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!