March 29, 2012

A Day in the Life of Team Zambia

In the next room, I hear the scurrying and pitter-patter of little feet descending from their bunk bed.  There is whispering and the movement of toys; I can just barely make out the conversation, most of the time it is about princesses or cooking. We begin our routine with filling the electric kettle to boil water for coffee  and sit down at the table with our Bible looking for a Word for the day.  Within 20 minutes three families all with young children are converging into one house (Pr. Renaldo and Charity Brown’s).
As we sit down in their living room, we are beginning a journey that takes us around the world. This is not some transcendental, new age idea; but praying for people and faces that we are connected to and know around the world. We are praying for fellow missionaries and church members and bringing them before God. After praying we fire up the DVD player and listen to a recent message from the headquarters of our ministry. It brings encouragement and connection with the pulse of the ministry. Other mornings we listen to an old Bible college class  titled with 3 letters that most any Greater Grace Member knows: ABD (Applied Bible Doctrine), a staple of the ministry. As the class finishes, we go over any in’s our outs of the ministry as we are gathering up are children who have been playing in the next room or coloring quietly.  “Who needs a visit?” “Can you give Amos a call?” “Has anyone visited Jimmy lately?” These are the kinds of questions we are asking with one kid under our arm and picking crayons up with the other. We all file out of the Brown’s house to our respective homes.

 For the Arman House this is the start of school for the day.  The school is a bilingual school (French and English) in which Julie and I are the teachers. Bible, English, and Math are the first classes of the day. Then social studies is done at the main post office where we evangelize.  What better way to teach the kids about their society, than to win them to the Lord. Lately, we have been doing sketch board (painting and street preaching); and then we try to sell the painting as a joke. The funny thing is that we had one person who seriously made an offer. We told him that the first painting was on the house (we’ll see if he comes back).  On most days we come back home and Julie finishes school in French, but at least one day a week we do a family visit. This is especially fun because an unsuspecting church member gets invaded with the whole family. The day ends pretty early in Zambia. Not long after the sun goes down, life in the city grinds to a halt. Usually by 7:00pm we are back at home eating dinner and putting the kids to bed soon after. Depending on the day, mixed into all of this are church services and Bible college classes.  A lot of activity is happening but underneath is peace in our heart and a motivation of God’s love. We see how Christ lived and we realize we have His live in us guiding our every step.


Happening in the next few days and next week:
-Our Annual Conference ZAMCON next week on Easter weekend! 
-Our Bible College Graduation during that weekend-about 30 students are graduating.
-About 20 South Africans from the Greater Grace Church in Pretoria are driving up next week to be with us.
-Pr Scibelli and a few others from America will also join us for this time!


BREAKING NEWS: Chris had a meeting today with the ambassador to Malawi in Zambia and he was very friendly and supportive on the vision for Malawi with Greater Grace. He was very helpful and offered his help with the registration of the church there. Amazing! We are praying that he will come to our graduation next week!

                                                       Fred and Eunece-Friends from the Church
                                                                                
                                                                                       Our Street

                                         Our house- we are in the back house of Pr Renaldo's Plot and house

                                                     Outreach in Town- Sketchboard at the main Post Office

On a Visit: Pr Victor and his wife Devote's house- they are from Burundi and have been in the Church here since the beginning. Pr Victor went to our Bible College, graduated and was ordained a few years ago. They are amazing friends. 

                                               Going to Pr Victor's store -little local supermarket

 And yes the girls did not leave empty-handed-they left with a huge bag of "Tinga-Tingas"-Zambian savory Popcorn!

                                                                        Beautiful Lusaka sky


Today was TEAM PICTURE DAY
Team Lusaka 2011-2012

                                                            The Brown Family

                                                               The Tanguays
                                                                 
                                                                                    Our Family

                                                                                      Our M.K.'s

3 comments:

  1. Wow, God Bless you,in this service. I love Africa, and I pray for him, that if God wants to send there. Great blessing to see and read about the services of mighty God in Africa,and especially in Zambia.

    God bless you!

    Eliot (from Hungary(Szeged)

    ReplyDelete