Newsletter (April 16, 2020)

Dear all, Greetings from Zambia and we trust all of you are keeping well during the lockdown.

We are well in Lusaka, staying at home most of the time. The government is asking people not to come to Lusaka and the people in Lusaka not to go to other places within Zambia, as it is the epicentre of the Covid-19 virus. The economy in the country is already poor and it will turn very bad as the virus situation drags on. Many shops and restaurants have closed, many for good, so unemployment will be a serious problem and it in turn will drive up the crime rate. The Kwacha [currency] has dropped more than 30% this year alone.

Although all church activities have ceased, we do carry on with online streaming of both worship services and the Thursday Bible study. It is also great to be able to participate in the Dunedin church services. The morning service and Wednesday devotion are too late for us, but it is good to see that we can still watch the morning service later on. The evening service begins at 7am Zambian time, so we can watch it live. It is also good to be linked up to the home group by Zoom.

We have been spending time watching some of Ligonier’s teaching series and other preaching videos. Some of them we bought over the years and now finally we have the time to watch them. Timothy is preparing for a sermon which he will preach in May to the Chinese congregation. He possibly will record it and give it to the Chinese church. We normally work from home, so we are fine with this partial lockdown as we still have work to do.

The northern half of Zambia has lots of rain this year, and there is serious flooding in Luapula and Northern Provinces (the north-eastern part of Zambia). Unfortunately, water from that part won’t go to our hydro lakes at all. Much of it flows into Mozambique. However, the rain falling in the north-western part will go to Lake Kariba which is good. All the flood plains are now full so water has been pouring into Lake Kariba. The lake level has been steadily rising and now it is 21% full which is still very low, but it is much better than two months ago. The water level will still be rising in the coming months. Lusaka is drier but we have had much rain up to mid-March. We thought the rain season has stopped but suddenly we did have some heavy rain a few days ago, for which we were very thankful!

On the whole we thank God that Zambia has plenty of rain this year and the farmers are expecting a bumper harvest this year. The farm at Covenant College will have a very good harvest of maize and sunflower seeds. Maize will be ground to make mealie meal, the main staple food of Zambians. Sunflower seeds are used to make oil. But with loadshedding hours throughout the whole country still very long (12 hours a day), the hammer mill and oil expeller are not able to be used to their optimal levels.

We are pleased to see that the nationwide lockdown in New Zealand seems to be working well and we pray and hope that the situation will be under control and life will start to become normal again very soon. However, wherever we are, the effects of this global pandemic will be long-lasting and will be felt for many years to come.

Thank you for your donation to us which we received at the end of March. Our heartfelt thanks for your generosity and may our Lord richly bless all of you. Blessings.

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