Final update from our six month team.

Sunday 30^th June-Sunday 14^th July:

Sunday started with all of us going to the church here on campus, NCF. It was strange after such long Zambian services for church to be finished at 10:30! We enjoyed an afternoon resting after a busy week. Monday morning Tim and Jim went to play golf with our friend Canadian Kris to celebrate Jim’s birthday. They both hit some nice shots but they were vastly outnumbered by the bad shots! While they played the girls relaxed at home and made the most of the last we will see of the sun for a while! Natalie and Jo started making their Zambian bathroom mats with scraps of material.

Tuesday Jo, Natalie and Tim went to the last ever hut-to-hut. It was the most amazing one of them all! We saw the awesome power of God as we cast 4 demons out of a woman who used to come to the church. It was a really special way to end what has been an incredible ministry. In the afternoon we celebrated the public holiday with Bill and Marci by playing board games and just hanging out with the very poor street boys.

The rest of the week saw our last lecture on Jeremiah with Henry and our last ever cell group in Kamfinsa which was a really joyous time. Jan and Jim spoke on prayer and then the hosts provided us with coke and sweet potatoes. It was so humbling.

Friday saw us visit the lifeline play group for the last time and we decided to bless them by buying some new toys and a sturdy toy box to keep them in. That should be an improvement on the broken cardboard box they were in before! The children were amazed at the new toys and didn’t stop smiling the whole time. Tim and Jim also went round the township to fix some of the pumps they have been installing.

Sunday was a sad day for all of us, our last service in Kamfinsa. Natalie led the word of encouragement and Tim preached. We gave them our presents and left with heavy hearts and tears flowing.

The final week:

The final week we continued to say goodbye and started the unenviable task of packing up all our gear! We have all had such an amazing journey in the past six months, learning more about God and ourselves. We have had some amazing highs and some sad lows along the way, but it has been worth it to see what God can do in these communities. We have LOVED our time here in Africa and without a doubt it has gotten under our skin and into our hearts so watch this space! Thank you for reading and all your support- we are looking forward to telling you about it in person when we get home. Please pray for safe travels and we will see you soon!  Jo, Tim and Natalie fly home 14th  arriving 15th.  Jim and Jan follow on Thursday 18th after visiting Mambilma where Jim grew up!

Remember, GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME, AND ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD!!

Love from

Soapbox AQ team 2013

24^th – 29^th June

Can you believe we only have 2 weeks left - the time seems to have flown by!

Monday 24^th

Our day off was much appreciated, as we were all feeling tired.  In the evening we provided a lovely meal for Andy and Eira Patching, the big boss and his wife from Isubilo, involving lots of great stories and laughter.

Tuesday 25^th

Back to our usual ministries.  Tim and Natalie went to Isubilo to continue with the mural in the shape of a Cross, and to paint a blackboard onto one of the walls.  Jim went to Kamfinsa to see Pastor Albert and Jan and Jo went to St Anthony's, where the children were so excited to see them after 2 weeks away. Jan went into the school room to help the teacher. It was wonderful to see them all again. In the afternoon we were once again inspired by Lene's lecture on Fasting.

Wednesday 26^th

Jim, Jan and Tim went to Farm Fresh while Jo and Natalie painted some animals in the bigger room at Isubilo. In the afternoon we had a change of programme as we went to Marcie and Bill Hoover's to work alongside her ‘nephews’ who are Bus Boys.  Jim, Tim and Jan had a great time helping them make crowns following on from the story of Esther.  The girls arrived in time to see the nephews sing happy birthday (The BIG 60! or as the boys sang 3 * 20) to Jim, followed by the traditional Zambian soaking with water.  Bill and Marcie invited us to stay for an evening meal, where we played Trivial Pursuit amongst many hysterical stories of their life before mission!

Thursday 27th

At Kamfinsa this week the team helped with shelling the maize, getting the ears of corn off the cob.  It was very dusty work, we called it African Snow!  In the afternoon, Tim, Jo and Natalie went to Isubilo to continue painting while Jan and Jim did the week's shopping.

Friday 28^th

We all went to Lifeline. Jim and Tim tried to help Royd fix the pump at the playgroup, but too much rubbish had been thrown down it and it will need cleaning out before being fixed.  Jo and Natalie went off with Elizabeth and the volunteers to visit a HIV lady suffering with achy legs and blurred vision. They gave her some words of encouragement and prayed with her before joining the rest of the team playing with the children at playgroup.  In the afternoon the whole team went to St Anthony's. Tim played football, Jo and Natalie cuddled the babies, and Jan and Jim played with the children in the Cerebral Palsy unit.

Saturday 29^th

Jim hired a minibus to take members of Kamfinsa church to a conference in Luanshya.  We had been told there would be a maximum of 14 passengers, there ended up being 24! This meant a couple of trips to get them there. The blue minibuses are very common in Zambia but not usually driven by a 'musungu' white person, Jim got lots of attention with people trying to flag him down for a lift. Meanwhile the rest of the team went to Isubilo for the morning where Jan and Tim helped to harvest the Maize with the children while Jo and Natalie continued working on the painting, it is very nearly finished.   The evening ended with an Indian meal to celebrate Jim's birthday.

PRAYER POINTS:

Energy for the team to finish our ministries well.

Fidis’ Foot Wound.

Finalising the projects for the summer team

News for Zambia.

LOCAL PROJECT WEEK AT ISUBILO- 17^th-23^rd June

Our local project saw us redecorate a prayer room and a youth room at Isubilo.

After enjoying a relaxing morning on Monday after our busy week in Kamfinsa, we also decided on paint colours and went off into town to collect enough to see us through the project. For the smaller prayer room we decided on a calming pastel blue and for the bigger youth room we chose a brighter yellow to cheer it up and draw the young people to use the space.

The prayer room is used every morning by the staff and volunteers as a meeting place before their busy days begin- we wanted it to be a space where they could centre their thoughts and meet with God.

The youth room is currently only used on a Monday as a baby weighing room, where mothers, babies and staff meet. We thought the yellow would give the room a warm and welcoming feel. Like we have said, the room is a good size and we are hoping that by giving it a lick of paint, we will encourage the youth of the CYC to make good use of its potential. They have recently started different clubs on a Saturday morning so before we leave we might see the drama or music club in there, making it their own space.  

On Tuesday, we all started washing down the walls, getting ready for the undercoat to go on. By midday Tim started rollering on the undercoat while the rest of us carried on scrubbing. Soon we all joined him and we were speeding along, working hard as a team, not stopping until both rooms were completely white.

On Wednesday, the colours started to go on the walls. The team split and we worked on both rooms at the same time. Tim quickly earnt his crown as ‘Best and Fastest Roller’, while Jim, Jan, Natalie and Jo tidied up the edges and painted in the cracks! It was handy that being in such a warmer climate, it wasn’t long before we could start on second coats so there was always something for us all to be getting on with. Our Zambian friend Malessi also showed up in the afternoon to lend us a helping hand- the more the messier!

On Thursday, Jo and Jan were excused to attend cell group in Kamfinsa, while Jim, Tim and Natalie returned to carry on with the project. Today was an important day for the Prayer Room as Natalie was set to start painting a designed cross mural onto one of the walls. The team therefore went armed with the laptop, USB, projector, fresh paint and new paintbrushes, only to find a local power cut awaited them. After a quick prayer against anything that was trying to stop us from painting the cross, we decided to crack on and finish in the youth room. We managed to get a third coat done with some more help from Malessi and her twin Esneya, before making a start on re-glossing a couple of the window frames.

On Friday, we all took a break from the paint fumes. Jim, Tim, Natalie and Jo visited Kamfinsa to lend a hand with last weeks project. The boys got to work nailing in the iron sheeting on the Hammer mill’s veranda, under the watchful eye of Pastor Albert. Meanwhile, the girls helped the men prepare some of the soil ready to make into bricks for the new shop. The four of us ended up helping with the water carrying to make the soil mouldable and left after seeing the first pair of bricks made- only another 2498 to go..!! Across town, Jan visited Lifeline and ended up going out on 3 homecare visits, spending time with people that were very ill.

On Saturday, all action stations back at Isubilo and the painting continued! We were able to project the cross image so we drew the outline onto the wall and Natalie started to fill in the words. The design basically was made up of words in lots of different fonts, describing the character of God, which made of the shape of the cross. The rest of the team added final touches to the window frames and cleaned up.

The design is not yet finished so will be completed during the next week, as will the giant blackboard we want to paint onto a wall of the youth room along with a height chart for the mother and baby group. We are also hoping to finish with nutrition and body posters to replace the papers someone had previously stuck up and to bless the rooms with doors! Watch this space..

Prayer Points;

-       That time is found to complete the project without taking away from the normal programmes.

-       Continued good health for the whole team.

-       Projects for the summer team.

-       That we will know God’s plan for our futures as we start to think about returning home.

-        

Sunday 9^th – Sunday 16^th June

Our week as TRUE Zambians!

This week we had our Local Project Week in Kamfinsa, the rural village we serve regularly in. We started the week with a brilliant Sunday church service where Jan shared the word of encouragement on the armour of God, before we headed into the village on Monday with our tents, camping gear and much needed firelighters (which we almost forgot!). The village has no electricity, no flushing toilets and no drinking water suitable for our western stomachs, so we arrived, as fully prepared as we could be, for a week living as true to the village life as we could.

Our first task after setting up camp was a hunt for firewood. Pastor Albert took the guys 5 minutes down a track road and just stopped, seemingly nowhere, walked off into the bush and picked up random pieces of firewood from a small field. Pastor Albert even came back carrying a small tree on his shoulder! Having a car made things 10x easier as they usually would pick up only one or two big branches and carry them back to their house on their head or the back of a bicycle. That night, beside our warm, glowing fire we watched the beautiful African sunset burning red as it sunk from the sky. We were struck by the awesome vastness of God’s creation as we looked up at the thousands of stars overhead and ate our dinner.

Tuesday morning we were all woken up at 5am to the sound of members from the church having an early Morning Prayer meeting. What a great start to the day- waking up to people singing praises to God! With that great start, we all kicked into gear and started hacking into the tough soil to create the foundations for a village shop, which will cleverly be named Pick & Pray (the local supermarket is called Pick & Pay!). Along with digging the foundations we went and found supplies of cement, stones and sand, all ready to start laying the foundations the following day. Late afternoon Natalie and Jo had the privilege of sitting in on the end of a woman’s church meeting. The women had such joy for God and were up dancing and praising Him, with lots of laughter. It was so great to witness and fun to join in!

The following day Jim and Tim picked up more building supplies from town, Jan helped out in the school and Natalie and Jo carried water (on their heads! Real Zambian women!), to the builders, which involved more hard work than just turning on a tap- but it was well worth it as the cement was mixed and the foundations were laid! Jo was also able to redress Fidis’ wound and spend some quality time with her. In the evening Pastor Albert and his wife became honorary team members as they joined our Bible study.

Jan and Jim went off to cell group on Thursday, about an hours hard cycle away, where 20 adults showed up plus children and babies. Jim spoke about how we see ourselves and how others and God see us. He used a mirror, which the children loved looking in. A man who has been paralysed for two years was brought on the back of a bike, to the cell for the first time. We spent time praying for him, and will continue to pray and believe God for his healing.

Meanwhile Tim and the main builder took yet another trip to town for more building bits, while Natalie and Jo did a spring clean of the Hammer Mill and collected blocks from the next village.

On Friday we all helped to cement in the wooden posts for a veranda over the Hammer Mill. Jim and Tim had fun learning to measure things with long grass replacing a tape measure!

Every evening before sunset we had been kicking the ball around with some of the Zambians, and on Friday night we had a 5 a side match with some of the younger guys who had returned for the weekend from school. Everyone was playing in bare feet with a now flat ball. LOTS of fun! It ended as a draw when the muzungu’s (white people) could no longer see the ball in the dark!

It was Jan and Jim’s last night in Kamfinsa and we invited Pastor Albert and all his family around our campfire for a lovely evening of hot chocolate, popcorn and marshmallows. What a treat!

Saturday morning we all returned to MFA for our morning lecture on Jeremiah. Tim, Natalie and Jo returned to Kamfinsa to watch Zambia play in a world cup qualifier match with Pastor and friends. We turned up with some petrol for the generator and managed to watch half the game before the TV started smoking! We listened to the remainder of the game on Pastor’s radio- T.I.A! (This Is Africa) and these things unfortunately happen on a daily basis.

Tim, Natalie and Jo’s last evening in Kamfinsa was spent around the fire with Pastor Albert, Phoebe and Dennis (the youth pastor of the church and a very good friend), sharing testimonies, talking and laughing.

We finished our week- as we started- in church. It was an AMAZING service, where the joy of God was really felt. There was a visiting speaker and the church was alive with singing and dancing (where Natalie and Jim got their groove on at the front!). Unfortunately we left the camera in the car, so you will just have to take our word that Jim was up dancing with the ladies! After the service the ladies of the church had cooked us a wonderful large meal of chicken, cabbage, nshima and rice. We felt very humbled, especially after seeing how little food they usually eat on a daily basis compared to us.

The week of sacrificing all our comforts really made us appreciate how privileged and grateful we are for simple things that we take for granted; taps and clean running water, a shower, plenty of food and a shop just down the road if we want something extra and a toilet seat! But on the other side it has also made us realise how much we are lacking in our own towns; the peaceful surroundings, the amazing display of Gods creation while sitting out under the bright stars, the real sense of community, where everyone knows their neighbour, willingly helps out with jobs that need doing and greats everyone they meet. What an amazing, insightful and inspiring week.

Prayer Points

Duncan and family - his daughter died while we were at Kamfinsa

Fidis' foot - for complete healing

Jonas - paralysed man brought to cell

Painting project at Isubilo

Continued health for the team in their last month

Blog 20^th May – 8th June

The early part of the week was the end of a very long process of getting our visas! But by Tuesday we all had the correct documents to stay here until July. Praise God!

 On Monday we invited Pastor Albert and his whole family round for a huge meal. It was great to treat them and see them in a more relaxed setting. On the Wednesday we had a heavy days hoeing at Farmfresh but it was all worth it for another great Zambian meal cooked by Zenia.

On Friday Tim and Jim recruited the help of Kris from Lifeline to finally fix Pastor Albert’s water pump. He was really grateful to have his clean water back. The girls had a nice time with Lifeline, meeting one of the volunteer’s new born baby.  In the afternoon the girls went to St. Anthony’s while the boys had a really relaxing (yet poor quality) 9 holes of golf with Kris at Ndola golf club.

On Saturday morning Tim’s brother-in-law Steve, and his father Phil came out to stay with us for a week. We introduced them to Africa with a 3 and a half hour church service at Kamfinsa on Sunday morning! On Monday Jan and Jim had a quiet day while the other 5 went to the sunken lake. It is a huge lake in the middle of nowhere, which no one knows how deep it is. We had great fun finding it down little dirt tracks and an awesome time jumping in to the water from the rocks. On Tuesday Jim, Jan and Jo went to St. Anthony’s Orphanage spending time mainly in the cerebral palsy unit. Steve and Phil joined Tim and Natalie on hut-to-hut where they met with a group of people that are struggling with addiction to alcohol. After praying for them Tim and Natalie shared how they should come back to church.

When Natalie, Tim, Steve and Phil returned to lead the bible study on Thursday some of the people they had met on Tuesday were there. Tim and Natalie spoke on worshipping God with an honest heart and one man came forward for prayer for help to stop drinking. It was amazing! In the afternoon we introduced Phil and Steve to St Anthony's. 

 On Friday, Jan and Jim went to Lifeline to work at the playgroup while the rest of us started our epic journey down to Livingstone and Botswana. We spent all day Saturday in Chobe national park, seeing so many animals we couldn’t keep up! We camped overnight in the park hearing the lions roaring all around us! We travelled back to Zambia in the morning and went to Victoria Falls for the afternoon. While they were there, Tim proposed to Natalie and she said YES!

Mean while, on Friday afternoon, Jim and Jan left for a relaxing weekend at Kapysha Hot Springs. They had an amazing time relaxing by the river and soaking in the warm water from the underground springs. It was just how they imagined the Garden of Eden to be with all the amazing vegetation and the beautiful river flowing by.

They arrived back in Ndola on the Monday evening in order to go hut to hut with Pastor Albert at Kamfinsa on the Tuesday. The afternoon was spent along with the rest of the team listening to Lene give her first lecture on Fasting.  The rest of the week followed its usual pattern with Farm Fresh Wednesday morning.  In the afternoon at Isubilo we met Oliver who will be doing some Puppet workshops with the children over the next few weeks.   On Thursday Jim, Tim and Jo went to Kamfinsa to do some painting on the teacher's house as it still hasn't been finished.   Friday we all went with Lifeline to Chipulukusu to run the playgroup.  On Saturday after Isubilo we enjoyed our first lecture from Henry Bambala on the book of Jeremiah.  In the evening we invited our neighbours Zenia, Emmanuel and family for a meal.  We had typical English food, cottage pie or pizza followed by apple crumble and custard.  Afterwards we enjoyed playing games with our Zambian friends.

Prayer Points:

·       Dwindling numbers at Isubilo on Wednesdays.

·       Our upcoming week camping and working at Kamfinsa.

·       The Landcruiser - we have a cracked windscreen and the battery has had to be replaced.

·       Continued good health for the whole team.

On Monday Jim went off to immigration (again) to try and sort out study permits.  This was to be a daily occurrence, teaching patience and endurance. Each day they said come back tomorrow. On Friday morning Jim was told our applications had been turned down, he appealed and was told to bring the team back at 1400 hours. We all spent the whole afternoon at immigration and at one point they wanted to serve us with a notice to leave the country in seven days! After putting everything into practice on what we have been learning with Lene to praise in ALL circumstances, we began singing praises to God- Fortunately we made a contact while in Lusaka who works high up in Immigration who has influence and eventually the whole thing was resolved! AMEN. We were told to go back again on Monday as it was now too late to process.  We will finish off the story in the next blog!

Other highlights or incidents in the week:

 Jan and Jo tried to bike from Baluba Farm to Kamfinsa but Jan's bike had a flat tyre- they drove the vehicle into the village which allowed Pastor Albert to collect some charcoal- thankyou God! We went to visit a church member who was having marital problems. They were able to encourage them both and speak God's word into their situation. He also shared with us he had received a generous gift which will help him buy the plot of land to build a house. This is a real answer to prayer as we know he has been wanting this for a long time. Tim and Natalie were able to drop the various wheelchairs, crutches and walkers that were donated by Lifeline to ST Anthony’s cerebral palsy unit. The workers were very grateful and the children put them to use straight away!

At Farm Fresh we were back to heavy labour - hoeing the ground like true Zambians again.  Our lunch was chalaka (Zambian delicacy), caterpillars and nshima!  In the afternoon at Isubilo we once again met up with Danish students from Euroclass.  They entertained with dance and drama and the young people at Isubilo loved it.

Thursday afternoon we had a lecture from Andy Patching on Body, Soul and Spirit. He was a great teacher who really got our minds thinking and we look forward to learning from him again next Thursday.

Friday morning was spent with Lifeline at the playgroup in Chipulusuku. We enjoyed spending time with the children playing ball games, skipping, building Jenga towers and dancing. This time Jo and Natalie also did some face painting so when it was time for lunch there were lots of pretty butterflies eating butter sandwiches! When we got back from Immigration in the afternoon we found that Zenia our neighbour (lady who cooks for us at Farm Fresh) with severe chest pain and suspected heart problems. God was really testing us today! Jim and Jo quickly took her and her husband to the local clinic while the rest of us fed, watered and entertained their 2 beautiful children. Thankfully after having an ECG test done, she was sent back home the same night with nothing worrying found on the test results and just told to get some well needed rest. She is going back to the hospital for further tests in the coming week so watch this space for more news.

Prayer points

Zenia -  For correct diagnosis and return to full health

Pastor Albert - to get the right plot in Ndola

The Team - for continuing good health and continued unity.

Fidis' foot

Vision of Hope Girls (Lusaka)

Vincent and Elevin to get a plot in Lusaka

A less stressful week

                                       

Local Projects Week

The last three weeks has seen a break from the usual programme. Our trip to Lusaka was postponed for a week (we are in Africa, you have to be flexible). Before the week of our local projects began, we visited Kamfinsa on Sunday for another invigorating church service. Monday led straight into Tim, Jo and Natalie accompanying members of the Lifeline team for a Health Check day. Jim and Jan went to Immigration, to apply for the study permits, only to find out we needed to fill in yet more forms.  This was to be the first of many visits! The rest of the week we worked on refurbishing a slide and swings at a local Blind School to supplement their new playground ably assisted by Fred (builder at MFA) who we adopted into SoapBox for a day to help with welding.  We also helped out in Kamfinsa with purchasing the necessary materials, together with digging, collecting and transporting sand to help redo the floors, walls and veranda for the new teacher’s house. We also cleaned and painted the walls. The house is now more or less finished and should be ready for her to move in as the new school term begins. While this was going on Jim spent time on 4 different days in Immigration trying to sort out our study permits, as our temporary visas ran out on May 15th. (Read our next blog to find out what happened!)

On Friday we set off for Lusaka, staying at Kabwe overnight at what is known in Zambia as the 'Jim Ford plot' (Jim’s Dad). Jim enjoyed showing the team around his parent’s old house.  We had a lovely time meeting and sharing a meal with the pastors and elders from the rural churches who had been mentored by Jim's dad.  They have a vision for starting a Bible and Training school at the plot to help local Christians with Bible knowledge and skills training. 

Lusaka Expedition Part 1

The first half of our time in Lusaka was spent with Chitaulu.  She started Vision of Hope, a shelter that takes young women off the streets and gives them a home, education and security. The girls, all aged between 11-18, were initially very quiet, but as they taught Natalie and Jo how to dance, (true Zambian style) they started to open up and allow us to help them make door mats out of old pieces of material. The following day we met the girls at a very loud and lively church service and took them out for lunch of chicken and chips. The girls all said they wanted to go swimming, so the following day we took all of the girls and volunteers

to ‘Dream Valley’ a beautiful deserted Water Park. A lot of the girls couldn’t swim, so we had lots of fun teaching them and playing ball games in the shallow end. In the afternoon the boys tackled a stubborn door that had come off its hinges while Natalie and Jo shared ‘the wordless book’ with the girls and painted their nails in the representing colours. This soon led into singing and before long dancing. All praises to God! It was beautiful to see and listen to and of course attempt to join in on the songs we knew. The boys sneaked off to by “water”, but secretly surprised the girls with take-away pizza. As they walked in with the boxes the girls went crazy, screaming and literally dancing and singing with joy. It was a humbling experience to see. Over something to us which is so small, these girls were praising God for it! After a good munch on the food by candlelight as there was a power cut, some of the girls started to tell us their stories. Some of the things the girls were faced with no-one should ever go through, let alone girls of 13! It was hard to listen to and our hearts just went out to them, but was also amazing to see the work of God in their lives and how God is using Vision of Hope to bring the well needed love of Jesus to these girls. It was a short, difficult, but rewarding time spent with these girls and I think the impact they made on each of us will stay with us for a long time.

South Luangwa

We spent 4 nights camping at Croc Valley, right along the river’s edge where we could observe the hippos socialising all day long. During our time on safari, we saw many elephants, zebras and giraffes, lapped up impala in abundance and witnessed a rare leopard/hyena stand off for a kill! We were also able to gaze upon some beautiful sunrises and sunsets that really made us appreciate and admire God’s amazing creation- talk about a visual feast! All in all, we had an AWESOME time.

Lusaka Expedition Part 2

The second part of our stay in Lusaka we spent with Pastor Vincent and Pastor Elevin- an inspirational couple who gladly opened their home up to us and allowed us to accompany them on a weeks programme. In a nutshell we taught at Sunday school, evangelised in the local community, shared the gospel with college students, brought people to know God, shared our testimonies with 2 church groups, ate LOTS of good food, met many new people, acted out a drama piece, went Shatengi shopping until our eyes hurt, bartered hard at the market, settled in 400 new chicks, visited Vincent and Elevin’s recently granted church plot and spent 2 fun filled mornings with the YMCA boys. WOW, what a week! We all LOVED our time with the YMCA boys and made sure- like the VOH girls- that we could make them feel like teenagers again and for a few hours they could forget the difficult situations that they are faced with from day to day. As the sun was shining bright, we had lots of water games lined up which they all got stuck into and we took great joy in hearing them laugh and chant on their friends. It was such an encouragement and privilege to work alongside the limited members of staff there and to get a glimpse into how they are working with the children to get them off the streets and into loving, secure homes.

It is also safe to say that God really reignited passion in all of us while staying with Vincent and Elevin. Through the work we were doing, sharing our various testimonies, praying and receiving spiritual guidance from them, we were all really reminded of HOW we came to being in Africa and WHY we were here. It was so humbling but very powerful. It especially shone through while sharing our stories with the church groups and we could tangibly see how much we have grown these past 4 months- we were speaking with the kind of confidence, attitude and faith that would make David Padbury a very proud man! Each one of us comes from a different background and is at a different stage of life but God brought each one of us to this place and has a plan for us all. We all stepped out of our boat with the faith that God would catch us and He did. While we were able to bless many people during our visit in Lusaka, we feel that honestly we were the ones who were truly blessed- through wise teaching, refreshing fellowship and boundless generosity.