Newsletter (October 14, 2010)

Dear all, Zara’s employment permit is finally ready for collection. We are going down to Lusaka to collect it tomorrow (Thursday). We are thankful that the permit has been issued, albeit with a long delay. It is getting very hot now, so we hope to start off as early as possible. This year actually is not too bad and it has been not too hot until last week. As rain should come pretty soon, we are not going to have a very long hot spell which is very good. The jacarandas were in full bloom recently and the beautiful lilac flowers were lining the streets. We told ourselves to take some pictures but in the end we didn’t which was a pity. After the jacarandas come the flamboyants with their bright red flowers. At the moment we have a beautiful sunset with the sun in crimson red going down the horizon in the midst of a deep layer of dust. Everything looks very dry and brown right now, as this is the end of the dry season. When rain finally comes, all the dust and dirt will be washed away and we will have crispy blue skies, like those we have in New Zealand.

There was another TCCA Sunday last week and we went to an Assembly of God church in Mufulira, a town about 60km northwest of Ndola and very close to the border with Congo. Ten to twenty years ago no one dared travel on that road and it was called the Jericho Road, because of the many robbers coming from Congo to commit crimes in Zambia. Now there is peace in this road but its condition was totally bad. There are many big and deep potholes for the last 30km of the road and it took us two hours to arrive at the church. The senior pastor and his wife are TCCA graduates as well as the preacher, who is pastoring an Apostolic Church in Kitwe. We were encouraged to see that there were many Sunday School classes held before the worship service and the preaching was very biblical and people there loved to hear the Word of God expounded. We went there to set up the book stalls and again we were encouraged to see so many people, young and old, came to buy Bibles and books for themselves and for the Sunday School.

Drs Rich and Kathy Stuebing, if you remember, retired from TCCA and returned to America in April this year. Rich has returned in September to teach five courses in eight weeks. The original plan was that he would come back and stay in one of the new flats which we built. Unfortunately the new flats are still under construction and so he has been staying with us since he came. It is good to have him around and we relate very well with him. He has been in Africa for 40 years and has so many stories to tell. Teaching five courses in eight weeks is lots of hard work in itself, but he is also involved with ACTEA (Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa), so he is very busy here.

In addition, he is very concerned with the slow pace of the building project and to his dismay he discovered that money for the project has been exhausted and we still haven’t finished the ground level (five flats)! So he has been busy writing proposals and trying to find out how much money we need in order to complete the project. The initial estimate was far too low and the people who made this estimate did an extremely poor job. In addition, the price of building materials has increased a great deal over the past year. Finally we got a more realistic figure and we need another US$100,000 to complete the whole project, a two-storey 10-flat building. We need this to be completed as soon as possible as we rely the rental to cover the running costs of the College. We don’t know how and where to get this seemingly huge amount but we trust that God will work in people’s hearts and move them to donate money to TCCA. Please remember the project in your prayers. With Christian love.