Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitators Following Visit in March

ZAM07b - Chifundo Orphans, Mchacha
ZAM23 - Chipata Rural Church OVC

Key people: Rosemary Daka, Steven Daka, Norman & Hilda Tonga

With the passing of Lonard in January we went to Chipata to encourage the family and to see what they were thinking about the partnership and activities.

Lonard's family is looking after Rosemary well; she has Lonard's brother's daughter and granddaughter living with her at present. The community has also been very helpful. While Lonard was so sick they planted 6 limas (50x50m per lima) of maize, ground nuts and sunflowers for the Dakas which has helped them to live.

Steven had a hard job getting the funds in Lonard's bank account released. Going between the bank, the hospital and the courts to get the funds took over a month but now all the funds are deposited into the Chifundo account at Stanbic bank.

Recent Events

Orphans Programs

Chifundo (ZAM07b)
Chifundo now only has seven orphans remaining in the program. In the last two years there has been nine who have completed school and many others have fallen out of the program, some through moving away and some have failed exams (Lonard had set in place that if they failed their exams Chifundo would no longer support them).

Rosemary and Steven are thinking about what to do with this program. The options are:
1) Increase the number of orphans
2) Start a program to help the school leavers, maybe micro-loans and farming
3) Start up a business to employ some of the school leavers and create income for the partnership (i.e. block making)

The current budget is over funded for seven orphans so this will be decreased for 2015. There needs to be some time given for Rosemary, Steven and Norman to decide what they want to do in the community.

Chipata OVC (ZAM23)
In Norman’s area the program is still running as before. There are seven in secondary school and 25 in primary school. They want to keep this program going as there is more need, especially where they have been planting churches. 

11 students have completed school. 

Farming

Lonard had wanted to start more training programs in Foundations for Farming (FfF) and help people learn through farming small plots. They are wanting to carry this vision on, starting people off with 10m x 10m plots so they can learn.

Steven has not been trained but had been to many of the trainings that Lonard had held. He is interested in being trained so he can carry on the training.

Norman continues to train people, especially where they have planted churches. He himself has planted 3 acres of maize, 3 acres of cotton, and some sunflowers. He now has two oxen and a rippa that can make a trench for planting. He is able to hire this out to create income for himself. He hopes to get an oxen cart this year after harvest, which will give him another business.

They have still been running a farming inputs program through the local churches, teaching the orphans and guardians Foundations for Farming. They have been running a micro-loan program, giving out seed and fertilizer and being repaid in bags of maize after harvest. They currently have 12 bags remaining to sell, which will keep the program going.

Norman says; “We are farmers, this is a way of God blessing us through farming. We can have a program of fertilizer and seeds, a small field for the orphans, and as they go on we can add to the size of the field. Start with 5 or 10 people, and have some sort of profit”.

One issue they are having is transport to the various places that Lonard used to visit, as he had his car and motor bike.

Rains this year have been very bad, starting very late in December and it has not rained since the end of February. People will be struggling for food by the end of the year, as the cobs are not being fully developed. 

Church Planting

We visited two of the churches that Norman and Lonard had planted. One church Norman planted in 2012 and he used to ride 34km there and 34km back every Sunday, with his wife on the back of the bike. The good thing now is that there is a strong leadership in the planted churches and Norman now only visits occasionally.

These churches are in Muslim areas and there have been a number of converts to Christ in these areas. Often the Muslims are giving out handouts of food, bikes, soap and school fees to make people be part of the Muslim faith. Norman sees that when these handouts have finished people start to search and the use of Foundations for Farming as an evangelism tool has been very good in helping people to know Christ.

Norman has been working with ROM Outreach Group. They sent a team for evangelism in 2013 and they saw many people come to Christ through the crusades. One key thing was the healings that happened to many people. One of the ROM leaders would pray to Mohammed to heal someone and nothing would happen. But when they prayed in Jesus name, people were healed.

Personal Stories

Kenneth Manda

Kenneth lives with his wife Doreen and they have 11 children. He is a farmer, planting maize, ground nuts and cotton. For his cotton field the commercial company Cargill gives them the seeds for 7 acres and the chemicals. At harvest they give the entire yield to the company and they take off the cost of the inputs and return to the farmer whatever remains.

He was a member of Islam for 11 years but decided that he couldn’t agree with them saying that Jesus was not the son of God. He says if Jesus is not the son of God then he is lost. He heard some preaching from members of CMML (Brethren Church) at a funeral he was attending and so he decided to go to church there and follow Jesus. His family followed him out of Islam. His Islam name was Ischak.

The Muslims used to give him soap, mealie meal and a bike when he worshipped at the mosque but that stopped after some time.

Kenneth has had no problems with Muslims since he has left the faith, he just tells them that Mohammed was not the son of God. 

Comments

One of the best nights we had on the trip to Zambia was with Rosemary and her two sons, Steven and Island. They were talking about Lonard and the things he used to do as a father. Like making them run around the house stopping at each corner of the house to spell out a word if they had got it wrong in a spelling test. Lonard would never let them watch football on TV, so they had to wait until he fell asleep then they would sneak out and go watch the UK premier league. 

It was a testament to the work and love Lonard showed for the people that the church have been helping in such a way as to plant the fields for the Dakas.

One of Rosemary’s last favorite times with Lonard, he was lying on the couch with all the grandkids running around making lots of noise. He was smiling and enjoying the loud noise and happenings.