Newsletter (January 15, 2009)

Dear all,  The best news these two weeks is that Dr Fan has accepted Christ.  Recently he has not come to our house as often as before, so we thought he was not interested in the gospel anymore.  Then he came to visit us just after New Year’s Day and, among other things, we went through John 3:1–16 with him.  We explained to him the meaning of born again and how one could become born again.  At the end of our discussion we asked him if he would believe in Jesus Christ.  He thought for a while and then said yes!  We prayed with him and afterwards he said he felt very relieved.  We have since started some followup sessions with him.  He seems to be serious and genuine in his decision to accept Jesus Christ as his saviour and would very much like to attend a Chinese worship service.  Please pray that he will grow as a Christian and also pray that we have the wisdom to help him to know our Lord better.

Providentially we met a group of five Chinese pastors who were visiting Zambia to explore opportunities to start some community work, with the aim of evangelising to the young kids here.  They were all originally from Hong Kong but are now serving God in different places: two in Pretoria, South Africa (10 years), one in Botswana (9 years) and two in Vancouver.  They have been here for nearly a week and we are the only Cantonese speaking people that they have met.  Likewise, they are the first group of Cantonese speaking people that we have met since we came to Zambia!  It is a blessing to be able to meet them and tell them more about Zambia and Ndola.  We are encouraged to see how much they have sacrificed in order to serve our Lord in foreign countries.  We pray and hope that they will be able to set up something in Ndola soon.  They said some of them will come back again in May.

Zara is continuing to visit the orphanage twice a week.  The physiotherapist has come back from the UK and was able to take up the bulk of the work with the cerebral palsy children again.  Praise the Lord that during her absence Zara could manage, although she felt very tired and exhausted every time she finished working there.

We also went down to Lusaka to see if Zara could get a driver’s licence without needing to do any test.  However we found out that the rules have been changed recently and now all foreigners, except diplomats, have to go through a driving test in order to get a Zambian driver’s licence.  For various reasons this is not something we would want to do, so most likely Zara will not be able to do any driving in Zambia.  Of course she is a bit disappointed about this but on the other hand it may prove to be a blessing in disguise as driving in Zambia is very dangerous.  There are so many accidents on the roads every day and many people are killed or injured.  Road conditions are very poor so it needs full concentration and it is very tiring to drive, say from Lusaka to Ndola and back.  Timothy loves driving but not in Zambia.

Please pray also for Zambia.  The economy is not good and lots of mines have laid off workers and many people have lost their jobs.  Basic food items are still very expensive and many people and families are struggling.  Partly because of this we have received many requests for financial help from people we know recently.  Many of them are genuine cases of severe hardship.  Unfortunately we will not be able to do much, as there are so many people that need help.  Please pray for us so that we have the wisdom to know how to handle such requests sensitively.  Please also pray that we won’t feel guilty of not being able to help them.  In Christ.