A Great Week!

Top Row (L to R): Ezi, Chikuta, Chembo, John, Timothy & Joseph; Bottom Row (L to R): Doug, Allan, Abby, Paul & Limbi

What an awesome week! And what amazing students! We never expected to be training in Livingstone this summer, but the Lord set it up and are we glad he did!

Pastor Paul, a dear friend of Percy and Muyunda's, set up the training and recruited the students. Thanks, Paul! Graciously, Pastor Elvin and his wife, Ezi, of Greater Harvest Rhema Church, hosted our class. What a great couple! Like almost all Zambian pastors, they are tent-makers. And, amazingly, it turned out that Elvin was the customs agent Percy had previously hired to handle our shipment of supplies. God is good!

Our focus this past week was threefold: Abby targeted Pastoral Care & Family Systems, Eric focused on Empowerment, Skill Development & Holistic Ministry, and I taught Missionary God. All were eagerly received.

Comments by students at the end of training were encouraging. One said, "I had never been taught these things before. I will now put them into practice." Another commented, "Many of our members need encouragement and now I feel I can do so."

It's possible that we will work with these students again this summer. Abby received a call from Ezi yesterday who expressed their desire to see us again. We'd love to deepen our relationships with Paul, Elvin, Ezi and the other students.

By the way, we worshiped on Sunday with Pastor Elvin's congregation. I (Doug) was invited to preach. I focused on the Lord's Prayer and the sermon was entitled...Petitionary Prayer: A Catalyst for Mission.

Please pray that we will be used to help multiply healthy church planting and mission over the coming weeks!

"Be fruitful and multiply!"

"And what you have heard from me...entrust to reliable people who will be able to teach others also."  2 Timothy 2:2

The Apostle Paul came to understand in the course of his missionary journeys that he had to hand off the mission to qualified leaders who, in turn, would hand off the mission to other qualified leaders. In other words, Paul understood that mission multiplication of indigenous leaders would have the greatest long term impact.

That's why we're always looking for this multiplication principle at work during our training. Interestingly, during one of our breaks, we saw it in a beautiful way, as the photo above shows.

Paul, the pastor who had organized last week's training, is a very accomplished worship leader and musician. He found himself approached at every break by other students who wanted to learn more about using the keyboard in worship.

It was a beautiful thing to watch Paul gently and skillfully teach these younger leaders. As their relationships deepened, we knew the multiplication principle was at work as these young leaders were returning to their different congregations to apply what they had learned from Paul.

Please pray that our training continue to be multiplied in formal and informal ways in the coming weeks!

Reunited and it feels so good!

Percy Muleba (R) and four of our Livingstone students. We have a total of eight students, six men and two women from five churches!

We've been in Zambia for a week now and it's been great to get back. Percy Muleba, our dear friend and colleague, welcomed us last Friday and has been directing our training efforts since then. It's been great to see Percy and spend time together. We'll see his wife, Muyunda, and his daughters, Thabo and Nsala next week. What a privilege and joy to work with him!

Just before leaving the States, we received word that our Three Weeks Intensive Training, scheduled to be held in Senanga, had been postponed until 2017. Well, that was a bit of a shock, to be honest, as understandable as the reasons were.

Yet...God had another plan in mind. You know how he likes to keeps us in a place of dependency and trust, right?

In any case, Pastor Paul, Percy's friend and a worship leader in Livingstone, was very glad that we were suddenly available. He immediately organized a week's training with seven young pastors and leaders he knew in Livingstone (plus himself). And what a great group of young leaders they are!

In addition, our Mwandi friends immediately requested that we give them the remaining two weeks for follow-up training, so that's what we'll do next.

At the last minute, Fawlty Towers was able to extend our lodging in Livingstone and Kati Wallis, our Australian missionary friend, was able to provide housing in Fiona's old house in Mwandi and that was quite a relief, as well.

God's plan for us this summer is unfolding. Percy has suggested we simply buckle up our seat belts in the back seat and let God do the driving. So, that's what we're going to do!

Shipping for Jesus!

Getting the crates loaded onto the truck on our sloped driveway was exciting for truck driver, Tony!

Gale Keef, Interact club adviser at Liberty Prep, delivers the shoes!

Rachel Sanford organized the shoe drive at Liberty Prep!

What weighs 1500 lbs and holds: 19 bags of clothing, 23 boxes and 4 bags of shoes, 8 cases of Bibles, 4 boxes of books, 1 keyboard with stand and stool, 1 PA system, 1 chain saw, 1 ax, 1 box of hats, 3 electric guitars, 1 coat, 1 hoe and 2 tents?

With the generous help of Centre Presbyterian Church, Interact, Rotary and many, many individual donors, we just shipped two large packing crates to Zambia! We've never done this before so it will be interesting to see how it works out. The crates are expected to arrive in Zambia in mid-July.

The shoes were donated by the Interact Club at Liberty Prep due to the initiative of Rachel Sanford (pictured) who organized a shoe dirve. The Interact adviser, Gale Keef (pictured), was great to work with, as well. Zambian kids can't attend school without shoes so these will be a great blessing to a lot of kids!

Emily,  our daughter, used her huge social network and collected 33 bins of clothing over the last year from her friends. Once we vacuum-packed them, we ended up with 19 bags weighing about 35 lbs each! That's a lot of clothing! Andrew, Emily's husband, used his expertise to procure a terific PA system suitable for the sub-Saharan climate and it has an 8 hour battery! His company Special Events Services (SES) generously contributed several micrphones and cables! Our daughter, Jen, and her husband, James, were instrumental in getting the chain saw with case and tools, the ax and hoe. Thanks kids!

A huge thank you to everyone who helped so much in this effort. You gave, we packed and Zambia will be blessed. I can't wait to hear Percy playing his keyboard over the new PA system!

Please join us in praying for the safe arrival of the crates, a good customs experience and for the transportation of the crates to Mwandi once they arrive in Zambia!