09 March 2005

News from Zambia - 9th March 2005

Greetings from Luanshya!

This past week we received a very pleasant surprise. We received two
very large boxes with gifts in them from Samaritan's Purse. The boxes in
the boxes were prepared by children in the United States for
distribution to children in more needy areas of the world. We heard
about this program and have actually seen children in the USA bringing
these shoebox sized packages to Sunday School to send overseas. However,
we had never been the recipient of one of these special packages. Last
week we were able to distribute "Christmas gifts" to all the children in
our Sunday School program at Fellowship Chapel. The looks of amazement
and sheer joy on the faces of the children cannot be explained. We wish
to give a very special thank you to all the children who participated in
this program. There is no way for us to know if any of the boys and
girls we saw preparing boxes actually had their boxes sent to us, but
somebody prepared and somebody received and the Lord will bless those
who participated. (A photo is attached to this letter, but more can be
viewed at www.colemanministry.org in a day or so.

The Christian Resource Centre has been abuzz the last couple of weeks.
In February we enrolled 50 new students, distributed 254 lessons,
corrected 212 lessons and awarded 11 certificates of completion. Just in
the last 9 days of this month we have already enrolled over 35 new
students. The library has been busy from opening to closing every day.

One interesting note concerning the Source of Light program: We always
ask the students what church they attend. The purpose in this exercise
is to help us during the marking of exams to understand why certain
responses were given and how best we can go about correcting those
Biblical errors and hopefully lead some to Christ. Almost every person
claims to belong to one church or another even if they never attend. In
the last couple of days we had two unusual responses when we asked about
a home church. One little girl actually said "none" while another young
lady said she went to the local mosque. Obviously the student from the
mosque is not going to be coming to a Christian church, but we are
thrilled that she is taking our lessons from the Christian Resource
Centre. Please pray for her as she is introduced to the story of the One
True God.

This past Sunday I enjoyed presenting the message in a unique manner.
The text was "Man looks on the outward appearance; God looks upon the
heart" from 2 Samuel. I used the illustration of an egg explaining that
one can never know what is on the inside of an egg by simply looking on
the outside. I boiled one egg, blew the yoke out of another and left the
final one fresh.

Over the course of the message I tossed the empty egg to one of our
young people while he held another object in his hand. He panicked (as I
assumed he would) and dropped the empty egg on the ground. I explained
that he was so careful to protect the non-fragile object in his hand
that he failed to protect the fragile egg coming at him. I stressed that
we often focus on things of little value and forget or neglect the
things of eternal value. After the message one of the adults came to me
and said she really appreciated the message because she has been
struggling with focus in her life. She also said that her youngest
daughter - who has Downs Syndrome - was enthralled with the illustration
because she loves eggs. Nevertheless, she was very disappointed at the
fact that we broke an egg and it was "empty". (she also does not want
Mom to buy eggs that come from that chicken!) [Photo of Desire attached]

Thank you for allowing us to focus on ministry and the lives of those
whom God sent us to serve.

In His Service,
Patrick & Sherry