Key people: David & Nanna Lukama, Maria Mwape
20 students started this year and 17 graduated. One student went to America and unfortunately one of the students got pregnant. Those two were asked to leave the course but the leaders of GLO are continuing to go and visit with the families and students to help out where they can. It has been tough for everyone but the main concern they have is for these two young people and dealing positively with the consequences of what has happened.
This year they started a program called Parent Help where GAP year student’s parents come once per term to raise life issues and talk about them with the students. This program is set up to help connect the parents to their children because they are often so busy earning a living they forget their own children. It’s a time for both the parents and children to share what is on their hearts.
One young person shared that they don’t respect their dad because of his behaviour and the father thought the child didn’t know what he was doing, but they did. One young lady stayed with her uncle who was abusing her but he was the bread winner so if she complains she could destroy the family.
Again the GAP year students have many programs to test them physically, mentally and spiritually. The growth in these young people continues to be seen.
Four areas of church based training are currently taking place. GLO sends people to teach along with other pastors and past students one Saturday in each month for two years. This means every Saturday is taken up with these programs each month. The course aims at servant leadership in the church and dealing with some cultural issues that need to be addressed with the gospel of Christ.
The current areas undertaking training are: Ndola, Kitwe, Mufulera, Chingola. There are more areas and churches that are wanting this training.
The churches pay for all the costs of these courses, including transport of teachers and the food consumed.
As part of the GAP year student follow up, three times per year GLO sends out outreach teams made up of past students from the GAP year.
This year one outreach went to Mukushi to visit a past student called Beatrice Chisapo. She has a farm in the village and is helping with the local clinic - the produce from the farm is helping to run the clinic.
Another outreach went to a blind community in Luansha. They encouraged these blind people and helped them by practical means such as cleaning, getting goods for them and other practical things. They managed to get some books written in Braille which some of the blind people could read.
This has been developed as a way to help GLO create income by using the courses they have developed and offering them to trust schools around Zambia. Two camps happened this year. They made a profit of 15,000 Zmk (US$1,700) for each week long course. The schools pay direct to GLO before coming.
Prior to the camp the GLO team meet with the parents of the young people coming to discuss the camp. The whole course is being done in partnership with the Government so certificates are written by them and these become useful to the campers.
Graduates of GAP year courses come and volunteer to lead the program and they see this as part of their discipleship with them and leadership training.
The camp starts pretty hard with the campers getting in a line and then having to handover all phones, computers and any food that they have with them. A whistle blows and they are taught push-ups and from there they are put through many physical challenges that test them and help develop leadership. The leaders get alongside the campers to share the gospel and mentor them in life issues.
They take the campers into the bush where there is a local dam. Three Christian commandos then teach the campers how to swim, set out an orienteering course for teams to find food and cook it. They also set them up with a solo bush night.
The campers get the evenings to reflect and discuss what they have been through. Some say “I nearly died but learnt a lot about myself. Scars to tell the story for our grandchildren”.
The main areas they see impact in lives of the campers is in responsibility of choices made, attitude in what they do even if it is unfair or not (life is not always fair), respect for others, themselves and the environment, perseverance and common sense.
Spiritual outcomes have come through contact with the campers afterwards. The GLO team make sure that if some campers have made a commitment to Christ they get visited in the future to encourage them.
Sports: Football teams for young boys and netball for young girls are continuing to be held each week as a form of outreach.
Extra lessons: English and mathematics are being taught by Irene and Eve, aiming at pupils aged 12 to 14 years.
Youth Camps: Outreach and programs for the young people. One was held just for the local community and helps the community to continue to see GLO as a beacon of hope.
Agape ladies sewing: They had a few issues with the ladies thinking they were working for GLO so they were taught knitting and sewing then they gave them each a sewing machine and cloth, empowering them to do a project and something on their own.
Clinic: Irene is a nurse and helps when there is a shortage of staff. She runs seminars on health to break myths regarding breast feeding and other issues. GLO also helps to lobby for the clinic with the government for medicines and an ambulance. Unicef is putting up a maternity wing and GLO is overseeing this project.
Bright Hope World provided some funds to GLO to be used as a micro-loan program to empower staff to help with their personal support as they are volunteers but unfortunately these have not worked yet.
There have been three loans given to Dick, Yves and Geoffrey based on budgets they gave. For each of them there have been issues:
- Dick's potato trading never worked but he has started to repay the loan to GLO
- Yves who is from the Congo has issues with his visa for Zambia, i.e. he isn’t allowed to work or have a business for income. He still has all the money put aside and is working through how he can set something up in partnership with someone else.
- Geoffrey has started rice trading but has been struggling to find the time to do so with all the other ministry responsibilities and having a young family.
They will keep working through these issues and see how things develop this year.
GLO are continuing to try and look for programs that help with generating funds for their activities. Ideas they are currently pursuing:
- The camp reality project
- Local partners of GLO. A doctor in the community has joined with GLO to say that local Zambian church members should be able to pledge an amount every month to help with the work of GLO. They have 50 names they are currently following up on an individual basis to make this program work.
- Village chicken project. They are looking at investing in purchasing some week old village chickens and growing them on to point of sale for meat. There is big demand for this type of chicken in towns at a high price. The feeding of them is minimal as they can feed them food scraps and sometimes some feed. They will need to apply some vaccines and it can take many months to grow the village chickens on. The beauty is that it is reasonably low care.
- Building a house to be rented out off site
- Spending some money on upgrade of the facilities so they can charge higher prices for conferences and other programs.
We attended the GAP student reunion at GLO. The program has been running for six years now and has seen over 150 young people influenced with teaching and discipleship. They all gave testimony about the course they did and here are some of the comments they made:
- We learnt to live together and respect each other, despite having different backgrounds of well-off city living versus subsistence living in the village
- We faced many conflicts with each other but we learnt how to listen to each other and sort them out.
- We experienced a safe place to be able to respect each other and tell each other the truth about what we liked about people and what we hated. But it was done with love when we got to know each other, so we could learn and grow.
- I was very closed up when I came, only thinking about me and I, but due to things like being put in the GLO jail, carrying a brick around for 1 week as a baby, we experienced hardships together and this taught us to think of others.
- Cultivated a desire in us to have a daily devotional and quiet time by ourselves to learn to listen to God.
- We want to change from point A to point B but we were encouraged that if we have left point A at least we are on the way. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
- Used to judge others but learnt that if we spend time to get to know their story (the darkest side of their life) then you gain an understanding about people and see why they are the way they are.
- Able to pass on what we learnt to others, like teaching little kids in extra lessons and helping in the community.
- We learnt that life is not always fair, and it is not about our own comfort
- To die to oneself is to be true to oneself
- Realized that when we were asked the question “How are you spiritually and mentally” I was not ok. But then I asked others what they thought and they felt the same so together we were able to learn and help each other.
- We were pushed over the edge because you at GLO believed that we could fly.
- We don’t have to be a hero, we just have to try
One young man called Daniel comes from the local community to have help with extra lessons and plays football. He has been mentored a lot by Yves. David received a letter from the boy’s father saying “thank you so much for how my son is changing, he is becoming more responsible around the house, and is doing well at school now”. This was very encouraging to the leaders at GLO.
The local churches have started being more receptive towards GLO. The extension program has had the impact of the GLO leadership developing closer relationships with church leaders and being encouraged by what GLO is doing to the young people in Zambia.
1) Praise and prayer for the continued unity of this team
2) Pray for the members of staff who often struggle with raising personal support