a few words from grae

It was only moments after that when I felt God poke me (not physically) and challenge me on why I was in Zambia.

I can’t believe I have been back for over a week, how things change when you get back into everyday life at home and then time flies by.

For those that don’t really know what the Zambia trip was all about … a team of 12 went out to Chingola in Zambia. 9 from Storrington Community Church, 1 from Worthing Church and 2 from New Life Croydon. We went out to help complete a number of tasks on Eden Farm which is part of Life Support.

We went out ultimately to get involved in whatever needed to be done, you can’t really go out with too strict idea of what you hope to achieve because things don’t happen that way in Zambia but one thing we knew would be happening while we were out there was the official opening of Eden Farm which included a visit from a number of important people of Chingola including the mayor and district commissioner.

While we were there we were involved with a number of projects / tasks:

• Finishing off the first children’s house – this included putting screen material up for ceiling, tidying up, cleaning
  

  Children's House One

  the bathroom, getting running water to within 5m of the house, planting some citrus trees around the house, getting the beds down to the house, filling in the waste pit with rocks and all the other finishing touches like table and chairs, rug in the children’s room etc.

• Plumbing – I’ve mentioned getting running water to the children’s house but we also needed running water in the main farmhouse as well which Steve took responsibility for and as a team we dragged the existing water tank to the top of an ant hill that had a concrete platform on-top. By the end of the two weeks we had running cold water in the farm house and water at the children’s house which can be plumbed in as soon as the internal plumbing is finished.
• Nurture Group – this was part of Dorrie’s mission whilst out there, taking part/leading a group of ladies from the local township which had been started by a girl from Finland. Dorrie taught nutrition, hygiene and how to preserve fruit and make marmalade.
• Holiday Club – Michelle and I are fairly familiar at running holiday clubs here in the UK as part of SplashSchools and we thought we would run a three day club on the farm for children from the local township, we were told fifty children would be bought in on a bus … 127 arrived on the first day! Out of the windows went our plan but we think the kids had a thoroughly good time!
• On the farm – whilst on the farm we kept ourselves busy moving fruit trees that needed planting in better locations, building a style (well done John), investigating the possibility of irrigation for the crops with the assistance of a firm here in the UK, investigating the possibility of Solar again with the support of firms in the UK, and anything to keep us out of trouble.

Was I challenged and if so how ? – I don’t think anyone can go abroad to a developing country and not be challenged in one way or another. I am not sure I was challenged in a way that would be expected by most, It wasn’t the poverty that really got me or the reaction to white people from the locals but I guess there are three ways that I really feel I was challenged in whilst in Zambia and since getting back ..

The first was seeing the potential of Eden Farm, there is so much land that with the right resources can be put to some amazing use. The long term plan is to build more children’s houses, have 8 in a cluster and have a number of clusters to build little villages and elsewhere on the farm to support those families and children there will be a school, church and a clinic.

With one children’s house built and the other one being fund-raised for as I write this the next step is to put some serious effort into the farming side of Eden Farm because a key aim of the project is to make this self-sustaining and at the moment it isn’t. To fund-raise for a children’s house is hard enough but people do tend to dip in their pocket when it comes to helping children but to fund-raise for someone to run the farming side of things takes a real work of God in peoples lives to enable them to see the potential of Eden Farm, if the farming aspect can be got off the ground.

The second way I was challenged on this visit, was down to money. There isn’t a lot of money for Eden Farm and towards the end of our trip the money was running out and we had to do what we could with the resources that we had available at that time. The thing is money can really be stretched when used in a project like this, £10,000 will build and furnish a brand new children’s house but can you imagine if 8 communities around the UK committed over the next 12 months to each raising enough money for 1 children’s house, in a year we could have a brand new cluster, what about if the USA did the same thing, what about if a community somewhere in Europe committed over the next 12 months to raising the salary of a farmer to get the farm really going and that self sustainability under-way. This is a project where you can and will really see the effects of money that is donated.

My third challenge of the trip, was about leaning on God and not on myself. If you’re not a christian and are reading this you might wonder what I am meaning, and that is fair enough and too much to really explain here but leave a comment if you like. I’ll best explain this in the way of a story.

On the first full day in Zambia (Saturday) we were having a walk around the farm with Nathanael and a number of friends of his and of the farm came to visit us and say hi. One of those people was Oscar (who is a trustee of Eden Farm). He was telling myself and Phil about a church gathering he has with the local golf club caddies before they start work for the day each Sunday. I had been to see this last time I was in Zambia. Oscar invited us quite out of the blue to lead the service, Phil leading some worship and I was to speak. I wasn’t too keen on the idea and said no, I was tired, just arrived and was itching to get stuck into the farm. It was only moments after that when I felt God poke me (not physically) and challenge me on why I was in Zambia. I had no response, I was there to get stuck into whatever he laid before me … and I think this he was laying before me! Reluctantly I went back to Oscar and agreed to lead the service the next morning.

The following Saturday evening, around 7pm we were sitting having a coffee as a team and Nathanael got a phone call … we need a 3rd preacher (I don’t like that word) and Steve, Nathanael and a few others looked in my direction as the one who was willing to stand up and speak to a congregation. Learning from my poke the week before I didn’t resist, I was there to serve in whatever way God called me to and it seems this was it.

I have no idea if either time I spoke the words that came out we particularly profound but I prayed that whatever I said to whomever was there would be used by God and he would speak to the congregations through what I was sharing. Pretty much as I do when I speak here in the UK, but in Africa I lent far more on him, I think getting only a few hours notice was God’s way of telling me not to over prepare! — that is something I have been challenged on for a while now.

Was it worth it? – YES! I think on any trip like this the team comes back having got as much if not more out of the trip than those we spent time with and I would encourage anyone willing to give up time, money and a lot of energy and go and serve in someway.

All the photos I have uploaded to Facebook and they can be viewed on this site here — take a look!