Greetings from Luanshya!
Great news! The builders are back. After dealing with torrential rains, sick professors, end of the year and school holiday, the young men from Mobile Mission Maintenance are back at the building site to continue working towards the ultimate goal of finishing that building. The window and door frames have been completed and will be installed this week. Pray that there will be no other situations that delay the project.
Monday I spoke at the chapel service of a small Bible college to about 90 students. Their theme for the year is "Passion For Change". After watching the American political scene on the international news, it appears that everyone is claiming a passion for change. I told the students that the most important change in their lives would be the attempt to go back-back to the standards that God gave His servants; back to the command to spread the gospel and back to the dream of seeing the world come to Christ. Too many Christians want to make the world look like Christians. We clean people up, feed them and educate them without really giving them what they need: an introduction to the Lord Jesus Christ so that they can have a personal relationship with the Saviour.
Last night I had a conversation with a local pastor from a large church here in Luanshya. He talked about the social work they were doing and meeting the needs of the poor in the community. While these are good things, they are not the main thing. When I asked him what he would say to somebody who asked, "What do I need to do to go to heaven?" he gave me a blank stare and said, "Ah, that's a difficult question." He promised to meet with me later so we can have a discussion on this issue. Please pray for Pastor Bowa. He also needs to meet the Saviour.
The youth continue in their studies on the life of Joseph. There were three main points we wanted to get across to the young people:
1) recognize and admit your negative mentality,
2) force a vertical focus until it begins to flow,
3) stay open to a new idea for at least five minutes.
The goal was not to imitate the actions of Joseph's father who looked for any reason to avoid having his youngest son go to Egypt with the brothers. Even in the end, he looked towards "bribery" as opposed to the Lord's protection of his son and his return. In a place where bribery is commonplace, this really hit home. Continue to pray for the Friday afternoon youth meetings.
Many of the local churches around us are struggling with leadership issues. Some of these divisions are tribal while others are simply power plays. It is really sad to see an assembly of born again believers openly fight over who is in charge. In order to avoid this kind of situation we are starting a men's Bible study on Sunday afternoon at Fellowship Chapel. We are going to start by "Experiencing God". The men are excited about this. Please pray that the excitement grows and we can experience unity across tribal lines.
Thank you for your prayers on our behalf.
In His Service,
Patrick & Sherry
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This is a regular (almost) update of the multi-faceted ministry of Patrick and Sherry Coleman who serve the Lord in Zambia, Africa.
About Us
Patrick was born and raised in the Los Angeles area of California. He moved to Lubumbashi, Zaire, (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1985. In 1991 he was evacuated from Lubumbashi because of civil unrest. Patrick based his family in Luanshya, Zambia.
Sherry was born and raised in a Jewish home in New Jersey. She came to know the Lord as her Messiah and personal Saviour when she was 17. She came to Zambia in 1990 to administrate a correspondence Bible school. She also taught in area schools and in churches.
They met and were married on August 1, 1997.
Today both Patrick and Sherry Coleman serve the Lord together in Zambia. Their ministry responsibilities have grown. They own and operate the Lighthouse Children's Home with six AIDS orphans, they have opened their personal library to the public in Luanshya through the Christian Resource Centre, Sherry still has a correspondence Bible school and Patrick still works with local church leaders as well as serving in leadership at Fellowship Chapel in Luanshya.
Note from the Web Guy
Greetings from the Web presence of the Coleman Ministry. Please check the archives for any posts you may have missed.
This is the Colemans' oldest son, who is responsible for this website. My father refers to himself as "Technologically Reclined". Despite my best efforts to make posting to this site as easy and quick as possible, he insists on using the worst method available and occasionally forgetting to notify me for more than a year.As a result, sometimes posts get added in the background. They do not hit the front page, which only shows the latest update I have received, reformatted, and republished. As of this writing, I have a dozen posts to put up and back-date, and more coming in. I estimate that I will finish this effort by late July. Maybe not this year, but it will be a July.
So please, peruse the archives.