I am in Wisconsin this weekend officiating for my nephew's wedding. Yes, you read that correctly. It's a first for me. What an amazing opportunity...
Meanwhile, our favorite agronomist, Tracy, is in Zambia! Last week, you might remember, he was stuck in Atlanta and lost a day. When he arrived, he hit the ground running...well, actually, flying. He flew from Lusaka to Solwezi, in the northern part of the country, to observe one of the first training efforts of the fall. Zambians Josh Prince and Johnson Lupito are two of the 14 trainers taking the information Tracy began to train a year ago in Petauke and passing it along to our brothers and sisters all across the country. I don't yet have a total number of trainees in the Solwezi group, but IÂ am going to estimate it at between 600 and 1,000.
The cover photo this week shows Josh in front of a small group of trainees.
All indications from Tracy suggest he is a very proud papa, and the guys did a fantastic job in the first sessions for the Solwezi group.
Elsewhere across Zambia, the monthly funds were received this week and immediately distributed to the 124 pastors, and we are already seeing pictures of feeding programs happening this weekend. Our expectation is that over 3,400 families will once again be impacted in October.
Finally, IÂ expect to report on another successful clean water project by this time next week...
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Just a quick note about the U.S. side of Shoulder 2 Shoulder... we got a nice donation for the upcoming inputs program, so a BIGÂ thank you for that. I don't know the deadline for those funds yet, but sometime in the next month or so we will hope to have enough funds to provide inputs in some form (seed, fertilizer or both - or maybe even assistance buying vouchers for the government input program) for as many of our trained and vulnerable constituents as possible. If you have questions about that, please always feel free to contact Rog or me.
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