This week's cover photo features our good friend, partner and brother Lackson Lungu. Lackson leads a church community in rural Chipata and has been with S2S from the very beginning of our work five years ago. He was also a part of last year's training program with Tracy. He left his family to stay Petauke to sit at Tracy's feet for four months. This year he has been passing that knowledge on to growers around his home area at two different training plots. Behind him are some of those trainees and a beautiful field of tasseled maize.
In late 2020 when the global pandemic seemed to be at somewhat of a lull, particularly in Africa, where it seemed to be much less deadly, Rog and I asked our Ghanaian son, Ahmed, to fly from Ghana to Zambia to "scout out the land." He had TWO mandates for this trip
1) Find out if the perceived need is real; and
2) Find out if there are people in country we can trust with whom we can partner.
I believe it was in rural Chipata that the NEED really became overwhelming to Ahmed. He told us of families sharing just a few meals A WEEK. He saw poverty in an even greater way than he had experienced it all his young life in Ghana. And he met leaders who are now either leading our staff or partnering with us in areas like Chipata.
In early 2021, when we realized CLEAN WATER was maybe as important a need for our Zambian brothers and sisters as food with their meals, one of our first clean water projects was at Mchacha Baptist Church - the community led by Lackson Lungu. In August of 2024, on my second and most recent trip to Zambia, we determined that we had so many communities regionally in and around Chipata that we should have TWO feasts and TWO leadership meetings. We had one day of feast and a meeting at our largest church - Hope Baptist - right in Chipata town. And the next day we traveled to a rural area and had a second meeting at Kasala Baptist Church.
Here are a few memorable moments from that day:
1) We arrived at a church gathering where several different communities had their women's choirs come and sing for us - so beautiful.
2) Brother Jon, our Indiana pastor friend, was able to say a few words to the gathering.
3) Brother Phiri Elias was there. Rog and I had met him two years prior on our first trip, and it was clear he didn't speak much English, but his smile could light up a room, and I was immediately drawn to his spirit. While we were at Kasala Baptist, he presented me with a life-sized, carved guinea fowl. Carved and then etched with some sort of a burning tool to give it very realistic "spots". Besides the beauty of the object itself, this was a carving actually created by Phiri Elias just for me. (On the drive in the next paragraph, I sat next to brother Phiri and learned he is a carpenter AND that one of his deacons has been teaching him English!) I was just barely able to wrap my new treasure carefully and squeeze it into my luggage for the trip home, and it now sits proudly on the bookshelf in my office.
4) Finally, brother Lackson and others BEGGED us to get in the van with them and come and see his church. "20 minutes"... they said... Well, maybe an hour and a lot of washboard gravel roads later we arrived at Mchacha Baptist Church. Beside that clean water source we had provided four plus years earlier, in the direction the water would run away from the pump, they had constructed a beautiful vegetable garden that we weren't even aware of. It was well worth the trip.
Anyway, I just liked the way the Petauke history story felt last weekend and thought I would follow it up with something similar for the region a little further east. We do have a map of our churches on the website if you care to see exactly where these regions and specific communities are located - let me know if you need help finding that or the specific churches.
Today, 39 of our 124 churches are from the Chipata region. Those church communities include more than 12,000 members. And the vulnerable households number nearly 3,000. This month we will provide some sustenance for around 1,100 of these very real human beings in and around Chipata. We have also completed NINE clean water projects there. We have seen these beautiful people. We have met them. We love them.
In Matthew 25 Jesus seems to indicate when we who have a little (or a lot of) surplus to share, participate in caring for these brothers and sisters in need, it is as if we are feeding Jesus Himself. That is such a beautiful concept. Thank you, once again, to all who are following this effort and have shared with us or are sharing with us regularly. You are feeding Jesus in these beautiful Zambian households. And to those who have not, maybe this is the day to begin. Thanks for considering it.
