Newsletter (October 23, 2008)

Dear all, Last month we mentioned about the Harvest Week at Church.  In the end not too many non-Christians came to attend the meetings.  Yet about 20 people indicated that they would like to know more and the pastor and elder have started visiting them.  Pray that there will be genuine conversions among these seekers.

We used to attend the home group held in a deacon’s home.  However that family has moved to another town and for the past six weeks the home group has been meeting in our home.  We seem to be getting more people attending our group and we have been borrowing chairs each Wednesday.  Perhaps it is because our home is on the main road and it is a very convenient location.  So we come to know more people which is a very good thing.  We notice that the people attending our church are quite mobile.  People come and go regularly.  Some have moved to other towns to work, some have gone overseas for further study, and then some others have come to Ndola to work as well.  Although many people have come or have indicated that they will be coming to our home group, they do not turn up every time.  Otherwise if everyone turns up, we will have real difficulty accommodating all of them.

We gave our Chinese doctor friend, Dr Fan, a Bible and have started discussions with him about Jesus and the gospel.  He has started reading the New Testament and talked to us and asked us things that he didn’t understand.  He also told us another Chinese doctor was also very interested in studying the Bible. So we are trying to ask Dr Fan to introduce us to this doctor.  Please continue to pray for us so that we will be able to share our faith with these two doctors.

Dr Fan also brought us to a rest home today (Thursday).  This rest home is quite close to our house and is operated by the Salvation Army.  It is in a very beautiful compound and the place is well taken care of.  There are 19–20 people staying there and we chatted with some of them.  They are very lonely and we asked the management permission to visit these people from time to time.  They have no problem for us visiting the residents.  Maybe we will go there two or three times a month to begin with.

We have been eating the produce from our garden for a while now.  We are quite pleased that we finally managed to grow something.  In Dunedin it was a total failure.  Here at least we have lettuces, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, strawberries and some Chinese vegetables.  We have a lemon tree and a mandarin tree but so far there nothing good has come.

It is very hot lately and Zara feels very tired these two weeks.  We don’t know why her energy level is so low all of a sudden.  People say it is because of the heat.  Most likely this is the reason but please pray for Zara so that she can have strength to do things again.  Yesterday and today were slightly cooler as it is quite cloudy and we thought it might rain.  Well tonight the rain has finally come with huge thunderclaps.  In Christ.