Newsletter (April 22, 2010)

We have been attending the SIM Spiritual Life Conference last week at Chengelo School, the same venue as last year.  Our main speaker was Dr Young-Gurl Kim from John Brown University in Arkansas, USA.  His message centred around holistic mission (also called integral mission) and biblical community development.  He tried to put a whole year masters course into six lectures, so it was quite heavy going.  We have downloaded lots of information from him, so hopefully will be able to understand more when we have time to go through it.  He is a mechanical engineer by training and has a team of people to do research and work with him.  Some of the things he said were very illuminating and interesting, and worth thinking about in more detail.  We also had opportunity to meet a number of SIM and Flying Mission missionaries whom we have not met before, and renew fellowships with old friends.

At the conference we also met Tim and Carol Kopp, International Pastoral Team, SIM International, who are visiting Zambia from the US.  Tim is also going to teach a course at TCCA for a month in May.  Tim was the second principal of TCCA in the late 1980s and when they were here they lived in the house in which we are now living.  So when we leave in two weeks’ time, it is natural that they will live in this house again.

After the conference we have been kept very busy as many missionaries were passing through Ndola before they went home.  Some were staying in our house and some came for a meal, so Zara was kept very busy this week.  The Stuebings are also with us these past few days before they depart Ndola tomorrow (Friday).

Amazingly God also provided a worker for us.  We had more or less abandoned the thought of getting someone to work for us, but then suddenly one of our missionary friends e-mailed us and said an excellent worker was available and asked if we were interested.  Of course we are, so we called him straight away about two weeks ago and since then he has been working for us.  He has very good references from his former employers, the last one was with some Lutheran missionaries for 11 years.  He is also a good Christian and our director knows him personally.  He proves to be an excellent worker and can speak good English so we are very pleased to have him working for us, especially as we will be away so soon and we need some trustworthy person to be around while we are away.

We had an American elderly couple teaching in TCCA in term 1.  They taught in Peru for many years and after they retired they volunteered to teach in seminaries all over the world.  They have been to about 15 countries and this was the first time that they visited Zambia.  We are pleased to be able to meet them and one of their many remarks about Ndola (and Zambia in general) was that there is no McDonald’s anywhere.

Well this will be more or less the last newsletter before we go back to Dunedin.  It will be great to see all of you again, and meet folks that we have not met before, and some whom we have not met for many years.  May our Lord bless you all, and see you in two weeks.  With Christian love.