living where we are

Who are the best people to reach out to any group of people? Who are the people who will understand them and their culture quickly and correctly? Who will speak their language? Who will stay amongst them without eventually going home?

I grew up in Manchester. As a result of this I find myself easily able to find common ground with people I meet who are also from English cities. But put me in a rural Zambian village and, in all honesty, I'm a bit at sea! I fall at the first hurdle and can't even say hello correctly as I don't speak the right language.

My time travelling around Zambia and Kenya has taught me quite a bit. I have come to underdtand just how little I know about life here in Zambia. I have learnt to see past the typical western view of poverty and how to "solve" it.

I am convinced that those who can make a real and lasting difference in any community are those who live there. When we live alongside people we are ideally placed to reach out to them, to share the good news of Jesus both in word and in action, we are able to be "Jesus" amongst our neighbours.

Using that logic the people best placed to be "missionaries" to rural Zambian villages are in fact Zambian villagers. I believe that God has placed people in communities across rural Zambia to be his people in the very places in which they live. But so few villagers see themselves as God's plan. Many feel as if they have ended up where they are just because their parents happened to live there. They feel forgotten. They spend their lives struggling to make ends meet and hoping that help or aid will come from somewhere else. Their lives follow the pattern of the generations before them. No hope is found.

Amongst these people many go to church. Many say they are Christians and that they believe in Jesus. But, as so many of us do, they limit Jesus by their own experience of life, forgetting that he is an all powerful, sovereign God who is alive and working today.

It is in this situation that Dignity works. We don't profess to have all the answers but we are willing to give ourselves over to helping people in rural African villages see who they are called to be, to understand the purpose God has for them and the work he is placing around them. It's not always easy. Mindsets are engrained, people have habits or addictions that they don't want to give up and turn from, NGOs and outsiders are expected to come with free handouts or money...the list of challenges is long. But we carry on. We teach people what we believe it means to follow Jesus, we teach skills to help people teach others, we provide study materials and Bibles and we challenge people to look to Jesus rather than to money or sources of money.

This way of working is slow. We don't force anyone to do anything, rather we invite people to try something. We know that many people will chose not to do something and they will walk away. But for every 10 people we teach 3 or 4 will go home and do something amazing! They will begin to bring hope to their communtities, hope that can bring relief from poverty in the here and now and hope that can bring eternal life, just as Jesus met peoples physical needs but called them to follow him and have life in all its fullness.

So imagine how encouraging it was last week to meet with 10 people who have all begun to make a difference in their communtities, people who have responded to God calling them to be his children in their villages. We were meeting with potential Impact Team members, area leaders for the work we do across Zambia. Of the 10 people 3 were established Impact Team members and 7 were people who have shown potential and who may become team members. We spent time talking about the practicalities of the work we do, we explored questions around our faith and challenged ourselves to really think through what we believe, we shared our testimonies and we got to know each other more.

So what now? The existing team members have invited the new team members to join them as they visit villages to run training sessions over the next couple of months. They will get an opportunity to try on the role of Impact Team member and see if it fits. We too get a chance to see if they are serious about being involved and are willing to go the extra mile to love God and to love their neighbour. And now we wait. We wait and see what happens. As ever some will step up and do amazing things whilst others will not take up the opportunity. That is okay. Each and everyone of us has to do the work we believe God is calling us to, not the work we think will just please someone else. Hopefully, over the next few months, we will see 3 or 4 people growing in faith and responsibility as they respond to God's call for them and by the end of the year we will see an increase in the number of Impact Team members...Zambian villagers going all out to share Jesus with their fellow country men and women.

it's a long way to mwinilunga

So I always knew that 12 hours on a bus to the far north east of Zambia was going to feel like a long time...but now I really, really know! I can't complain though as Frank, Bernard and I arrived safely in Mwinilunga for the bargain sum of £18 each. Not bad for what I think was a 450 mile journey.

The reason for our journey was to meet the new Impact Team working in and around Mwinilunga and help them run a village training session.

The training was held in a village called Kamfumbu, about an hour and a half drive outside of the town. Our transport was a 2 hour late, beaten up, old Canter truck (with an interesting sounding gear box) which we all piled into along with our luggage. Dorothy, the Impact Team member who had organised this training session, had packed everything but the kitchen sink.. quite literary I think. Well, actually as her kitchen sink is a plastic bowl she did take it with her! There were plates, flasks, chickens, maize, bamboo mats for sitting on, tents, blankets... for once I was the one who had packed light!

Once we arrived in the village I understood why Dorothy had come so well prepared...we were really, really deep in the bush. The village we were in was a very spread out area. Four churches and a school formed the centre of the village where we were based and the houses were spread far apart. Those coming to join us were walking or cycling for an hour or two.

Dorothy had arranged for us to met in one of the four churches in the centre of the village. As there is often division between churches she had purposely checked whether people from each of the churches would be happy to meet in this particular place. Despite being assured that this church was agreeable to eveyone it became clear that actually disagreements between the churches meant that a number of people stayed away. That, along with a rummour being spread around the village that the training was satanism due to the involvement of white people,  added up to mean that we didn't quite get off to the start that was hoped for. Just over half of the 40 people invited to join us turned up. As an "outsider" it is hard to understand how village "politics" work but experiences such as this are common here. There is often a fear of anything new. Christianity is mixed with witchcraft or other religons. Many people are not given the opportunity of education beyond infant school and most learning is done by rote. This means that many people are unable to read well, few have Bibles or other books to study and even fewer have had the opportunity to learn critical thinking skills. Therefore word of mouth is powerful. What is spoken is repeated widely and often accepted as fact. This isn't to say that this isn't the case in my own culture, but I was reminded again that cultural understanding and wisdom are so needed wherever we may find ourselves. It was also a very clear example of some of the challenges the Impact Teams regularly face.

Despite the obvious issues we were encouraged to see how well Dorothy, John and Edina, the Mwinilunga Impact Team, had planned for the event. They had invited people, come well prepared, appointed volunteers to prepare the food and even decided who was going to present each of the training sessions. Throughout the training we supported them in delivering some of the sessions they were struggling with, encouraged them to try some of the things they were shying away from and generally helped out in whatever ways we could.

It was great to see the 3 team members speaking confidently for the sessions they had prepared well. Each in their own way could capture and hold the attention of those listening.

Dorothy is a mother of 6 and all but 2 have grown up and left home. You might think her life would be quieter now, but her household currently includes 12 people. Dorothy and her husband have taken in her sisters 5 children as well as some of the spouses of their kids and now their grandchildren. It's no small undertaking to provide for and run a house of this size but you can see that both Dorothy and her husband are entrepreneurial and welcoming.

John also has a large family with 10 of his own kids and 5 grandchildren already. He's a quiet man, not pushing himself forward, but clearly a thinker and he's been designated record keeper by the team. He has been given the task of keeping track of the money spent on food for training sessions and knowing what is left to spend. He enjoys walking and once the plannned sessions for each day were over he would quietly set off for a walk before the daylight went.

Edina, the third member of the team, works as a tailor to support her family of 8. She also volunteers at the local hospital providing advice for pregnant ladies. This has made her a confident speaker and a capable leader. Although nervous at first she did a great job of translating from English (for me), American (for Frank) and Bemba (for Bernard) to Lunda, the language spoken in Mwinilunga.

It was great to watch these 3 people, all very "normal" in Zambian terms, stepping up to do something very unusual for this culture. They have understood that the key to real hope for their communities is for their country men and women to discover a living and active faith in Jesus. They see that through this faith people will be set free from mindsets currently holding them back and will bring real and lasting hope to the people and communities around them...and they are choosing to stand up and be the ones to do something different to everyone else around them.

It was also fantastic to see Bernard, who became an Impact Team member a few years ago, helping this new team with some of the challenges they are facing. It's amazing to see how he has grown and matured in leadership since he began working with us.

And that sort of sums op our trip to Mwinilunga. All that remained was the bus ride home. 4am start,14 hours, £16 each and 1 flat tyre pretty much says it all!

camping in kangomba

Today has been a day for tidying up and packing bags as we're off to Mwinilunga tomorrow. Before we hit the road I thought I'd spend a little while writing about last week.

We spent last week camping in Kangomba, a village 20km south of Kabwe. We were there to help the Central Impact Team run our "Living the Light" training course, a two day course exploring how and why we can run community based Chrisitan discipleship groups in our villages. It is these small groups that are making amazing changes in communities across rural Zambia.

This year Frank and I have decided to travel by public transport rather than hiring a car...the main reason for our choice is that it's much cheaper and keeps our costs down but it also means that we are being given a real insight into the lives of the Impact Team members.

So after we had spent a few hours, well 6 hours, in Kabwe waiting for all the team members to turn up and shopping the for the food for the training course our "luxury coach" finally arrived. A friend of one of the team members had promised to give us all a lift to Kangomba for just the cost of the fuel. He was delayed though as his van had a tombstone in it that he had been supposed to drop off. He had managed to borrow an old minibus off a friend.to take us in instead but he had to empty out the bags of maize that were in it. As the seats had been removed to convert the minibus to a van he left a few bags of maize in to act as seats. If I'm honest I was a little phased by the transport particularly as the back door of the minibus didn't latch. I had visions of bags and people falling out as soon as we hit a bump. But it was this van or nothing as there was only an hour of daylight left. So we all piled in well away from the back door and off we went. As we travelled we got to talking about how the Impact Team members normally travel. Public transport here isn't straight forward. Intercity coaches are fairly reliable for main roads but as soon as you get off the beaten track your options are limited. Some of the places the guys and girls travel too mean they have to hitch a lift with whatever vehicle they can, sometimes on the back of a truck and sometimes on top of the wagyon carrying the local brew beer....the one truck you can guarentee will make it to rural villages when no other car can. To have a vehicle to ourselves and taking us exactly where we wanted to go was indeed a "luxury coach" despite the shortcomings! It really is important that we pray constantly for all the Impact Team members as they travel many miles to reach far away villages.

Before you worry about our travels tomorrow let me say that Jon is dropping us as the bus station where we are meeting Bernard. We will travel the majority of the way on an intercity coach and are being met by a taxi driver at the other end. It should be a fairly straight forward journey....just long. We will leave Mkushi at 6am and hopefully arrive in Mwinilunga at Dorothy's village by 10 or 11pm.

Anyway, where was I? We had made it safely to Kangomba. In some ways I wasn't quite sure what our role was going to be. Previously when I've helped run training sessions we've helped with the organisation and preparation then we've needed to do a lot of the teaching. This time though the Central Impact Team had done all the planning and preparation. Being a team with some experienced members and some new members they were able to carry out much of the teaching and help each other when they were struggling. To someone like me who is happiest when I'm busy doing something it was challenging not to see a clear role for myself as the experienced team members clearly took the lead. However as I stepped back to look at what was going on I was immensely encouraged to see that this training session would have been going on whether Frank and I were there or not. That means that a group of Zambians have learnt the skills and have been equipped by Dignity to do it themselves rather than relying on "outsiders" and their skills. In a country where mainly people simply wait for outside help to arrive this is an amazing step forward and a huge sign that people are growing and being used by God.

For Frank and I our role became one of helping out with a few of the teaching sessions and spending teieme getting to know the team members better and encouraging them in the parts they are struggling with. We had some great conversations and were given a real insight into the ups and downs of life in Zambia and as an Impact Team member. I'm not going to write it all here, but in due course I will put together some stories ane pictures so you too can get a glimpse into life here.

The training went off fairly smoothly. We got off to a slow start as a couple of funerals taking place close by meant some people were late to arrive but once there were 15 people we got going. There was lots of discussions, plenty of questions and hopefully some decent answers given, lots of enshima (corn flour and water), kapenta (little dried fish - yuk!), chicken and cabbage, quite a few hours sitting in the smokey insaka (kitchen hut) and what seemed like a choir of roosters crowing in the mornings! Forward planning wasn't really a feature of the last day as we ran out of food for ourselves for the evening meal (biscuits, crisps and hard boiled eggs from the local shop it was) and had to walk back to the tar in the morning (thankfully only a few kilometers) as nobody had thought about how we'd get home again! As it happened we scored a lift and didn't have to walk that far in the end....

Anyway... we finished the time together with a planning and prayer session. In groups of 3 or 4 people representing the villages they had travelled from people noted down who they would talk to about and invite along to the discipleship group they hope to start. No doubt some people will go home and not do anything more about it - that's the way life goes. But hopefully 2 or 3 new discipleship groups will begin giving up to 60 people a chance to learn and grow in friendship and faith together. As they walk closer with Jesus, the potential hope and change that these people can bring to their villages is so much greater than Frank and I could achieve in the short time that we are here. Please do pray that as people return to their villages and start to pray together and meet as Life! Groups they will be encouraged and strong foundations will be laid in their communities.

And that's all for now. We're off to do it all again in a different area this week. We will be working with a newer Impact Team so our role will probably be a bit more hands on...but we will find out when we get there!

finding our Zambian feet again

So here I am...back in Zambia. It's good to be back. Many things are the same and in some ways it feels like I've not been away for so long. The strangest thing is the weather. Instead of the baking hot sun you would expect, we have turned up in Zambian winter...it's much like an average summer day in England... windy and cloudy with the sun breaking through the clouds. When the sun is out it's warm but when it's cloudy you need a jumper.

Having arrived at midnight on Tuesday after a 20 hour journey we travelled by road to Mkushi on Wednesday. We're staying at Jon and Jude's now completed house and we have the guest wing (a tent!) We had a planned slow start which worked out well as both Frank and I had mild food poisoning from something and spent a day feeling rather sorry for ourselves! All better now and we've enjoyed being able to catch up with friends here over the weekend.

Tomorrow we are setting off into the Bush...but not to Lubutu as we thought. Plans have changed ...(as they do) and we are going instead to a village just outside Kabwe. Jon will give us a lift as far as Kabwe where we will meet Bernard and Margaret, 2 members of the Central Impact Team. We'll take a bus to the village and maybe walk the last bit (I'll tell you afterwards!) We will be camping in the village for a few days and running Dignity's 2 day training course that helps villagers understand more of what it means to follow Jesus and what this might look like in our day to day life. Our hope is that the 30 or so people we are working with will start Life! Groups in their villages and in turn teach others what they are now learning. If you want to know more about the diffence Life! Groups are making check out the news feed on Dignity's website... www.dignityonline.org.uk

And that's it really. We've had the luxury of a gentle start which is great as the next 3 weeks promise to be rather more hectic! After lunch I'm off to pack my rucksack with camping stuff for the next few days, reread the training materials and spend some time praying for the village we're going to and the people we will be meeting. If you're praying maybe you could pray for the right peoples to gather (life can be very unpredictable here and people can be waylaid very easily), for safety and for God's spirit to be present and speaking to us all.

setting off again

Well it's been quite a while since I wrote and quite a lot has happened! I've been meaning to sit down and write about some aspects of it as much of it is linked to my adventure's around Africa in some way, but...well, I guess life back at home doesn't seem quite so worthy of writing about. Which is silly...because it totally is! I believe that all aspects of our life are part of our walk with Jesus, and therefore of great value, whether that's here in sunny Manchester (as it happens to be right at this moment) or somewhere further afield.

So, I'm going to give you a super quick overview of the last year and a half or so and then a quick intro to the next month.

I last wrote in November 2012. I had just spent a month in Zambia running training sessions in a few areas and working alongside the Dignity Impact Teams. It had been fantastic to get back into the swing of things in Zambia and see those we have been working with for some time still pushing forward.

2013 was a hectic year to say the least. While in Zambia in 2012 Frank and I got engaged and 2013 saw us work our way through the immigration system as he is American and was trying to move over here. We then had the absolute delight of getting married surrounded by our friends and family in the summer before settling down to get used to married life...and being in the same country as each other for more than a few weeks at a time! We actively decided to take a year off from some of the things we commit our time to to make sure we had time for each other and our marriage as we settled into it.

The start of 2014 saw another big change for me as my involvement with Dignity was about the take on a new shape. For much of 2012 and all of 2013 I had been volunteering in the Manchester based office one day a week. Towards the end of 2013 I was asked if I would consider taking on the role of UK Mission Development Director - aka. general dogsbody! After praying through this both Frank and I felt that this was the right step. So, at the start of this year I packed up my previous day job and started work in a charity office. It's proving a steep learning curve as there is so much I don't know, but it's also proving a great joy as I get to give my time and energy to something I believe is really worthwhile and where the little I am doing is part of a big picture that has a massive effect on many lives.

And that sort of brings us up to date. Every day I find myself taking on all sorts of new challenges for both the charity and myself, all of which are stretching and exercising my faith in Jesus. For the charity I'm learning how to write trust fund applications or how to shape our communications and trusting that God will ultimately bring in all that is needed for the work of Dignity to continue, be it people, skills or finances. For myself I'm learning to walk deeper in faith as I have committed to raise 25% of my salary to help offset the cost to the charity of employing me. I regularly do battle with the fact that I feel like I don't know enough about what I'm doing but I have to trust that God has equipped me and will continue equipping me for the tasks he is giving me to do.

So now we are half way through 2014 (yikes!) and Frank and I have had our year off from our regular commitments and are considering what it is right for us to give our time and energy to as we move forward from here. The first thing we are doing (and we're both excited to be doing!) is making a return trip to Zambia. We're flying out next week and will be there for about five weeks. The purpose of our visit is both to be pairs of hands where some extra help is needed and also to grow the relationships between those involved in Dignity in Zambia and in the UK. It will be a delight to be able to catch up with our Zambian friends in person and spend time working alongside them again. We are looking forward to meeting the new team members who are now a part of Dignity Zambia that we haven't yet met. We will be travelling far and wide and would be really grateful if you would commit to pray for us while we're away.

To help you do this, we thought it would be good to let you know roughly where we will be and when. The nature of things is that plans may change at the last minute or be shifted backwards or forwards a bit, but as it stands, this is where we think we will be...

16th - 21st June: Flying out to Zambia and then travelling up to Mkushi in the next day or so. The rest of the week we will be spending some time meeting with the emerging leadership of "Dignity Zambia", getting to know them better and exploring ways that we can work together from different continents.

23rd - 28th June: This week we will be travelling to Lubutu with the Central Impact Team to help facilitate a training session there. Lubutu is an area the Central Impact Team first started working with a year ago. They initially met with a suspicious welcome there as new things are not always well received. After coming up against a number of brick walls they decided that it was not the time to start things up there. However, the team kept praying for the area and through a local pastor they have now been invited back and people's attitude towards them has changed. The team visited a while ago and were met by 22 people who they spent time with sharing the vision of Dignity. Now we get the privilege of going to help run one of our two day training sessions about why and how we can make a difference in our villages.

30th - June - 6th July: This is going to be a busy week as we start off by joining in with the Life! Skills training in partnership with Foundations for Farming in Mkushi. We'll then be setting of to Mwinilunga on a fairly mega journey of 460miles each way to spend time working alongside the new Impact Team there.

7th July - 12 July: After returning to Mkushi we'll be heading out to Mpika to run one of our very early training sessions called "Get Your Hands Dirty". This session helps share the vision of Dignity to those who haven't heard about Life! Groups before and will follow on from the initial visits Jon and Jude have made there.

14th July - 17th July: This week we will be staying in Mkushi and meeting up with some of the Impact Team members. I think we will be glad to be honest!

18th - 23rd July: A little bit of time to hopefully have a holiday before flying home!

Thank you so much for your on-going prayers, love and support for Frank and I and all we do. It means a lot to us both and we miss you all when we're away. We'll be praying for you while we're away and always love to hear how things are going at home, so do keep in touch!