressions of terror on my face. We are heading out into the middle of nowhere to train rural pastors on how to study the Bible and prepare sermons. The trails get progressively worse until we roll into the village of Mputu and stop at a mud-walled church. It’s like going back in time to 17th century North America; there’s no electricity, no running water, just mud huts, subsistence farming, and a tribal culture. The whole western world could collapse and they wouldn’t even know about it (or care). I’m a big hit with the younger kids because I’m the first white boy some them have ever seen. Spiritually, it’s about 37 A.D. – right out of the book of Acts. The gospel has taken root, but the roots don’t go too deep yet. The pastors in rural Zambia are starving, but not for food. They are ravenous for biblical training. Even though they are incredibly intelligent, they have never had the opportunity to get the spiritual goods they need to take care of their churches. They are already thanking me for coming, and I haven’t even said a word yet. As we walk around, a couple of thoughts go through my head. First, I’m wondering, “What’s a schmuck like me doing training Zambian pastors...God must be desperate.” Next, I’m thinking, ‘Wow, I’m not watching somebody on Discovery Channel do this. I’m not reading this in a book…I’m really here in the middle of Africa!” It’s like that quote from Fight Club, “After a night in fight club [or Zambia], everything in the real world gets the volume turned down.”
‘Incarnation’ is a funky word. It means the act of giving bodily form and substance to something that is unseen. We don’t use it much unless we’re talking theology, but we need to get it back into our vocabulary. In the last 50 years the western church has fallen into a very, very bad pattern of missions professionalism. Missions professionalism is the philosophy that missions is best left to highly trained, highly called, special-force type Christians who will go out there and save the world. For the rest of us, our role is to stay home, send money, stick magnetic prayer cards on our refrigerators, and listen to Sara Groves sing about her missionary great-aunt. We think that unless we have a seminary education and hear the audible voice of God telling us to go that we should stay put. Of course, this is completely ridiculous. When Jesus said “Go and make disciples of all nations” he was speaking to an unsophisticated, rag-tag group. He was calling them to incarnational ministry. He wanted them to make disciples in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and to give, through their (unsophisticated, but Spirit-filled) presence, substance to the triune God who is invisible but real. He didn’t tell them to merely send people to the nations; he told them to go personally to the nations. And they did! In describing the first disciples, Justin Martyr said, “They were uneducated and of no ability in speaking. But by the power of God, they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach the word of God to everyone.” Two centuries later, the early church still knew nothing of ‘missions professionals.’ About 197 A.D. Tertullian wrote “We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you – cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market places, senate, forum – we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.” It seems like everybody in the early church was explosively focused on missions.
Pastors are walking and riding (bicycles) in from all over the bush. The church isn’t big enough, so we meet in a sort of natural amphitheater that has these Stonehenge-like rocks sticking out of the ground. For the first fifteen minutes of our ‘conference’ they just sit and stare at me. When I ask the interpreter (they speak lamba) what’s up, he laughs and tells me that they just can’t believe that this white guy is actually standing in front of them! We spend the days talking about the meaning of 2nd Timothy and practicing sermons. I sleep on the ground with them, eat shima (the Zambian staple made of maize) and play my guitar along with their worship songs. Zambian worship has these beautiful, heartbreaking melodies with 9-part harmony and complex rhythms. In defiance of circumstances, Zambian worship is full of joy and hope. They bless me way more than I could ever bless them.
The progress of these pastors is amazing. Many of them do not have Bibles, so they have to memorize scripture (can you imagine trying to be a pastor without a bible?). In a couple of days, their interpretation skills have improved dramatically, and the practice sermons show it. They tell me this is the first training they’ve ever had, and that white folks come to the cities sometimes, but they’ve never seen a white man come out into the bush and live with them. As I get ready to leave, some have tears in their eyes and say that my presence is evidence that God loves them and has heard their cries. Whoa. But that’s what incarnational ministry does. When we go to a hard place, humble ourselves, and live with the people we want to minister to, it echoes the nature of Jesus who did the same for us. We don’t have to have a master’s degree in theology – we just have to be committed to the truth and in love with our Lord. So stop just sending money, and go bring your mojo! Our mojo is the Spirit of God ministering through us (not someone else but US) with all of our weaknesses and inadequacies. Pick a place, a people and glorify the triune God, who is invisible but powerfully present, by being there.

Compassion and Colonialism

"Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet."- James Shikwati, Kenyan economist.

In it's broadest sense, colonialism is, 'a policy by which a nation maintains or extends its control over foreign dependencies.' I wonder if Christians like myself have sometimes been guilty of a form of colonialism in Africa...creating dependence rather than strength. There are more African intellectuals speaking out against foreign aid then ever before. I just read this article in SPIEGEL and it gives me a sinking feeling.

As those who believe in God, we need to serve in a manner that gives God center stage. If we are doing Christian work in Africa and we train people to be dependent on us rather than on God, then we are failing in our mission. Does that mean we quit giving and going? I dont' think so. But it means that we need to spend time soberly considering how we are giving. As I wrote earlier in my article on Live 8, we need to make leadership development a priority. Even more importantly, we need to keep directing the people we are serving to God. In Isaiah 48:8 God states that He will not "give His glory to another." If we allow people to see us as the means for their provision and the solution to their problems, we are making a god of ourselves. We shouldn't expect that the true God will continue to help us in Africa if we are not teaching people to depend on Him. We will only be with the people of Africa a very short time - God is with them all the time. More on this later.

Live 8

"The G8 leaders have it within their power to alter history. They will only have the will to do so if tens of thousands of people show them that enough is enough.
By doubling aid, fully cancelling debt, and delivering trade justice for Africa, the G8 could change the future for millions of men, women and children." - Bob Geldof of Live 8

I wish Bob Geldof was right and it was that simple. I commend everyone at Live 8 for their work and their intentions. However, the problem is a lot deeper than money. Even IF we canceled all the debt and increased the aid, it still won't solve Africa's problems. Don't get me wrong...I think we SHOULD reduce the debt in Africa and we SHOULD increase aid, but if we don't address the root issues we are throwing good money after bad. The United states gives Zambia approximately $250 million dollars per year in aid. There are only 10 million people in the whole country!
Where is all the cash from the United States and other countries going? You would think that all the money from the U.S. would be making a dent at this point. It's not going into the roads, or education, or orphanages, or hospitals, or AIDS prevention, or malaria research. Some would argue that it's all going to debt re-payment...that's part of it, but there is still lots of money unaccounted for. Go to the city of Ndola and look for the AIDS awareness campaign...you'll search in vain because there is no campaign. The problem is leadership...and I'm not talking about the president of Zambia. I'm talking about a lack of intiative leadership on the entire continent. Yes, there are incredible leaders in Africa, but not as many as are necessary given the scope of the challenges. Before we throw more resources at Africa, let's take the long, tough road of training leadership to use the resources (not hand-holding, not parenting...EMPOWERMENT). Otherwise we are going to be in the same place 20 years from now. Until the issue of African leadership is addressed, the money will keep disappearing and the people who need it most won't see it.
Here's a challenge to the producers, promoters, artists, and supporters of Live 8: First of all, thanks for your hearts and hard work. You are incredibly talented, highly-trained westerners. The poorest of you have more money than most of the inhabitants of the continent of Africa. The wealthiest of you are among the richest people on the earth. I challenge you to consider doing more than donating and raising money for Africa. Give the most valuable resource you own. GO to Africa yourself and use your skills. Adopt an African nation and use the knowledge you have been given to train Africans personally. Start an orphange, take on some public schools, work with a local church - develop leaders who can take over what you start and train others to do the same. That's how poverty in Africa will be stopped.

Raised by Wolves?

Even wolves would be better parents. Wolves (as far as I know) don't get AIDS and die and leave thousands upon thousands of their young without homes, love, food, clothes, education, direction, and dignity. Zambian orphans (the ones who were tough enough to survive) are growing up. They are becoming teenagers who are forming gangs that forage for food. We of the western world who don't know what it's like to go hungry for days cannot appreciate the desperation and determination that would drive someone to do anything for a meal. These gangs will probably start to make 'Lord of the Flies' look like a church youth camp. What is going to happen 10 years from now? Who is going to lead the country?
Christians have a monumental task ahead in Zambia (and all of Africa). This is the time for the people of God to step up and take care of the widows, orphans, and the oppressed. Many families in Zambia that are already stretched to the max have taken on an extra child or two. Even if they are taken in, orphans don't always receive the best of care. There is only so much food to go around at dinner time and sometimes the orphans get the short end of the stick.
They tell us that they get mocked at school for not having parents (if they're even lucky enough to have a school), and I hear that some of them have been 'adopted' by people who use them for slave labor. It's no wonder they form gangs to look out for each other.
The thousands of orphaned boys and girls in Africa are going to remember who took care of them - and someday they are going to be running things on the continent. If the church wants to have a witness in Africa 20 years from now, it would do well to consider what it is doing for orphans today. "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in His holy habitation..."- Psalm 68. Just as God cares for them so must we. More to come...

Getting Juju'd

In Zambia, the juju gets around. 'Juju' is the practice of magic used by witchdoctors, witches, traditional healers, AND an awful lot of Christians. Many Zambian Christians have one foot in the Bible and the other in traditional practices that depend on the favor of dark forces.
I heard a firsthand story about a Zambian Christian who had an intense pain in his abdomen. He couldn't get any relief from the medical clinics so eventually he went to see a witch doctor. The witch doctor cut him open, put some herbs and a little scroll with a magic incantation into the wound and sewed him up (with the herbs and the scroll still inside!). A few days later, the guy was healed. There's no good medical explanation for why he was healed. Shoving leaves and paper into your abdomen and then closing it up should lead to a bad infection. He believes (as do I) that something supernatural happened. That's why one of his Christian brothers got on his case when he saw the scar, and asked him "where was your faith in Jesus?" The healed man was ashamed he had gone over to the dark side for some help but said he needed healing at any cost.
I'm not judging this guy - I'm no better than him, and I feel for him. I think his struggle is a little picture of what all of us who are trying to follow Jesus go through. Western Christians run to ungodly stuff too...we just don't call it juju. We flirt with the world and it's beliefs and it's systems all the time. We sorta believe in Jesus and kinda listen to what He said, but when something comes along that we really want or we go through a tough time, we often put truth aside and run for the easy fix. Let me ask all of us a question: When we are in a tight spot (or there is something that we really want) and the only way to get out of the jam (or get what we want) is to disobey Jesus...what will we do? Who will we trust? Do we really believe that Jesus loves us and wants our best, or will we trust something else? I'm thinking it would be better to stay sick (or lonely, or poor, or fill in the blank) if that's what God wants rather than be healed by the wrong means. Anything that is opposed to Jesus is bad juju whether you're in Zambia or America. More later...

Cafe Musungu?

'Musungu' in Bemba (the tribal language of the Bemba tribe - a people group indigenous to the nation of Zambia) means "white boy." I just got back from Zambia (it was my 11th trip) and was called this over and over again by the kids...hence the blog name.