This week we sent a wire that included our October feeding funds, an estimate for a clean water project to be determined, and funds to support the kick-off of ZIAP's 2025/26 grower training program. Speaking of which, Tracy, our local super agronomist, seems to be stuck in Atlanta on route to Zambia. Please pray for his successful departure soon!
I have lost track just a bit of the names we currently have listed. Ā Brother Nguni has been helping me with the entry of the names into our spreadsheet files, and I hope to get back to those files later today. I believe we now have more than 3,000 names collected representing more than 40 of our partner church communities in Zambia. Some of that training is scheduled to begin this week, with Tracy to provide some in person guidance where possible. But IĀ have been on a couple of video calls between him and the trainers from Zambia, and they seem to remember well the training they received a year ago. They will go armed with some new teaching materials Tracy has prepared, and the prospect of giving 10,000 more Zambian growers this knowledge is incredibly exciting!
I am in progress reading a very interesting document. It's long. Very long. I have yet to figure out the exact title. In Latin I believe the short version is "Dilexe te" - which seems to mean "I have loved you." But an English summary of the document suggests a longer title: "Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Leo XIV on Love for the Poor." Ā It is laid out in a chapter and verse format, and I have reached verse 49, which falls in chapter 3, titled, "A Church for the Poor." Ā As you can imagine, having read through maybe 25% of the publication, a lot of the scripture cited sounds like it came from a very "Shoulder 2 Shoulder" perspective. If you Google "Pope Leo's writing" it will get you there, and IĀ would challenge you to consider taking a look. Whether you consider yourself Catholic or not, his perspective (at least the parts IĀ have read so far) seems to reinforce many ideas with which Rog and I have been wrestling for several years.
