Dear Praying Friends and Partners,
We want to thank you all for your continued prayers and support. We are thankful for the ministries God has allowed us to serve in here in Zambia, and we have seen some exciting times with our church plant here in Lusaka.
The beginning of January brought complications to our ministries here in Lusaka, as we had a cholera outbreak. The city has large areas that are severely underdeveloped and because of that, sanitation is virtually nonexistent. When rainy season comes, the water spreads diseases, and it becomes a nightmare. Because of this, we had a cholera outbreak in several parts of the city, specifically in the underdeveloped areas. This affected our ministry, as schools were shut down till the numbers came down. We couldn’t have our normal chapel and youth evangelism programs. The answer to the cholera problem was no rain, which we then had, but this has now caused another problem, as we now are in a very serious drought that destroyed much of the maize production for the year. Maize (corn) is the main staple of Zambians, and if there is a shortage as there is now, prices will go up and it will cause economic problems for all Zambians. The rains also have been so poor this year that Lake Kariba, which is the reservoir for the hydroelectric dam and provides almost all the power for the country, is actually decreasing in volume. It should be going up this time of year, and it is actually getting worse, which means we will have very bad loadshedding (power outages) later this year. I say all this to say: pray for Zambia in this time as the next year or so will be difficult for the people we minister to. I know God will open opportunities to minister, and we will serve where and when we can.
Since the cholera cases have come down, we are back in the school teaching and doing Bible clubs which we are thankful for. Our church is slowly growing, and we are excited to see how God is building His church. We thank the Lord we were able to lead 2 people to the Lord, who have been coming to the church for a few months. They were baptized last week, and we also baptized 2 ladies who had been saved a few years prior to us meeting them but were never scripturally baptized. We are meeting with people throughout the week regularly who either have questions about the church or baptism. This has afforded us great opportunities to hear their salvation testimony if they have one, and if not, to show them the Scriptures about salvation. Many Zambians claim to be Christians, so we have to spend a lot of time with individuals to understand what they believe salvation is. Most of them believe in works salvation, which is obviously unscriptural, so we do a lot to help them understand the Scriptures more clearly.
We have been able to distribute Bibles through the work of volunteers in the prisons in Zambia. One lady who has been visiting the church for the past couple months is an immigrations corrections officer, and she was very excited to use her position as an opportunity to share Bible and tracts in the prison. All those that have given to these projects, please know they are being put to good use and God will be glorified.
The church building project is going well. Thank you to all who have given towards that. We have the main structure roof up, and have also built the storage room. We have the borehole drilled and water tank setup. We are hoping to be done with most of the building by May. We ran into a few delays, as the roofing metal is delayed in South Africa, so hopefully we get it in the next couple weeks. It is exciting to see how the land is slowly changing and what it will be in the future. We pray that God uses it to His glory, and that souls will be saved and lives will be changed.
Lastly, we want to let you know that our family will be coming back to the US on furlough this fall. We are only planning on coming back from September thru early January. We don’t want to leave the ministry too long, but we are thankful that the missionary that we are working with will be able to continue the work while we are gone. Please pray that the church will stay strong, and that it can grow while we are gone. If you want us to come back and report, please let us know soon and we will see if we can get it in the schedule. We will put together a nice update video for everyone that we will send to you, whether we come to report or not.
Thank you again for your support and prayers. So much has happened the last couple months, and I feel like this letter doesn’t do it justice, but we thank you all.
