Newsletter (December 19, 2019)

Dear all, Greetings from Zambia and we trust all of you are well.

Rain has finally come in mid-November and we have had lots of rain here in Lusaka in the past two weeks. The first rain that we had was very heavy and it happened throughout the whole night. It was so heavy that our roof leaked, and water dripped through the ceiling into one of our computers. Timothy didn’t close it as he was updating it overnight. And by the time we found this out the next morning, the computer was all wet and beyond repair. Thankfully we managed to get a replacement straightaway.

Up till now, it seems the northern half of Zambia has had more rain than normal, while the southern half, where the main hydro lake (Lake Kariba) is, has had less rain than normal. Hopefully the heavy rain in the headwater of Zambezi River will feed much water into Lake Kariba. Please continue to pray for Zambia as we need much more rain in the coming three months.

Load-shedding has been terrible and in November we only have about 7–8 hours of power every day (mainly at night when most people are asleep), sometimes even less. In recent weeks surprisingly we have more power supply and for several days we haven’t had load-shedding at all! We don’t know why it is so as other areas still have serious load-shedding. But from this week it seems to go back to the original long load-shedding schedule.

The radio broadcast which we mentioned last time is moving full steam ahead. We have made two recordings so far and Zara has just finished writing the scripts of another three sessions. She is now embarking on the sixth and the subsequent ones. There will be 13 sessions altogether. Hopefully we can get at least four sessions recorded before the broadcast begins in January. As this is our first time doing this, please pray that we have the wisdom and energy to do all these and as we write the scripts, God will give us the words and clear minds so that what we write is not only Biblical, but interesting to the listeners as well.

When we made the first recording most of us were so nervous that we thought we didn’t do a good job at all. Then the manager of the radio station contacted us after a few days and very apologetically told us we had to do it again because just after we made the recording there was a power surge and they lost a few recordings, including ours! We were very pleased that we could do it again(!) so we told the manager not to feel bad and we went to do it and this time it was better than the first time!

We are very thankful to have a young Zambian couple who are willing to partner with us in this ministry. Unbeknown to us and by God’s providence the young man actually has experience in broadcasting! They are a great help to us. The Chinese journalist Christian whom we mentioned last time was unable to help us right now. She was too busy with work but hopefully she can join us next year. In the meantime, we are thankful that another Chinese friend from the Chinese Church is willing to stand in and help.

In the last newsletter we mentioned we had a meeting in August with a family we knew from TCCA times. They are now serving in Malawi. From our meetings in Lusaka, there were some very interesting developments and we said we would tell you more about it. Unfortunately, it was a very long story and we possibly have to leave it to next time, but one thing that came out of all this was that a pastor invited Timothy to preach in his church in October. It is a Pentecostal church on the outskirts of Lusaka in a more rural area. We thought it was a small church, but it turned out there were about 250 persons attending the service. Timothy preached in English and someone interpreted it in Nyanja, the local dialect. People are very attentive, and it seems the message was quite well received. Afterwards the pastor invited him to preach again in another church of his denomination in a township very close to where we live. Again, he preached to another large congregation. Although that day was hot people were very attentive which was very encouraging.

Timothy’s residence permit application was finally approved in mid-October! Thanks for your prayers and we are pleased to finally get it after one year and two days! Zara had already got hers, but she needs to change it from a booklet like a passport to a digital card format. Hopefully she will have her card very soon. After that we don’t think we will need to have any more dealings with Immigration which is a big relief!

When we look back in 2019, we are very thankful for God’s provision in all aspects of our life, whether in Hong Kong, New Zealand or Zambia. We are also very thankful for all your prayers and without your support we are sure things will not be as smooth. It is indeed good that we could spend some time in your midst, albeit a very short one. It is so good to meet again with good friends and come to know many new friends whom we have not met before. May our Lord be with you all in the Christmas season and wish all of you a very blessed 2020. Blessings.