Good News / Bad News

This week we have a "good news / bad news" update. First the good news...

On Sunday morning I was not at our “town centre” church. My primary task in Zambia is to train national leadership. We again had a “full house” with many visitors. We have a number of follow-up visits to make this week.

I went to a rural church that I helped start two years ago. Buntungwa is called an “overspill township” because is for people who cannot afford to live in more permanent housing within the “town limits” of Luanshya. All the houses are mud brick. The roofs are made of whatever the residents can find (flattened oil drums, discarded roofing sheets from other buildings, grass and plastic sheets. The “roads” are all dirt and - since it had been raining since 3:00 am - they were all mud. Time is an abstract and the “well-to-do” have a bicycle. None of the houses have electricity, but several have car batteries for their radios. The house in which I had lunch had a telephone sitting on a table. When my host realised that I had seen it he sheepishly explained that he had found the telephone in a road-side dump and brought it home “for decoration.” (Most Americans have equally useless junk “decorating” their houses, too.)

When I arrived at the church site I was greeted by Bro Chomba, the man who had come to me two years ago with the vision of starting this church. He was thrilled that I was there, but embarrassed that most of the church members were not. I spent a few minutes explaining that I was not concerned and I understood that people were not likely to walk to church on mud roads through a driving rain. We waited. The service started 45 minutes “late” and only about half of the expected crowd arrived. It continued to rain and the people came in slowly. One man apologised for his appearance. He had slipped in the mud and fallen. He was covered in mud and was hesitant to come in. I invited him to sit next to me.

The church building is made of mud bricks and has a grass roof. It was built entirely by the members of this church, though I helped them with the transport of the grass and a few metres of plastic sheeting. The benches were rustic and crooked…and hard. The pulpit was also made of mud brick and also very crooked. The bamboo that was used to hold the grass roof in place was being eaten by termites so all though the service there was very fine dust ­ like saw dust ­ falling from the roof resembling a light snow. By the end of the service everything in the building had this “dust” on it ­ including me. Nobody noticed! We were in God’s house!

Immediately after the communion service which followed the service the men of the church met with a “brick maker” who was being contracted to make burnt bricks from the ant hill on the church property. His initial price was 21¢, but they got him down to 13½¢. They will need about 4,000 bricks so every ½¢ counts! They will be saving every penny to get this money and may even have extra bricks made so they can sell them to pay for the ones they need.

After the negotiations we went to lunch. The chicken we were served had been quite an athlete in his younger days. He have been on the Zambian poultry Olympic cross country team! The drumstick was nearly 6 inches long, but the meat on the end would not have filled a serving spoon on an American table ­ and was tough enough to give a pit bull a challenge. Still, it was a feast for them and I was deeply appreciative! I finished my meal with a resounding “Mimi nashiba” (I am full) and we gathered together for a final word of prayer. All in all, it was a typical Sunday for me. There were no PowerPoint presentations, no Easter Cantatas and no sun-rise services, but the fact that the tomb is empty was preached far and wide.

Now the bad news... We just received a telephone call from the doctor at Mkushi - where Colin goes to school. Colin was playing rugby and broke his femur. The doctor said it was a "clean break" and can be easily set, but he will be in traction for at least 21 days. I am leaving early tomorrow morning to be at the hospital. Please pray for Colin - and us - during this time. At last count this is the eight time he has broken a bone. His first break came when he fell from a kitchen counter at the age of three. It doesn't make it any easier on Dad and Mom!

What a week!

In His Service, Patrick & Sherry