Today's pic is a recently completed outdoor kitchen that is just outside the caretaker's home at the newly created animal training facility in rural Chipata. The team got a LOT done over their time in country, but there is still some work to complete before it is fully functional for all, including the caretaker's family.
Meanwhile, the eggs continue to come in greater and greater numbers, and we continue to discuss how this can be a beacon of education and, ultimately, hope, for the people we are serving in Eastern Zambia.
A week ago, IĀ had the opportunity to present the Shoulder 2 Shoulder ministry at a large, older church in West Des Moines, Iowa after a chance encounter and discussion at the Iowa State Fair in August. I usually have some nerves before an event like that, but once IĀ get in front of the group and start sharing, the words flow easily from a soul that truly attempts to live and love and grow right along with this effort. I ultimately had a great time and got to spend a short time with a wonderful group of brothers and sisters.
Then Friday evening I went to an alumni event for my high school, mainly to see a particular classmate. Before he arrived, IĀ had another amazing time sharing with a new friend that is married to a graduate of our high school. I truly cherish those opportunities, and then IĀ just sit back and hope they bear fruit in some way. That remains to be seen in both of these cases, but it could be the discussions bear fruit even outside of our efforts in Zambia, as someone freshly encouraged to love and share.
This coming week we will calculate and send an October wire. We expect that funding will impacts around 2,900 families through 133 churches, and we have now brought online all the churches we added this harvest. Since IĀ enjoy the numbers so much and haven't always shared the breakdown of where those churches are, I'm going to just give that here, and if you are curious exactly where these churches are, you can check out the map on our website (which is NOTĀ up to date, I'm afraid) or you can reach out and ask me. We are currently serving Shoulder 2 Shoulder with:
21 churches in the Chipata Central area (as well as one prison facility) (also this is where the new live animal facility is located)
18 churches in the Chipata Kasanengwa area
18 churches in the Mambwe area (as well as one rural school)
6 churches in the Mfuwe area (as well as one rural maternity hospital)
14 churches in the Petauke area
10 churches in the Chongwe area (as well as a second school)
14 churches in the Solwezi area
15 churches in the Lusaka area
5 churches in the Livingstone area
5 churches in the Copperbelt area
7 churches outside one of those areas
That may be just for my benefit, but it gives you an idea just how far reaching the work has gotten. Ā From a geographical standpoint, the bulk of those locations are in the Eastern Region, while Solwezi and Copperbelt are in the north, Lusaka borders the Eastern Region to the west, and Livingstone and some of the outlying churches are in the south.
One of the details that made the trip this August a little easier for Rog and his team is that they didn't attempt to travel to all the areas like we have in the past. They stayed in Chipata because that's where the farm project was going on, and they just took day trips north and west to meet with as many leaders of our communities as possible, option to cover the travel of the local leadership, rather than the travelers from America.
The work continues to efficiently flow. So far this year we have had 57 American donor households. That group will impact around 2,900 Zambian households through those 133 churches in October. It will be so fun to see what we can do as others catch the vision and join us.
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