Welcome to the New Year! For some, the new year sounds like OPPORTUNITY. For others, it may simply feel like a breath of fresh air after a challenging 2025. For many of our brothers and sisters in Zambia, the expectation has to be for another year that looks a lot like all recent years. A year doing their best to just put some food on the table at mealtime.
We have teamed with ZIAP to give 7,000+ families reason for HOPE in the new year with some advanced training intended to allow their small farming activities to see a much greater yield. In fact, the cover photo this week is from another recent training session. The maize in this Mambwe field looks awesome!
We have also given 400+ of those families a boost with some seed and fertilizer to get them started. This happens because some of our friends and readers get a small glimpse of the vision that is driving us to make a difference in these lives. Thank you to all that have joined us!
I checked this week to see if there was a new World Hunger Index report out for 2025. There was indeed a new release in October. The new report shows Zambia ranked at 110 in a ranking where 123 is the WORST. In the 2024 report they were ranked 115. The new report also shows the Zambia index with a score of 29.6. That is slightly lower (better) than the 2024 report, and down from a score of 51.2 twenty-five years ago in 2000.
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As thankful as I am for the opportunities we have had to do a small part and the progress seemingly made, consider:
Zambia is a country of over 20 million souls.
Nearly 5 million of those "are facing high levels of acute food insecurity" per a report from October by UNICEF.
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While I would love to claim some "progress" or "victory" in our efforts to share with our Zambian brothers and sisters, I am beginning the year - once again - simply being aware of the continuing struggle to survive there.
The good news is we continue to add people to our small community that also have some concern for these brothers and sisters. That causes me to enter 2026 with a tremendous level of excitement for what lies ahead in our efforts! We are poised to send a wire this week that will provide some food for over 3,400 families once again. We will also send funds for our first clean water project of the year. And we are moving closer to our first attempt to make a difference with LIVESTOCK in addition to our efforts with maize.
The question IĀ am considering as IĀ enter the new year is this: how much of my privilege and surplus am IĀ willing to SHAREĀ in 2026 so that someone living in Zambia can be just a little bit less poor? I realize it is an overwhelming question. But IĀ am hoping as each of us consider our own hearts, that we may be able to accomplish more than ever.
To my many Zambian brothers and sisters that IĀ know read this blog, IĀ need you to understand something important: if you have the means to read this post, you are likely NOT the people we are most interested in serving. You likely have food and shelter for your family. Many of you are our PARTNERSĀ in this effort, and we say THANKĀ YOUĀ to you for playing your part and standing "shoulder 2 shoulder" with us as we are "shoulder 2 shoulder" together with the destitute members of your communities that need our help putting food on their tables.
Back to my American brothers and sisters, does it really even register when you read the words "need our help putting food on their tables?" For most of us, that is something that may be hard to imagine. Rog and IĀ were raised relatively "poor" in rural Iowa. But even in that condition, I don't ever remember not having food on the table in our home in Cambridge. Living a life without enough food is just so far from life in America that it is a little bit hard to even imagine. Based upon the World Hunger Index noted above and the experience Rog and I and others have had visiting Zambia; it is a very real fact of life for millions in this country.
Which brings me back to my PERSONALĀ challenge for 2026: how much of MYĀ privilege and surplus am I willing to SHARE in 2026 so that someone living in Zambia can be just a little bit less poor? I hope you will ask that question and enter that challenge with me. As of today, we have 34 American families committed to share a little bit of our surplus monthly. And we have other friends that we believe will answer the call for one-time gifts as we begin to raise funds for the coming harvest. I hope you will consider being a part, or a greater part, or this effort. And IĀ thank you in advance for being a part of this community.
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