We are in Solwezi. Monday morning here in Zambia, and we were up early for the 45-minute flight on Zambia Airlines, kind of a puddle jumper - if you know what I mean. It was a great experience, and we were greeted by Josh, he is the plus-one to our Zambia 5 staff. Josh is an experienced farmer and a key leader in our network.
Last night was a little rough - only about 4 hours of sleep - up at 2 a.m. We were 9 hours at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday. Lots of traditional Zambian gospel singing and dancing, if you are lucky you might get to see a video of some of that. No dancing from me, Matt & Frank - although I caught Frank showing a bit of rhythm in his chair. We were able to experience the distribution of 23 bags of corn to some of our lovely vulnerable families. We served on the food line to the rest of the church for about an hour - Frank dipping beans and me distributing individual pieces of chicken...one per person. Each individual also had a major pile of nshima on their plates. Lots of joy in the building!
Our pastors meeting went very well, thanks for all who were praying (specifically my brothers), those prayers were answered. The message is challenging, not only to those living in surplus in America - and it IS very challenging in those American meetings - but it is also challenging in Zambia. S2S is focused on serving the most vulnerable, the most hungry. At this particular church, there are 160 or so members who don't benefit materially from S2S. But they can benefit spiritually if they participate in this sharing model of God's earthly Kingdom that we are teaching. Please pray for the 125 churches and pastors, and even their non-vulnerable members. By American standards, nearly all of those members would be considered 'poor'. The model of "fairness" that the Apostle Paul teaches is challenging.
We will have another pastors' meeting today, at our new location. Pray the hearts and minds of these pastors are both encouraged and challenged; that they would receive the message with joy and love. We will spend one night here and throw another celebration and feast tomorrow...and then back to the capital city.
Dr. Youngs, our Animal Science expert is flying in Tuesday. Our Ghanaian daughter Anita will be joining on Wednesday. And then Frank and I will finally be more comfortable when our wives Lisa and Kim get off of their plane on Thursday. Suffice it to say that we do-not-like being away from the most important human in our lives...even as we try to build God's Kingdom on the other side of the ocean. I love that He made His men that way.
So, now day 2, day 1 in Solwezi...here we go!
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