Trucks, Goats, and God

The team and I just got back from doing ministry in some villages way out in the middle of nowhere for the last week. A good shower never felt so good.

I and 6 other Americans arrived here at the base in Zambia on Wednesday, September 1, and the whole AMT class went out to the villages on Saturday to do ministry in the Simwatechela Kingdom here in Zambia. The local people had gathered from all over the region for our large worship and preaching meetings and we also got to do hut-to-hut evangelism and encouragement, share meals together, and hold question and answer discussions around the fire. It was like nothing I've ever done before so I was kind of nervous sometimes but it was really cool so see what God did with our time there. We had people give their lives to Christ, we prayed over people for healings, and we sang and danced in worship with them around a big fire to the beat of African drums. I learned a lot about the Zambian people and about my team, and about what ministry in this part of the world looks like.

I'll give you a brief introduction to the team members that I'll be spending almost all my time with in the next three months. From the States we have Sharon, Rachel, Jackie, Regina and Wes, Trae, and Jared. From Zimbabwe we have Mordecai. There is also another couple from South Africa with their 3 kids that I have yet to meet. The arrived while the rest of us were out on expedition. We have members as young as 18 and as old as 42 and it's looking like a pretty solid group of people. Our instructors are JD and Laura and we'll have a couple more people on the base who will be helping with the course and going out on expedition with us.

So far I've already learned a lot and it looks like we're going to continue to be busy with class work as well as our daily chores around the base. I'm guessing it will continue to be a time of amazing learning and growth full of challenge and hard work. I'm just not excited about the reports of 120 degree weather coming up in October. Hopefully the rumors are exaggerated.

PJM