Friends and family overseas,
Sorry we have been busy and haven't had the time to compile a nice pretty newsletter so here is a basic text letter, which has quite a bit in it, broken up into 3 parts. Please enjoy, pray, and feel free to circulate.
PART I: THE HOME FRONT
Greetings from Kitwe, the Speedy's, Emile, & the growing ministry here.
It has been a busy and exciting month. We moved into a house that fits our budget with a nice landlord, and it looks like it will work out as a longer term arrangement. This is great since this year we have lived in 1 house in Lusaka, 1 in Ndola, and it's the 2nd and hopefully final one in Kitwe! So we planted a vegetable garden to celebrate!
Micah is well. His teeth are coming in. And each day he gets up to more mischief, climbing onto chairs, the table.. whatever.. He really enjoys dirt, mud etc... a typical little boy. The Zambians all agree he's very intelligent. I'm not sure why but that's the common consensus on the street. Maybe because he looks like no baby they have ever seen!
PART II: OUTREACH
We are still finding our feet here in terms of scheduling etc. Basically we have a daily schedule of prayer, the word, soulwinning and visitation. I'm doing what we did in Lilanda, but with an entire city. So daily we'll do evangelism in the morning, then in the afternoon we do a visitation “tour”, picking a section of the city to walk around, visiting visitors and body members in that area.
We get a lot of visitors from 5 compounds, and Buchi is the center one. They are a little far by foot from the church, but some of our visitors have stayed. Typically we get about 13 people coming to the service in town and about 12 students to bible college. But this month we have decided to really saturate Buchi with the gospel. Last week we shifted focus from town center, where most people are business men and women, to this more average class residential area. We still evangelize town on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning and Saturday afternoons we've been in Buchi.
The area is very touching. The center is market of about 30 small tables. And about 30 larger stores. About 90% of these are 24 hour taverns. Satan has done a job on these people, wrecking families and lives through the cheap alcohol. All through the day you see people staggering in and out of these bars. This week we literally had people begging us for help. “I am stuck”; “how do we get out of it”; “even when I have no money my friends come and pay for me to get drunk”. The area is so open. It is so amazing that though someone is trapped in this bondage, lives here, has friends here, knows nor sees no way out... the small voice of the Word, the Spirit, the small servant of God can literally turn the rudder of their ship and set them free.
PART III: THE MINISTRY AS A WHOLE
*****Gen 28, The Ladder between heaven and earth: In a normal place, a normal time, with ordinary people, God can have an extraordinary visitation, a supernatural move; the eternal can connect and penetrate the temporal. More than programs, schedules, places... The anointing, the Presence, the “ladder” is most essential.*****
*Land: Having heard the cries, we decided to pay the city counsel a visit. This week we went to the lands planning department and presented the vision to have an entire ministry, church, free bible college, dorms, school, etc where anyone from the compounds could come and learn the Word of God. And we were very well received. They were so positive and encouraging, explaining exactly how to apply for a 1 hectare plot. Please pray that God would do this in His perfect timing. These departments can be very slow, but I was impressed at how welcoming they were.
*Buchi (Kitwe) meeting place: Then we found a teachers training college in Buchi. We went in, spoke to the principle, and were also very well received. They offered us a room for free to have a Tuesday bible study... right in the center of these 5 major compounds! That will start this Tuesday evening. One lady this week when we told people about it said, “don't prepare food, prepare the Word of God for us”... a very unusual response in the 3rd world! She said she doesn't know what to do. Alcohol is wrecking her home. Usually these kinds of people are looked down upon and rejected by the churches, instead of ministered to... Please pray for this outreach.
*Ndola City: Thursdays is Ndola day! We have moved our Sunday service out of a school and into the main YMCA hall on Thursday nights. The YMCA were very open to us and we now have the head and the chaplain coming to our meetings. They charge us $27/ month for the meetings, but after coming and seeing what we do and hearing about the bible college, they said the doors are open wide to have a video class shown at their facility free of charge! We have been getting about 13 people coming out including a new guy named Happy, who has not been to any church for 7 months, not wanting to compromise his biblical convictions on eternal security, emotionalism etc... he says he's finally home.
*Chingola: One of our first year students in the Bible College in Lusaka had to travel up to Chingola (40min north of Kitwe). There he met a man named Jackson who has just been soulwinning and starting meetings with about 15 people in Chingola. This student told him all about the ministry and a couple of weeks ago Jackson made the trip down on a bus and met me with an old scrumpled up bulletin asking if we were the same church! We had a great day together, in the word, on the street etc. Yesterday he brought 7 people from Chingola by car and bus to the service here in Kitwe. Pray for what seems like a remnant who is hungry for sound doctrine, up in Chingola. They are very keen, asking me if they can somehow be able to show a video class in Chingola!
Signing off from me Pastor Adam, and from Melinda, and Micah (who is currently crying) and Emile (who is on his way to the house for team prayer and message from Baltimore)
Twatascha (Bemba for Thank You!)
The Speedy's