The Gold Rush

I have just come back from an area of Zambia called Lumwana, in NorthWestern Province. The chief has given a friend of ours 400 hectares of land which was nice of him. Its a nice place, nothing spectacular but there are rapids and waterfalls, its pretty cool!

There is a new copper mine being developed in that area, so my friend is really developing his area to try and bring in some of the rich whites who run the mines. Its a big gamble and these guys have so much money that they tend to fly off to wherever they want. A lot, for example, will fly back to South Africa, not stay in Zambia at the weekend. We did some ministry stuff up that way with some of the churhes as well.

There are mines all through this part of Zambia, from Kitwe in the CopperBelt right up to NorthWest Province. They are all foreign owned as you would probably guess, South African, Chinese, Indian, Australian. The Zambian government does not have the funds to invest in the infrastructure...these foreign companies do! Thats all very well but i wonder if the benefits will get back to the local people. It doesn't seem to do in most cases and the copper won't last forever. I imagine you can apply the same scenario to most countries in this region...Angola with its oil, the Congo with its own copper, cobalt and uranium, the diamonds in Angola and Sierra Leone...you could go on and on forever. It would be a national tragedy for these countries if they did not reap some of the benefit. Corrupt governments don't help either!!!

Anyway, on a lighter note, my time in Chingola is drawing to a close. In 2 days time, i will head down to Botswana to Chobe National Park for a bit of a holiday. On the way back, we will travel through the Okavango delta in Namibia and then back to Livingstone and Victoria Falls. I fly back to the UK a week on Saturday.

The last 4 weeks have really allowed me to focus on God, and specifically my future. God is certainly leadining me in one direction. Those of you who know me well will know what im talking about. The rest of you will have to wait and see. Being able to focus on God, and not worry about work and the other stuff i tend to get caught up in at home has been great!