Newsletter (January 21, 2010)

Dear all, We went to Lusaka last Saturday.  On Sunday we went to the Lusaka Chinese Christian Fellowship and Timothy preached there in Mandarin.  This was his first time to preach in Mandarin and people have been praying for him and he preached fluently.  Not many people came that day as some families were not in town, but it was good to be able to meet the people who did come.  On Monday we met, along with some SIM people, three people from OMF who want to do some field trips to several African countries and decide later this year if God is calling them to start work in Africa with the Chinese diaspora.  We had very good discussions with them and we believe they should have a better idea of the opportunities in Zambia.

We could see that there are many Chinese people in Lusaka and we pray that they will be open to the gospel message.  It is not easy for them to get interested in Christianity.  Many of them are very busy trying to make money and they always claim they have no time for spiritual matters.

We did have a restful time in Lusaka.  The schedule was not very hectic so we could take some rest.  We stayed in the Mennonite Guest House this time and it is located in a very quiet part of town.  We met a missionary we knew at the guest house and it was good to catch up with her.  We also came to know the hosts of the guest house.  The couple are directors of the Mennonite Central Committee in Zambia and they are responsible for a large number of projects which were funded by the MCC.  We had a delightful fellowship with them on Sunday night.

The TCCA building project is facing some serious delays and please pray that the project will be completed as soon as possible.  We mentioned earlier that the cost of the project was underestimated and please also pray that we will be able to raise sufficient funds to cover the shortfall.  We need to complete the project as soon as possible and rent out the flats otherwise the budget for this year will be seriously affected.

Timothy had some serious headaches last week and discovered he had malaria again.  We talked to our field medical director and he also suggested we should consider changing to another type of antimalarial tablets.  The only viable alternative is mefloquine which may cause some psychological side effects.  So we are not sure if it is good for us to switch.  There is a possibility that the doxycycline that we bought here is not of good quality but we doubt it as many people bought them here and they seem to be effective.  So most likely we will wait until we come back and then decide what to take when we return.  With Christian love.