That’s All Folks

Hi everyone, Carey here. This morning marks the close of a very successful trip. John and Sue are flying back to Australia tonight, while John W has a few commitments in South Africa to attend to before we fly out on Friday. We have just spent a couple of days with our orphan family in Mazabuka which has been wonderful. Sue (aka “Funny Mummy”!) was great with the girls, they loved having her around! And you can tell how much it means to the family to have dad come and spend time with them. I was also able to do some maths tutoring with the girls which was great.

On behalf of the four of us, thank you all for your ongoing support and prayers. We have been blown away by the amount of people who have been following us and taking an interest in the trip. It has been such an encouragement to us over the past month.

I leave you with one of my favourite photos from the whole trip, it features our entire Zambian family together for the first time in years.

Aussie partnership at work

“ALL FOR JESUS” bus

Some 4 or 5 years ago three PCV congregations pooled resources and bought CCAP Zambia Synod a 24 seater bus. Here it is – as strong as ever ...

Through constant use the bus wore out and the engine seized. Courtesy of recent well-wishes who said to me “Use this money for Bibles OR some other need of the ministry in Zambia”. This is it! The bus has had a complete overhaul and is now working fine. They use the “ALL FOR JESUS” bus constantly for evangelistic crusades, choir festivals, ministry to the sick and needy. Along the way it provides a small but steady income stream for the Synod as they carry goods for other people, NGOs or churches. So thank you: kind people of the PCV.

Bibles

Several people from PCV donated money this year to purchase Bibles for Zambia. Here they are! (At least, some of them).

With the total PCV amount we purchased Bibles in Bemba, Tumbuka and Chewa, and also some much-needed hymnbooks. Most of the rural congregations we’re visiting in Chililabombwe, Matero, Mazabuka have no income to purchase even one Bible. Can you imagine that? What you have done is place in the hands of each of 360 Christian believers a copy of God’s precious Word. That’s 360 lives changed! Well done, PCV. Eternity will reveal how this gift has helped these dear ones in Zambia. The need is on-going.

Final service

The church gathered on its new plot – picture a housing estate before nay services, roads or structures – that’s where we met in the open air for morning worship. Praise of God was in the air. We laid a foundation stone for the new church building and John S laid another stone to mark the new manse. We also presented the Bemba Bibles.

Farewells

Following a worship service full of joy and full of praise of God, we reluctantly left Chililabombwe for Lusaka. We plan to stay in Lusaka overnight then proceed to Mazabuka where we plan to meet the CCAP church leaders there and minister to an orphan family that I care for.

We can’t “take it all in” – the training sessions, the crusade response, the fire, the presentation of Bibles. But we leave confident that God will sort it all out and bless this church into the future.

Beer and spirits vs Bible and The Spirit!

An amazing night ... have I ever said that before? Yes, but this was truly amazing. But, as usual, I run ahead of the story.

Joy in the morning ...

These are truly beautiful people. About a hundred of us crammed into the CCAP building – a flimsy and airy structure that looks as though it could blow over in a windstorm. This is evangelism training. I extend my series on “What is the Gospel?” while John and Sue repeated their sessions each for a different audience. Such attentiveness and joy. Their singing is an inspiration to us. 

Each of the Presbytery ministers participate and their response is to say that we must repeat these presentations before the whole Synod when they meet in General Assembly. In a way I am surprised by their reaction – all I do is present a theological explanation of the Gospel according to the Scriptures.

The theme of my presentation is “You don’t need me”. My purpose is to encourage these dear people that they can understand the Gospel by understanding the Scriptures themselves and that they can evangelise Zambia better than we can. It’s been a humbling experience.

Fireworks at night ...

Have you ever preached against the music and noise of a sports club drinking bar? Picture this - on one side of the soccer arena: Christians from CCAP ... the other side: an open air sports club with amped-up music, drinking and lots of noise!

The choirs sang, the sun sank under the horizon, the preachers preached. I felt heavy, I sensed the distractions, I thought the children were noisy and the crowd less attentive than the previous night. But I enjoyed preaching. I always enjoy preaching God’s gospel in a way that would honour him. The opposition from across the paddock was making it hard. But little did I know that God was going to have the last laugh!

About ¾ of the way through my address – fire broke out. At the corner of the sports complex, a power pole caught fire and spectacular fireworks were coming from it! Sparks were flying everywhere - the night sky was alight. I preached on – pleading with people to remain. Saying something like: “This fire will only last a moment, but the love of God lasts an eternity”. Yes, it sounds 'corny', but it was the first thing that came to mind! I needed to keep the crowd!

Then, the fuse blew, the lights went out, the music stopped, the whole place went dark ... EXCEPT ... EXCEPT ... our side of the stadium! Yes, by the work of God, our lights and power remained. All around us was dark. The community was blacked out. THIS IS A TRUE STORY ... I have 500 eye witnesses. I was floundering a bit by this stage, but I babbled on. My job was to save the occasion and call the people to stay. 

The people came back. The stadium settled. I handed to John S who preached with the Holy Spirit’s power and with great conviction ... in the quiet: no drinkers, no music ... we had the night to ourselves. About 100 people came forward for counselling. We have no idea why each person came forward, but the pastors are following them up. Some came to know the Lord tonight. We are hoping that one of them might be a future “Stephen Lungu”. Will you pray?

THIS IS WHAT WE CAME FOR …

In one evening, it all disappears: the debilitating tiredness of waiting “all day” for things to happen, the weariness of nearly 9 hours on the road, the trauma of a car breakdown in the darkness of Zambian wilderness … ALL GONE.

This is the whole reason we’d come! But I rush ahead.

Morning hours are devoted to team training. Each minister of the Presbytery, the Synod Evangelism committee, the local pastor, singers from Presbytery, singers from Lusaka, counsellors, ushers, prayer intercessors and evangelists all gather together in the CCAP church for training. Such attentiveness as I “borrow” from Al Stewart’s presentation of “what is the Gospel?”

As I was talking I made a plan for the 2^nd session. I announced that we will split into two groups and that evangelist John (Steendam) and evangelist Sue would each lead a group through “Two Ways to Live” and then “Evangelising Children”. Great work John and Sue for a last minute decision. Good discussion followed.

By 5.30pm we gathered in a paddock (their sporting stadium) for the evening crusade. Here the choirs were singing and nearly 300 people had gathered for the event. And here the story unfolds … with power of the Spirit and with conviction I was able to preach the gospel of Christ. With all my energy and discernment I tried to please God with a clear presentation of his Gospel. It was my “old faithful” from John 10:11, the Good Shepherd.

Then, “cometh the hour, cometh the man” – John Steendam stands to preach the Gospel. And with fluency, conviction and with the Spirit’s power John preached like an experienced evangelist. How pleasing to see a man of God trying out new gifts for God in his 70s. Who says we’re too old for new ventures?

The Lord touched hearts this night. Amazing response. In the darkness about 80 people came forward to follow Christ or at least to seek spiritual help. We returned to our accommodation rejoicing. Praise God.

Carey Blog!

Hi all,

Well, yesterday. What a day!! Where do i start?? After getting up nice and early, meeting for breakfast at 7.30, the four of us "left" for Chililabombwe (trying saying that three times with a marshmallow in your mouth!!) at 9am. Now I put "left" in inverted commas, because I am not entirely sure the word has the same meaning here as it does back home! However i am assured by dad that we didn't actually leave late, we were simply "delayed", there's a difference!??

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we completed the drive (which we were assured would only take four hours! ) at midnight. Happy days! Although we were all a bit grumpy by the time we arrived, ok mostly me (i need my beauty sleep!) it was a great feeling to get here in the end, and sleeeeep! Amazingly we were still greeted by the minister and elder of the church when we got here - they refused to go to bed until we came! Zambians are very generous with their time.

Of course such a journey through central Africa would not be complete with out a few adventures along the way. About about, I suppose 8-9pm, probably about two-thirds of the way through our trip, I was hurtling down the road to Kitwe, nice and alert after downing a few red bulls we had found at the previous town :) . I would like to point out at this stage that i WAS NOT speeding, I was simply being efficient. Yes - there's a difference! Anyway the roads had been very good up until this stage, we were all very impressed with them! Unfortunately unknown to us, the road of this "short-cut" we decided to take, wasn't so fantastic (it looked good on the map!). So next thing I know there is a pot-hole large enough to swallow our entire car directly in front of us! Perhaps a 'small crater' was a more apt description of this thing, it was massive! And unfortunately it claimed one of our tyres (and the wheel!).

Ahh the "fun" of a real adventure! I suppose we can see lighter side today, wasn't a great feeling at the time though!

Thankfully after waiting about half-hour or so someone FINALLY stopped to help us, because for some reason the wrench in the boot didn't fit one of the nuts on the wheel! And an hour or so later we were back on the road!

Anyway, thanks to God we did get here in the end! Please pray for the team, especially the "Johns" as they become full-time evangelists for the next two days, preaching at the crusade that is to be run here. It promises to be the most full-on, draining, yet hopefully most rewarding few days of our trip!

Carey

Lusaka – first day

What a joy to meet again with our friends in CCAP Zambia Synod. Offering prayer in the airport carpark and then to the accomm lodge.

This continuing Presbyterian church is close to our heart and the humility and grace of the church leaders is warming to us.

CCAP Zambia has a rich history. In the late 19^th century, the father of Dr Kenneth Kaunda (Dr KK was the founding president of the Republic of Zambia) was a Malawian evangelist sent from the strongly evangelical Free Church missions in northern Malawi. KK’s father was one of several evangelists who brought the gospel to this land.

The converts and new churches spread southward and formed a denomination of churches called CCA-NR … the Church of Central Africa – Northern Rhodesia.

As Independence approached in the 1960s there was a parallel spirit in the church and most CCAP churches were expected to merge with other denominations to form a uniting church UCZ: United Church of Zambia. It was part of the emerging nationalistic spirit and it was considered unpatriotic to not join. But quietly and without being noticed a number of CCA churches remained “out” of the union and after 1965 became known as CCAP. They were willing to worship even without buildings to remain true to CCAP principles. Some feared being arrested by the government! CCAP Zambia Synod became autonomous in 1984.

Two CCAP ministries impressed us.

1. Synod Office complex

Here, at the CCAP owned farm, the church has built a chicken and quail farm in order to have self-sustaining capacity. Currently they raise and sell about 2000 chickens a month and have a steady market for them. Also they now have about 500 quails and over 2000 quail eggs – ALL from 4 quail! The potential is here for an income stream, but they probably need to expand the business some more. CCAP employs two men full time to run the business.

Bricks are being purchased for the completion of a new Synod office complex and a centre for rehabilitation and retraining of skills of prisoners. There is a nationwide CCAP “levy” at present that every CCAP member must provide 2 bricks for the buildings.

Synod has developed a very impressive strategic plan for the development of the Synod ministries. They shared this strategic plan with us and gave us the documents to bring home.

www.ccapzambia.org is their website where future plans may be seen.

Also, it was the day of signing a partnership agreement between CCAP Zambia and PCV (see photo below).

2.  Matero CCAP orphan care

Sorrento-Rye Presbyterian Church again this year donated money to CCAP Zambia for orphan care. These funds have been applied to Matero’s outreach and care ministry for orphans and other vulnerable children. For the last few years the congregation have offered schooling to the neighbourhood children who, because of their orphan status, have no chance of attending even government schools because of the entrance fee and the cost of uniforms etc.

With the arrival of the donation this year the church has immediately begun building a new classroom for over 120 orphans who gather at this school.
Such is the need of Zambia that this ministry of mercy could be repeated throughout the city of Lusaka and all over the land. The men and women of the church were busy mixing concrete in preparation for the bricks.

You will see in one of the photos that I was invited to lay the foundation stone. I hope I laid it straight. But I did talk about the Lord Jesus Christ who is the chief cornerstone of the church.

Thank you Sorrento-Rye for caring.

Last Day In Kenya... or so we thought!

Sunday wasn’t easy to “come down” from. The intensity of 6 hours of worship, followed by lunch and a meeting with the elders meant having left for church at 6.30am we arrived home for rest at 4.00pm!

We decided to use our day of rest to visit orphans in the morning ... the orphaned elephants. The Kenyans run a very special program here in nurturing baby elephants who otherwise would not survive in the wild. They nurture about 15 cub elephants - they have been rescued from the loss of their mothers to poachers. They require milk feeding every three hours, 24 hours a day!

Following this we visited the giraffe feeding centre which is a beautiful home for families of giraffes in which you can hand feed them. The highlight being: seeing a three-hour old giraffe running around the enclosure!

David Pearce has been very helpful for us and he reserved the co-pilot’s seat for Carey on a trip out West. I will let Carey tell the story.

… What an experience! David gave me a run down of all the different instruments in the cockpit and what they all used for, it was fascinating! We picked up a mission team from the States who had spent a few weeks at a local orphanage. Obviously a plane landing in this community was quite an event, it looked like half the village had turned out to see the spectical!  I was a tad nervous when our runway turned from tarmac to grass halfway through the landing! But David reassured me this was one of the better airstrips MAF uses! Being a small part of what MAF do on a daily basis was an amazing privilege, it really is such a vital ministry, and these guys do it remarkable well. It was very refreshing to stop and pray for a safe flight before takeoff, they certainly don’t do that on Qantas! Although I did tell David that I thought the in-flight movie selection could be improved…

…

We took David and Lisa to the Ethiopian restaurant and then the Java coffee house for dinner.

Early rise at 5am (even ahead of the call of the mosque!) and the usual struggle with bags and taxi and checking through security at the airport ... to be met by a very patient Kenyan Airways man who explained empathetically that the flight would not go today but tomorrow!

So they've paid for rooms at a hotel in Nairobi. They paid for internet use and for three meals!

Although it holds the program in Zambia for a day - I think we'll cope OK!

We’ll leave you with some photos David took during our visit to the game park the other day,

John and Carey