The battle in my heart: Generosity or reducing dependence

Well, a lot has been happening in the last few days, but there have been problems with the internet. The speed of the connection is frustrating at the best of times, but anyway here goes with a slightly lengthy blog, but I hope you'll stay with it!....

On Wednesday we headed out to Kepeshi again, to finish the work on the school classrooms. As last week, we had another team of willing volunteers to help with the painting, and fixing desks. This time we were able to paint the outside of the school too. Last week we painted Patrick's classroom, and it was good to see his class in the classroom, and Patrick very happy to be using his new blackboard. Alice's class had there lessons outside while her classroom was painted.

Photo: Patrick using new board to teach his class


Photo: Alice teaches her class outside


Photo: Some members of the community help to paint the outside of the school



Photo: Fixing desks


In the afternoon, we had a meeting with some of the community in order to discuss how they could fund the school going forward. Many people had ideas on agriculture and ways in which they could grow food to raise money However, there was one sticking point, the initial funds for seed and fertiliser. It’s hard because while the cost is very little for us, around £60, the whole essence about the ‘Life’ programme is that it doesn’t create dependence, and yet people looked at us expectantly because they know we have money. I contemplated the fact that even if a homeless tramp from the UK with no money turned up here in a Zambian village, people would not believe that he could have no money, if his skin was white. I think the concept of there being poor people in the western world, is not one to be grasped very easily over here – If you’re living in the west and especially if you have white skin then you must be rich.

Anyway I digress, after a private discussion with Joel and Vincent, in which I asked if they thought the people were really serious about helping their community. Although I was really just after Vincent and Joel’s opinion, Vincent decided to then translate to everyone there, asking if they were serious, which almost caused a riot as some of the people seemed rather annoyed that their seriousness in the matter was being questioned here. It’s really tough because on the one hand you dont want to continue the dependance which has occurred all over this area, partly from colonial times, but also partly because since independence western charities and NGO’s have kept giving money to build various things, and while this is honourable and has been good in the short term in improving life for people here, it has also had a negative impact on many Zambian’s ability to do things for themselves. They have become so used to the west providing resources, that this has left an unhealthy dependence. I was aware that if they wanted to improve their community and fund the school, then the best way of making sure the school continued to be funded in the future was by them putting the effort in now, and really owning the project; but on the other hand, as we sat there with this group, I was acutely aware of how much richer we are than they, and in a sense, what right do I have to withhold giving money, when much of the reason for the difference in our financial situation has been to do with where we have been born. I suppose as a Christian it's about being a good steward of the money I have been blessed with, and making the decision that is best for the people here. Hmm. I'm not sure I like holding this kind of authority! Anyway Ruth and I agreed that if they prepared some land ready to be cultivated, then we could give a small loan for some seeds and fertiliser. I hope this gift or loan will not continue their dependence on the outside, I hope and pray that they begin to realise that if they work together as a community than they can do great things.


Photo: Meeting

The first task on Thursday was to go and buy some cement for Vincent. His church of 35 members had raised 350,000 Kwacha (about £50) over 6 months, to buy 5 bags of cement to lay as a floor in the church. Currently they just had mud floor, which creates a lot of dust when people walk around. We searched for cement, however although every place said they supplied it, they didn’t actually have any in stock. At this time of year a lot of building work goes on because people are trying to prepare for the rainy season. During the dry season you can afford not to have a roof on your building, or glass in your windows, but you don’t want to have incomplete buildings come the rainy season. Finally, in the seventh place we tried, they had some but wanted a higher price for it than Vincent had hoped for (possibly due to the fact that they were the only shop with cement). I managed to reduce the price slightly with some haggling. (I’ll have to remember not to do this when I return home. I can see some funny looks happening when I try to argue for a lower price.

A little later we arrived in Ipafu, where we met the pastors to discuss how the discipleship programme could go on, and I discussed with them about how they can fund themselves better, and enable them to release more of their time for the work. Only 4 of the pastors came to the meeting. It turned out Casper was quite badly ill, and as the morning went on, it became clear that he would need to be picked up and taken to the clinic in Ipafu. Jude and Jo went with Ranger to pick up Casper and his wife. They found him to be in some degree of pain, with what could be a severe stomach ulcer. At the clinic, they are told that he should take some tablets and go back home, and if not better the next day go to the hospital. Jude managed to convince the medical staff there that because we were here today, he would have transport to go to Chingola hospital, and so they signed the form, which would refer him into the hospital.

Mark Burton a professional photographer and good friend of Jon, has joined us this week. He’s taking some photos of what we’re up to on the ‘Life’ project and also a project taking a number of families over here, and photographing them every 18 months or so, and seeing how their lives change. Mark interviewed some of the pastors to understand a bit more about their lives and what made them tick.

Next time on the blog…..I travel out to Mibila and Milulu with Mark, as he tries to find the families he wants to take photos of for his project.

N.B. We visited Casper in hospital today, and he is still in a lot of pain. Please pray for him.

The Gift of Cake

On Saturday we had our conference called ‘Loving the Lost’. The idea was to inspire the churches in Chingola to think about the wider community in the rural areas, and for a few it may be that they feel called to work and live there.

Prior to the conference many church leaders had expressed enthusiasm for this conference and we got the impression that there could be a lot of delegates, but with no pre-booking it’s difficult to know how many people. Judging by the enthusiasm people had expressed to us before the conference we thought 200 people could be likely and possibly more. As it turned out, while there were a great many churches represented from many denominations, many churches had just sent one or two members to attend. So when the conference was due to commence at 9am there were only a handful of people there, around 20 in fact. The worship band played for a while, and just before 10am Jon started his first seminar, and by this time around 60 had arrived. Although by lunchtime there were close to 100 delegates, we had ordered food to cater for 200!

Photo: Jon speaking with translation in Bemba.

Before lunch we went to Pie City (a favourite hang-out of Jon’s – who sell guess what…. Pies of course, and of many different flavours, including ‘Rusian and Cheese’. I’m not sure what that is. They even have a ‘Pie Chart’ to show you the flavours! Anyway, I digress, we had ordered 200, and as we arrived, there were no pies on the shelves, and people sat in the shop waiting for pies to be made. Basically our order had meant that they didn’t have any to sell! We explained that we were happy to take less, but the manager felt he needed to fulfil the order, and said we must take 200, however, when we explained that we had less people at the conference than expected, and also that he could sell the pies we didn’t take for a higher price, than the discounted rate we had been able to get for the bulk order, he agreed, and so the Chingola public could now eat pies again. Phew! Next stop was the bakery where again, we had ordered many more cakes than necessary, however we had pre-paid for these so we had to take them. ( In case you think the food was very unhealthy at the conference, we did have some fruit too!) I was starting to feel bad that we had over catered to such an extent, and felt a little annoyed that we had been promised more people. Anyway Ruth decided that we should give some cakes to a tramp sitting near the bakery, which I think he was rather surprised about, as were many passers by who witnessed an old guy gorging himself on huge slices of cake, and also to some street kids who normally spend time pestering people and begging especially ‘Masungus’ (white people), for money. Two parking attendants who collect money as you exit the main shopping street were also cake recipients, to their bemusement. – (By the way we did pay them the 1000 Kwatcha parking fee as well, not just payment in cake in case you were wondering, and worth around 15p!) Anyway, people enjoyed the food at the conference, but at the end, we had a lot of extra cakes, but we were able to bless an orphanage with some of the cakes, and some churches in the poor communities took others, and I realised again, that so often when we think things have gone differently to our careful plans, that actually many people in the town were far more blessed from the cakes than those at the conference would have been, and I have a sneaky suspicion God wanted there to be too many cakes after all!

As for the conference, Jon challenged people to think about the rural areas, the issues those people faced, and how the few pastors there, struggle to minister to the many who live there. We had group discussions where these things could be discussed, and in the afternoon Ruth gave a talk about her experiences living on the Message Trust’s Eden project in Swinton, Manchester. There was a huge roar of laughter when Ruth talked about poorer people living in the inner cities and richer people living in rural areas in the UK, as this is in such contrast to Zambia. However living on a poor council estate, and spending time with the people who often feel such hopelessness for their lives as Ruth has been doing, has a huge sacrifice, and so parallels could be made with the cost of people moving to work in Rural areas in Zambia, as our friend Vincent has done. Vincent explained how he had given up the chance of working in a large urban church where he would receive a wage a house with electricity and many material things such as a car, to instead go and live in the simple small home that he now lives, without an income, so that he can follow his heart for the poorest and most needy people. He explained that many who studied at his bible college thought he was mad, and out of all the students, only he has gone to the rural areas, while the others look for the ‘better’ life materially.

Photo: Ruth explains about her Eden work.

We don’t know the impact that the conference will have, but the people who came seemed to really enjoy it as well as being challenged, and went away with much food for thought. Maybe some of these people will take up the challenge to go and help the least of these brothers of theirs in the rural village communities. I hope too that the tramp received comfort from the gift of the cakes, and was not sick from eating too many, and that in some small way the gift of cake impacted those street kids too.

Next time on the blog.... we return to Kepeshi School to finish the painting, and desk repairing, and also discuss how the school can help support itself finanically.

Paint thinners and wing nuts

On Wednesday Ruth, Jo and I went with Vincent and Joel to the school at Kepeshi village, where we had been twice before. This was Jo’s first time into the rural bush, so there were lots of new sights for her and she had many questions to ask Vincent and Joel. On arrival many children were waiting for us. School had been cancelled for the day, due to us coming to decorate the classrooms, but this hadn’t stopped many of the children coming to see what was going to happen. Many of the adults had been waiting from 8am for us, so by the time we arrived at around 10am many had gone back home, thinking that this was another occasion where people had promised the community something, only to find that it never happened. A distrust had been built up by many villagers based on councillors, individuals and other organisations promising things but not delivering. So our arrival provoked a great reaction of excitement and enthusiasm amongst those that had waited, and some went to tell others who had gone back to their homes.

The school had been built in 2000, and while the structure was fine, the interior was lacking it’s original freshness. Also lacking was a decent blackboard. Each classroom had a small piece of board, but we brought some blackboard paint with us, and Ruth and Jo got to work painting the new blackboard.

Photo: Current Blackboard Photo: Ruth and Jo paint a new blackboard

As for the walls, we had been instructed to bring white paint for the top half of the walls, and dark blue for the lower third of the room. Throughout Zambia the painting of walls with a lower darker colour is commonplace, and many schools are painted blue and white. I’ve also seen this on my visits to Uganda. The theory of the dark colour on the lower part of the wall, is that this will get more dirty, and show up on lighter colours. The paint here is mostly oil based so has to be mixed with thinner. However while on the phone to Vincent, his strong Zambian accent combined with bad mobile reception meant that when he’d asked us to bring thinner, (pronounced Theeena) the closest word I could come up with was peanuts, which I was sure weren’t needed! Ruth suggested that he might mean wing nuts, because we were also going to be mending desks, which had become broken. Anyway while in the paint shop it became clear to me that he meant thinner! Anyway after telling the story to Vincent when we arrived, he found it very funny, and from then on referred to thinner as wing nuts!

We had rollers, but you cant buy poles for them, however this wasn’t a problem because the sugar canes fitted perfectly as poles for the rollers. In Africa you learn to make do with what is around you, and that God provides, even when it’s not how you expect. Vincent and I started the painting, but soon other members of the village were eager to take over, and the classroom was soon transformed.

Photo: Vincent painting using sugarcane roller

Ruth had also decided to paint a colourful alphabet and numbers on one of the walls, and Alice one of the 2 teachers there was so pleased with this, and that this would really help the young children learn.

Photo: Many help to paint Alphabet

We painted the teachers’ office, but were unable to finish the other classroom, as ran out of white paint, however we promised to come back again next Wednesday.

Photo: Finished classroom

Later in the afternoon, we met with Alice, and Patrick the other teacher, and also a number of parents, and other villagers to discuss how they could help fund the school, which after initial funding from outside, was now struggling to survive. The government does not recognise many schools in the villages, and while primary education is provided for free in the urban areas, it is less often the case in many rural areas. Indeed in 2004 it closed for a year, and 2 teachers left because they were paid no more. Alice however felt called to continue teaching there, and so in 2005 she began teaching again, but doesn’t receive a wage. Patrick also started teaching at that time. They are not trained teachers and would love to receive training, but again there is no money, because although they wanted to charge the parents for each child, most cannot afford it. While we know we could raise funds for them from the UK, it’s also true that this will only solve a problem temporarily and when the money runs out things will go back again. Also reliance on money from outside has crippled the ability of many in rural areas to try and provide for themselves, which is the better alternative, so with Joel, we asked them to go and think about ways in which they could raise money themselves. We are due to have another meeting with the community next week when we return.

Photo: Meeting

Next time on the blog....Around 100 come to our conference, and we give away hundreds of cakes!

A well earned rest: Part 2: Livingstone and Victoria Falls

Last Wednesday we picked up Jo from Lusaka airport. Jo has come out to join the team out here for 3 months. It’s her first time in Africa, so she was pleased to ease into things gently with a trip to Livingstone and Victoria falls, before starting work on the ‘Life’ project this week. I say easing in gently, although a 7 hour road trip isn’t perhaps the best thing after a couple of night flights via the very crazy Nairobi airport. The trip to Livingstone went without incident, and with a couple of stops at Monze and Choma for refreshment, we had made good progress. However, the last 100kms into Livingstone is along a road with numerous potholes, with the traffic weaving from one side of the road to the other, and a number of large lorries finding the going very slow, this part of the journey ended up taking almost 3 hours, with much of it in the dark, just to make things even more interesting! Finally we arrived and booked into a small guest lodge for the night.

The next day we met Pastor Leonard, who I’d met in March on my previous visit to Livingstone when doing some Alpha training. We agreed to meet up with him in the town centre, however, while parked waiting for Leonard to arrive, we found that our car was being washed. Yes it was very dirty after the journey, but nevertheless I hadn’t requested this service. In Zambia though people tend to give a service whether you want it or not, and then demand money afterwards. In fact stopping at all is dangerous. At major junctions throughout the country, many people will crowd around the car trying to sell you things. Often food, and this can be useful, as it saves a trip to the supermarket for fruit and veg. In Lusaka the other day people were selling puppies at one of the major traffic light intersections. Although the puppies did look sweet, we did decline them.

Anyway with a clean car (which we did pay for), but without a Zambian football shirt, 3 pairs of socks, a saucepan, a broom, a set of spanners to name a few of the attempted sales to us while the car was being washed, we met Leonard, and booked some accommodation for ourselves and the Witt family, plus Mark who had been to Botswana with them. The accommodation was at a camp by a crocodile filled river!

In the afternoon Ruth, Jo and I visited Victoria Falls, which had much less water falling than in March, when we got drenched viewing the falls. In fact we were able to walk across the top of the falls in some places, where the Zambezi river was dry. It was a great experience, though standing on the edge of the falls looking down was a bit scary. A guide held onto us for good measure. I also swam in a small pool formed by the river drying up at the top of the falls. While at the falls, we also had a bag of crisps stolen by a baboon right in front of us! That doesnt happen every day in the UK!

Photo: Me, Jo and Ruth at top of Vic Falls

Photo: Baboon eats crisps!

In the evening we met up with Jon, Jude, Mark and the kids, who had had a great time in Chobe National Park in Botswana. The next day we visited a crocodile farm, which was ok, though I’m not a big fan of these mean and dangerous looking creatures, nor of the selection of dangerous snakes which we could look at behind glass, each of which it was explained could kill you. Hmm, I think Jo was wanting to head back home at this point!

Photo: Fierce green monster

The highlight of this trip to Livingstone was taking a helicopter trip over Vic Falls. The view was amazing and for my first every helicopter flight, this was certainly a great place to do it.

Photo: On board helicopter

Photo: View of the falls from the air

On Sunday we made the 12 hour drive (14 hours in the end with breaks) back to Chingola, which was tiring although less so, sharing the driving. It’s been a great break and I think we all feel refreshed for the hard work to come. For Mark it was the end of his Zambian adventure, as he returned to the UK on Saturday as he had to go back to work on Monday.

Next time on the blog.....Ruth, Jo and I visit Kepeshi School with Vincent and Joel to do some painting and meet the teachers and school parents committee, and we continue to prepare for Saturday's conference.

A well earned rest! – Part 1: The Safari

Well, its been a while since my last blog, and that’s because I’ve been taking some time out from the Life project and having a break for a week. Here’s part one of what I got up to.

Last Thursday we drove down to Lusaka. On Friday morning Ruth and I took a tiny little plane to Mafuwe on the eastern side of Zambia to one of the smallest airports in the world. Ironically as walked towards the small terminal building, a large sign read ‘Mafuwe International Airport’. They only have 3 or 4 flights per day and all internal to Zambia. We were then picked up and taken to a safari lodge called Flatdogs camp. The camp is right on the edge of the South Luangwa national park which is one of the best national parks in Africa. It’s a huge place but all the animals that live there are protected and unlike most national parks and safari places it’s completely unspoilt.

We camped near to the river, and had elephants and giraffe’s wandering around the camp, and you could hear the hippos bathing in the river. At night the hippos also wandered around the camp. It was all a bit surreal really, and at night you had to be accompanied to the tent by one of the guards there, because of the danger of the animals. During the day there were a couple of times when we got stuck in cos there was an elephant at the door and you just have to wait til they move on. The tent had an ensuite but open air bathroom which meant that the elephants could come right up close to you – slightly unnerving when you’re on the toilet!



Photo: Elephant deciding which table to sit at


Photo: Elephant hiding just behind outside bathroom

We had to get up every morning for 5.30 breakfast and 6am game drive and there was another game drive at 4pm-8pm. It gets dark here at about 6.30pm so part of the drives were in the dark which meant that you could see animals that you can’t see in the day (a scout with the driver has a very powerful torch to find the animals!). On 2 of the 3 nights we saw a leopard stalking Impala. It was so strange to sit there in the middle of nowhere watching this huge cat hunt. We weren’t able to see a kill made however, possibly due to the distraction of us being there, but also because the leopards like to take a long time over hunting, which usually pays off with a surprise attack and a meal at the end of it! We also saw lions like this one on the photo below.


We had a great guide called Jotan, who had an extensive knowledge of flora and fauna in the park, and no question was too difficult for him to answer, including knowledge of all the latin names for everything which one guy on the drive with us seemed almost obsessed with! Jotan took us to where the action was happening, and this meant going away from the main tracks sometimes, which on one occasion meant we got stuck in the sand. Yes for the 2nd time in a couple of weeks Ruth and I were in a vehicle getting stuck, only this time with lions and other animals present, we really needed to get the car out a little quicker! After failing to dig the vehicle out, Jotan called another driver over and he used the bumper to bumper push the car out of the sand method, which worked very well. Other highlights were seeing herds of elephants crossing the Luangwa river, and being up close to a pride of lions. All in all it was a great experience and one I’ll never forget. For those of you on facebook, you can see more of my safari photos there.

Photo: Ruth, Jotan and I


Photo: Trying to dig vehicle out of sand....again, with Luangwa River in background, and lions prowling somewhere nearby!!


Next time on the blog…. We collect Jo from the airport and head down to meet up again with the Witt family in Livingstone.

The Zambian driving adventure

As Jon and I have done the majority of the driving since arriving, I’ve already gained a fair bit of 4x4 experience, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about driving in Zambia. I’ve already mentioned my run in with the Zambian traffic police on my first day of driving, but since then I’ve not had any more brushes with the law, and in any case as you get more into the rural areas, the number of police roadblocks dwindles, however the number of potholes increases, and the roads to the villages are quite a challenge, especially at night. The last couple of weeks have involved travelling along some of the worst roads, I have driven along in my life. Large holes in the road, boulders. The task of the driver is to try and get a compromise between travelling slow enough so that the vehicle stays in one piece and the passengers are not thrown about too much (that said, Mark has the ability to sleep on the most bumpy of roads) and fast enough that you actually get somewhere this year. Night driving is even more challenging, not only because of the dark but also dodging various animals such as goats, rabbits, owls, bats, etc.

Last Tuesday, I drove back to Chingola from Mibila to collect Ruth, who was coming a day late due to having to do some work for the conference we’ll hold next month. After coming off the main Solwezi Road, it is only another 20kms to Mibila, however this can take around 45 minutes, and in the rainy season this road can at times be impassable. After passing the small bridge over a stream, we got stuck in some mud, which had been chucked onto the road, while farmers had been clearing a ditch for irrigation. After a few attempts to drive out forwards or reversing, it became clear that the vehicle was just sinking deeper into the mud. A farmer tried to help using a big stick, and after this didn’t work, I asked if a spade was available. He came back with a spade, and after removing most of the mud, I tried again, but with similar results. We would have to wait for more passers by to come and help push the car. Eventually some people did come by, and we managed to reverse the car out of the mud. The next task was to build a road on top of the mud, using some rocks, sticks and some larger branches. Our temporary road surface did the job, and we were on our way after nearly 2 hours! Not 10 minutes further down the road however, we encountered the next problem – The road on fire. At this time of year, much of the land is being burned, and on this occasion the fire had spread onto the road. With flames half a metre high, I didn’t want to risk a film stunt drive through the fire, so we put out the fire, and then got back in the car very quickly as the fire on the side of the road, was getting very hot.

Photo1: Failing to dig way out of mud Photo2: Putting out fire in road

The other thing I should mention is that while the cars drive on the left over here as in the UK, the bicycles drive on the right. Yes that’s right, so the slightly strange site of people riding their bikes in the opposing direction was slightly unnerving at first, but now just seems normal. Many people will know that when walking along country lanes the correct procedure is to face oncoming traffic, so you can be aware of it, and be able to take action if necessary. It would also seem that this principle has been taken a stage further here to cyclists. And in Zambia, most cannot afford motorised transport, so they will carry anything and everything on their bikes, including crops that villagers will try to sell at markets, building materials and on occasion furniture even! So as you can see, driving here is full of excitement! – But please keep praying for our safety when travelling.

This week it's been a bit less hectic, with the team back in Chingola. Today, everything was closed and a national holiday due to the funeral of Zambia’s former president, so the town was eerily quiet. Later this week the team head off for a break for a few days, going to game reserves, as well as picking up our final team member Jo, who arrives next Wednesday.