The first thing I will say is that we believe this will be my last update in this specific format, as one of our American pastor partners, who doubles as a web developer, has been working on a website upgrade for us and is about ready to lauch. That will change the process and potentially the format of this weekly update. But more importantly, it will upgrade the entire website experience and give our donors much more control of their donations. So stay tuned for that.
The funds we sent last week are in action already. The clean water project in Solwezi (second in that region) is being scheduled. The feeding funds have gone out to all the current church partners. Our wonderful Zambian staff have been paid. Budgets are set for travel this coming week for part of our team to Mambwe and Chipata to continue with the enormous task to acquiring as much of the harvest as we can buy with the funds allocated for that.
This picture of newly harvested and bagged maize from the Solwezi region is a fairly simple picture. Just a handful of bags newly delivered to a church community to feed some vulnerable brothers and sisters over the coming months.
By the end of the next few weeks, we hope to have nearly 10,000 of these bags stored at more than 110 church communities throughout our coverage area. Those 10,000 bags of maize will be divided out to 4 families per bag – so 40,000 portions will be shared over the next year. We believe when combined with other communities that will still be buying directly from the mills, we will be increasing the number of families we touch monthly from around 2,200 to around 3,200.
Said another way, these 10,000 bags are 50kg weight each – for a grand total of nearly 500,000 kilograms of maize. The nutritional tag on a bag of meal suggests one serving size is 100 grams (that equals .1kg). That means over the next year, these 10,000 bags will provide nearly 5 MILLION individual servings of nshima (the doughy food dish they make with the ground maize) to vulnerable Zambians. 5 MILLION times one of our brothers and sisters will have food on a plate that would have otherwise been empty.
That is amazing to me. Such a difference is being made in Zambia. However, with as many as 5 MILLION struggling Zambians, this only works out to around ONE meal per hungry Zambia for a year. I waffle back and forth being excited about the amazing progress we have made and grieving the fact that our brothers and sisters in Zambia (and many other parts of the world) are still struggling – while we continue to hoard our resources.
That leads me to think about the other half of what we believe to be the mission of Shoulder 2 Shoulder. That mission involves sharing our interpretation of what we would see as a Biblical direction to GIVE, SHARE, LOVE our brothers and sisters in need when we have more than enough. Here are a few current statistics on that front:
- 128 – this is the total number of US households that have shared with our Zambian brothers and sisters through Shoulder 2 Shoulder over the last four and a half years. THANK YOU to each of you – you know who you are!!
- 40 – this is the total number of US households that have shared with our Zambian brothers and sisters through Shoulder 2 Shoulder so far in 2025. And a more current THANK YOU to each of you – you know who you are!!
- 25 – this is the subset of those 40 households that are currently giving a monthly recurring donation to Shoulder 2 Shoulder. And something more than a THANK YOU to each of you – this group is mostly people who are either literally blood relatives or are some of our closest friends. To have you all come along with us monthly for this effort is SOOOOOOOOO meaningful!!
- 6 – this is the total number of US churches or small groups are now giving a monthly recurring donation to Shoulder 2 Shoulder. Hard to address a congregation from here, but if you are a member of a church or small group that is in this group, THANK YOU!! If you don’t know if you are, ask your leadership if you are. If they say “no” – ask them, “Why not??” 🙂
We have suggested that what we are doing feels like some sort of a trade. That the 2 Corinthians 8 text from which our Shoulder 2 Shoulder name is birthed infers both the donors AND recipients are sharing FROM their surplus INTO the other’s deficit. We have suggested this is a FOOD for FAITH trade. And I would argue that EACH of the 128 wonderful donors to this point have GROWN in their FAITH because of their generosity in this effort.
So again, I waffle between excitement at the progress and impact and sadness at what COULD HAPPEN for those in need if those of us with more than enough would consider whether we are willing to embrace the work to which we believe we are called in the Kingdom of God.
2 Corinthians 8:14 (The MESSAGE) This isn’t so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you’re shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even.
Your surplus matching their deficit – our surplus funds because we live in a time and a place where we can accumulate surplus allows us to purchase food for those who don’t.
Their surplus matching your deficit – their surplus faith from praying every day “give us this day our daily bread” and seeing God answer that prayer through S2S allows our Zambian brothers and sisters to share back with us, as a reduction in our material surplus results it more faith required for us to live.
Happy Father’s Day!
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