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.
No comments:
Post a Comment