Mission

So today we met a group of African church leaders from rural Zambia....to start a way forward for our mission here in the CopperBelt Province. Whilst it was fascinating, its also difficult to convey the amount of problems the rural church here is currently facing. Most of these churches are very poor as you can imagine and there is evidently a material need here. Perhaps even more sadly, though the churches are very divided and don't really to work together. I was astonished today to hear of one village, where no more than 5,000 people live, but are served by 13 different churches all of different denominations, and hardly any of them have any kind of dialogue with the others. The pastors are woefully under resourced as well. Most pastors in Zambia tend to head for the big urban centres, such as Lusaka and Kitwe, once they are fully trained, as its much easier to raise support there. I have an awful lot of respect for these guys we met today, who have responded to Gods call and are working out in the bush, sometimes totally overstrecthed.

It can be a bit overwhelming though, hearing about all these problems. Today reminded me of when I was in Angola a year ago, hearing about some of the problems that country is trying to recover from after 28 years of war

The next few weeks are certainly going to be challenging, no doubt about that, but this is where I want to be, right in the thick of it!! Im sure this is what God made me for!