Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit in March

Key people: David Power and Andrew Alexander 

Recent Events

Nakoli School (ZAM25)

Throughout Zambia the government has slowly been gazetting schools. Nakoli now has a Head Teacher and a Deputy that have been appointed by the government. Before being gazetted the teachers were trained through OM discipleship training and OM teachers training. They were given an appreciation allowance and viewed the work at the school as part of their ministry. 

OM has worked with the community, Head teacher and their own teachers to devise an exit strategy. They have come to an agreement to drop three positions per year and be fully out by 2021. This will mean that the school has time to employ new government teachers. Because the school is now under government control they have to accept all students and the class sizes have increased to 60-70 / class with one teacher. The teachers that have been let go this year have moved on to other ministry opportunities with OM already.  

Aroha Flats

BHW previously funded one of four flats in a block of flats. This flat is rented out and the funds given to Nakoli school. Some changes have been made to the way these flats are managed in that before if a certain flat for a certain ministry was not rented out for a month then that ministry would not get the expected money. They have now divided the four flats into shares depending on the amount put forward in the beginning. From the whole amount there is tax, maintenance, wages and an administration fee taken out and then the rest is divided between the ministries they are intended for. I think this is a great way to even out the ups and downs that can come from having a rental and a great way to solve this problem. 

Personal Stories

Peter and Brenda

The first words that Peter had to mention when we were talking with him were, thanks."Thankyou that our faith has manifested through Bright Hope World. It’s encouraging that God has raised people to help us even though we have not even seen them."

Peter and Brenda are leadership in the Bethesda special needs ministry with OM. Peter's role is to oversee the whole ministry. He deals with partners and donors, newsletters and emails. Brenda oversees the whole special needs school.

This ministry started with a support group that met in two little rooms with 10 mentally and physically disabled children and their guardians. The vision has always been to start a disabled school and then expand to an integrated school. A large part of the vision has also been to bring a new level of acceptance of people who are disabled into the community that they are working in.

Now there is a special needs school with three classrooms and 40 children. There are seven Zambian teachers who have been trained through OM discipleship training school with three of them furthering their education and doing the OM teachers training. These people were identified from the community and showed an interest in the work. This school has always had the vision of community ownership. They have four volunteers and often teams and volunteers with special skills in this area are able to visit and work with the school. This is the only special needs school in this province. 

The community’s response to disabled children used to be firstly as a parent, hide them away, sometimes even neighbours didn’t know that the family had a child with special needs. Mothers couldn’t mingle together with each other. A person who has a disability would be seen as being cursed and if they went to the market to buy something the marketer would not accept their money as they would believe that would pass on the curse.

Now they are seeing through the three support groups they have set up an acceptance and understanding of disability. The support groups are for guardians of disabled children as well as other mothers and disabled adults. This is an incredible idea that has produced in this community connections that would not have otherwise been made.

They have also been working with disabled adults to help them learn how to cook once a week for the program. This includes going to the market to buy the food and learning how to buy something and get change.

As a whole disabilities are now out in the open in the community and people feel free to push the wheelchairs without fear of what people could be saying about them.

For the future they are wanting to start an integrated school, they now have the land for that. They would also like to see teachers officially qualified and registered and also to have their staff trained in nursing and specializing in occupational therapy or physiotherapy.

Life impact story: A Muslim lady had noticed the special school bus coming to her area and picking up disabled children. She found out about the school through Peter who then discovered that she too had a disabled child. She wanted her son to join the school. Peter explained that this is a Christian organisation and that she is welcome to join but part of joining is that you need to come to the support group which includes a bible study. Surprisingly her husband, who is a leader in the mosque, has agreed to this. Through the support group she has even felt free enough to take off her veils that cover her face. The group continues to pray for this family.

Waddi and Nkandu 

Waddi is on the leadership team that runs OM Zambia at the moment. At this stage this means a range of different roles throughout Zambia. He is involved in church partnership which means he talks about missions and encourages churches to somehow be involved in mission.

He has been on the leadership of the church in Makwati, which also includes preaching on Sundays, youth development, and building up the local church leadership so that they are able to run that church themselves one day.

He teaches within the mission and discipleship course and mentors students.

Waddi oversees the other OM bases around Zambia and is connected with the teams that are being built in each of those bases. He also responding to a range of invitations to teach or preach at churches outside of Kabwe.

Nkandu, his wife, has just started studying at the moment in education. They are based at the OM base in Kabwe and have two children, 4 and 3 years old.

Waddi’s passion does however seem to be in the community. He loves telling people he meets about God and loves having the community connections. He tries to divide his time between being in the office and out in the community evenly. 

Waddi tells us of a time recently when he got a tyre puncture and had to pull over. A man stopped to help him and through talking with Waddi he revealed that he was actually on his way to commit suicide. Waddi was able to share with him the hope he can have in Christ and continues to connect with him and get him connected with other people in his community.

Waddi has recently been diagnosed with diabetes. It is very difficult to have access to insulin in Zambia. He is not afraid because he trusts that he will only die if it is God's will. Waddi asks for prayer for his diabetes and for wisdom with his children.

Gift and Emely Malambo 

Emely is working in the Sports Link team for OM. Sports Link uses sport to connect with young people and then be able to share about God and help with a whole range of life coaching. Through the connection of sport they are able to get to know the kids well and address them where they are at. They have football teams for boys and girls in Kabwe at the moment.

There is a month long training for people interested in sport ministry that will be running in April. It is an intense course that brings discipleship into it and how to use sports as a way to teach life skills. An example of this would be how you pass the ball within a football team, just as we need each other in life. They also cover leadership as the vision for people doing this course is that they will go out and wherever they are start forming their own team to do sport ministry.

Emely’s previous roles were in administration but she did the Sports Link course and then in 2016 was asked to take on the leadership of it. It was good timing for her because she felt like it was time to be stepping out of the office and more involved with people in the community.

Gift is working with OM on the street team. This team is trying to empower and equip churches within Kabwe to be involved in street children's lives in a healthy way. At the moment the view of street children is that they are rubbish and of no value. Gift and his team are wanting to change that mindset within the church and get Christians to value and care for these young people but also then equip them with the right way of helping them.

Helping street children would be by:
• Starting a day centre
• Having a halfway house
• Foster care families

The process and time that it takes to build relationship and trust with these children is really important. It’s important to consider just how long they have been on the street, what they have been through and have an understanding that the transition off the street is a long process.

At the moment they are able to speak at five churches around Kabwe. They believe it is important to work through the churches as they are able to help with the transition process, they are able to connect with the family and counsel them and see if the family is a safe place for a child to begin transitioning back into.

Joshua Chishala 

Joshua is on the leadership team and OM and also involved with AIDS Link.

The shame associated with having HIV is still a vast problem in Zambia. Lots of people try to hide their own or their family’s status. AIDS Link helps support people who are infected and affected by AIDS. 

They do workshops and trainings in the OM mission course, churches, schools and with church leaders. These are to spread knowledge regarding what HIV actually is and how to protect and prevent infection. There are a lot of mistruths about HIV because of its tendency to not be talked about openly. AIDS Link's aim is for people to freely talk about HIV without being embarrassed or ashamed. They have support groups set up for people, some of these also have a skills training aspect to them as well, like sewing.

When someone has been tested positive for HIV, there is a grieving process to this and a process of getting on the right medication. Starting out on ARV’s is also a very intense time for people’s bodies to get physically used to the medication. The team have been trained in how to support people walking through this process. 

There are high rates of infection but very little information in the rural areas about HIV. As the team grows they would like to get people going to these rural areas to spread knowledge and understanding and love.

In all this Joshua and the team ask themselves, ‘How are we different to UNICEF?’ A great question to come back to. They are different because they approach a life holistically, their motivation to help people through this time in their lives is the love of Christ.

For Joshua, he knows this is what he is made for, that he is fulfilling his purpose through this work. He sees that his friends have well-paying jobs and are not satisfied, but for him, he is happy because he knows that this is where God wants him to be working. He thanks BHW for the support and tells us to be encouraged by the changes that are happening because of it. 

Plans for the Future

Continue with the flat funding Nakoli school until OM have fully pulled out of there. After that we can discuss any boundaries that might need to be put on the use of that money.

Continue with the missionary support.

Open to receiving proposals from OM missionaries who would like to be trained in farming. 

Open to other ways of helping the missionaries be able to support themselves in the field. 

Current Issues and Challenges

OM are going through a leadership change and there should be a new field leader appointed at the end of May.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) The missionaries are thankful for the support they receive through BHW.
2) Pray for Waddi’s diabetes and access to insulin.
3) Pray about the change in leadership of OM and the transition that will follow.
4) Pray for an increased awareness in the Kabwe churches of the street children and their value to God.
5) Thankful for the acceptance of disabled people in the community that Bethesda is working in. 

Comments

When talking with people from OM it is reassuring to hear the value they place in using and empowering the local church. Their belief that they as OM do not need to be doing the work that the local church should be doing is strategic and long term focused, it is quite challenging and inspiring.