The pictures continue to roll in from the harvest acquisition and delivery process throughout our coverage area. Today's cover photo is yet another image of bags of maize being delivered to a new church partner somewhere in the Eastern Region.
One of the fun activities this week has been the submission of map coordinates of 30+ new churches. We don't quite have them all yet, but I wanted to point out that as we are updating those in our Google maps file, they are being updated on the S2S website. If you go to "Who we are" and scroll down you will see a map under "Locations." Zoom in a bit in that Eastern Region and you get an idea just how much coverage we now have. I think we have around 13 churches yet to add.
One of the challenges of sharing outside of the US is dealing with bank wires into systems that are different than our own. I sent funds that left our account on July 7th. At one point the Zambian bank advised us to recall the wire, which we attempted to do. Two days later the funds mysteriously showed up right where they were supposed to be, so we called US Bank and asked them to recall the recall order...
The funds arrived FRIDAY (the 18th). From the start of our effort in Zambia, we have had a Messenger group chat which includes as many of our pastor partners as possible. After some time to get organized, especially as relates to 50+ new churches in our distribution system, we get to watch our pastor partners thank us for their monthly allotment of funds. And then those are followed by pictures of the various communities actually distributing the maize to our most vulnerable brothers and sisters among them. As I was typing, we just saw a group of pictures from Petauke of the distribution process in one of the communities we partner to serve there.
As frustrating as the process may be at times, the beauty of the transaction itself is so overwhelming that we press on. People who are otherwise struggling to put food on the table in both urban and rural settings in Zambia are being fed. There is a beautiful interpretation of Matthew 25 that causes us to say, "We just fed Jesus" whenever we see these pictures. Let me close with that text for this week's update:
Matthew 25:35-40 'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you gave me hospitality, Naked and you clothed me, I was ill and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the just will answer him, saying, 'When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and give you hospitality, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you ill or in prison and come to you?' And in reply the King will say to them, 'Amen, I tell you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
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