Newsletter (April 9, 2009)

Dear all, First term at TCCA has just ended.  Students will have a month’s holiday and some of them have already gone home or visited friends and relatives in other towns.  The campus is becoming quite quiet and a number of staff will be away as well.  We will be attending the SIM annual Spiritual Life Conference next week.  Most SIM missionaries in Zambia will be attending, apart from one or two Mukinge people who have to stay behind to look after the hospital.  This is the only time of the year when everyone can meet one another and we will be able to meet those people whom we have not met so far.  The venue is at Chengelo Secondary School, about 250km east of Ndola.  Everyone told us that the school and the surrounding area are very beautiful and we are looking forward to go there.  The school itself is a private Christian boarding school, very expensive and only very rich Zambian and expatriate families can send their children there.  We will tell you more about the conference next time.  Please pray for safe travel, good fellowship and refreshment as we gather together from 13–17 April.

Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here.  The following is an excerpt from an email sent to us by our internet company.  “Dear Valued Customer, Easter fills us with hope, joy and warmth.  It is a time to get together with friends, family and loved ones and celebrate this joyful time.  This holiday will be celebrated on the 10th to 13th April 2008 � Internet and email services will remain available throughout the holiday period � We wish you a Happy and Peaceful Easter Holiday.”  We don’t know how representative it is as a company notice to clients, but we are sure we won’t get this in New Zealand or in Hong Kong.  At least this tells us a little bit about Zambian society and we do hope the company means what it writes.

Timothy has just finished a 10week followup study with Dr Fan.  Please pray that we know what to do next.  Recently we have come to know two more Chinese.  One is a young Chinese doctor who has never practised medicine and is now marketing some Chinese health products in Zambia.  Another is a woman who came here to do some voluntary work and decided to stay behind.  Coincidently they all have the surname Fan.  Fan is not a rare Chinese surname and yet it is not a very common one like Chen, Li or Zhang.  So we call them (and they call among themselves) Lao Fan, Zhong Fan, Xiao Fan (which means Old Fan, Medium Old Fan, Young Fan).  These two other Fans are not Christians but we think they may be interested to have some Bible study with us.  We gave a Chinese Bible to Young Fan and hope he will start reading it.

Dr Fan also told us a certain Dr Niu will be interested to join our Bible study as well.  He returned to China nearly six months ago and he is due back this week.  He works in the Children’s Hospital and before he went back to China he has already started reading the Bible.  So all of a sudden we may have several new people joining our Bible study and please pray that God will move in their hearts so that they will be interested to know more and will eventually accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.  Please also pray for wisdom as we need to find some suitable Biblical passages which may suit both believers and non-believers.  Maybe the Gospel of Mark would be a good starting point.

TCCA has just received a letter from a German organisation and informing us that they will be donating quite a large sum of money towards our building project.  With that money the College will be able to complete the whole two storey building in one go.  We praise and thank our Lord to give us more than what we pray for.

There is heavy rain and serious flooding from Angola and Namibia through southern Zambia and Zimbabwe to Mozambique (from west to east across the whole Southern Africa).  There is also heavy rain in Congo and northern Zambia and a large amount of water is feeding into the Zambezi River and this will worsen the flooding in the flooded region as the Zambezi runs through that area.  Reports say this is a once in 30/50 year’s floods in some places and 80 percent of the rice crop and 65 percent of the maize were destroyed in the Western Province of Zambia.  There may be a food shortage later on this year.  Remember the people in this region in your prayers.  We in Ndola are in between the two rain belts and we have very good weather right now.

Lastly, Timothy’s hypertension medication is going to finish very soon and he has asked our doctor friend in Dunedin to post us some replenishment.  He sent them to us at the end of February but still no sign of them yet.  Please pray that the packet won’t go astray and won’t be detained by Customs.  Blessed Easter to all of you.