May 4 to 10 – Holidaying in Mwinilunga (Pt 5)

At 4:30p.m. yesterday I received an unexpected visit from two youths who were in Grate 12. They wanted to know why I had photographed them. The photograph was taken on my way to World Vision, and it’s a lovely scene of hedges of yellow flowers rising way above one’s head. These two guys were walking in the distance towards me, and they thought I was taking a photo of them.

So I explained that I was taking photos to post on facebook and on my blog. “What’s a blog?” they asked. I described it to them, then asked if either of them wrote stories – and thus began a wonderful evening, talking about writing of all sorts, starting a writer’s group, becoming agents of change in Mwinilunga, and so forth, until the sun set and I could hardly see them as they sat next to me on the small triangular, red polished stoep.

We have date to meet again at my place next Friday evening to have a Sabbath evening and a Bible quiz which I’ve designed. I asked them to bring along some friends. What a joy!

May 4 to 10 – Holidaying in Mwinilunga (Pt 4)

Yesterday I went to World Vision. It was great to meet up with folk I had become friendly with since January 2012, and we shook hands and caught up with news. Yes! I was welcome, they said, to use the internet. Wonderful! But I would need to check with Mr Chinyama first. James Chinyama is the Operations Financial Manager at World Vision. When I walked into his office his first comment was about my weight (the Zambians are an honest lot). It was clear I was prospering. I explained that when Zambians put on weight, that might be true. But as for me, putting on weight more often than not means the opposite, i.e., that I put on weight because I don’t have enough funds to eat properly, and end up eating bread, bread, and more bread. He replied, “Oh! That we should eat more bread!” Apparently being overweight here is a form of beauty.

Anyhow, he asked me to sit down and we caught up with news. I told him of my heartbreak over the mess-up of my work permit applications, etc. He replied, “You have come on exactly the right day. This is fortuitous. Our Bishop of whom I told you, is arriving. He’s the one I briefed about you. You will meet him and tell him all about your project.” I replied, “I’m on holiday, James. I’m no longer interested in pursuing the work of Farming God’s Way in Mwinilunga. I lost Kw 13 million. I am not prepared to spend another kwacha trying to work here.” “No,” James replied, “You don’t understand. If everything works out, we will get you your permit.” I shook my head, and said, “Well, if anyone wants me to work here, they will have to fight for the work permit on my behalf. I’m done.” He asked me to give him a run-down of the full scope of what I had wanted to do previously, and he was once again bowled over by the vision. James also has a vested interest in it. He has land in Solwezi and wants to farm it. I told him I’m not interested in moving to Solwezi. It’s a health-dangerous place… terrible pollution, and the water is poisonous because of the mines in the area.

After our discussions he said he would call me after briefing the Bishop, and would come and pick me up so we could have a meeting that evening. At 10:22p.m. last night I received a call from the Bishop, breaming with interest about the Farming God’s Way project. He asked if we could meet on Monday at 5p.m. to discuss the matter further. I confirmed the appointment, saying, “The Lord’s will be done.”

Who knows what will come of this. But I’m relaxed. I’m not running after the work permit anymore. I’m on holiday.

May 4 to 10 – Holidaying in Mwinilunga (Pt 3)

What did “under construction,” mean?

Well, the place was a mess, it desperately needed cleaning.

Also, the triangular en suite doesn’t have a ceiling; and there’s a space between the top of the en suite’s walls and the roof.

One can see where former inhabitants had no respect for cleanliness or keeping the walls clean, which are hand-stained a rust colour. Then there are nail holes all over the walls in strange places where one wonders what on earth could have been hung in those places.

But it’s my home. Oh! How I love it!

As for peace – well, that’s another matter. You know the sound of boom-boom, boom-boom minibus taxis make? Well, there’s a fair amount of this. Also, the New Apostolic church adjoins the property of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. More of this later. But yesterday they had a celebration. Strangely – and with obvious relief – I am not terribly affected by this noise. I’ve learned in the few days I’ve been here, that the noise soon “moves”; i.e. if it’s a vehicle blaring away with its bass booster’s boom-boom, it will invariably move away.

I would love to send the photos, but MTN has a reputation for being useless here. Airtel most definitely provides a better service than MTN. I need to find a way to download my photos. Unlike former times, this time I will take as many photos as possible – I’m on holiday, an can afford to do so now.

May 4 to 10 – Holidaying in Mwinilunga (Pt 2)

I arrived in Mwinilunga at about 8:20pm and after offloading my things from the bus, took a taxi straight to Mrs Sameta. She urged me to stay a night at another friend, Mrs Chipaya who owns the Kajinga Lodge (a nice name for an ordinary house). But I said I could not afford to pay the exorbitant rate, even for one night. So I insisted that we go directly to the accommodation she had organised even though it was now dark and we would have to find our way down a rugged path.

In the meantime, while still in Johannesburg I had a firm conviction that, though Mrs Sameta had organised accommodation for me, I knew the place was going to be unsuitable, and had all kinds of arguments in my imagination about it. Unsurprisingly then, it turned out exactly as I imagined.

Actually, the accommodation’s location is truly beautiful and gloriously peaceful, though far from the centre of Mwinilunga town. But the condition of the unit I would rent was still in the raw cement state. As soon as we walked into the unit, the smell of cement hit me, and I knew that to stay there would court ill health within days, not forgetting aches in bones and joints. I looked at the wet patches on the unsurfaced cement floor, the ragged windowsills’ unfinished surfaces that had not yet been smoothed off and the space between the window frames and the window itself.

I now had visions of returning to Johannesburg the next day, for lack of affordable accommodation. I thanked Mrs Sameta for doing her best to find the type of accommodation I wanted. Though she urged me to try it out, I said I could not accept the accommodation, and suggested we go to the New Apostolic church to see if any of their guest cottages was available for rental. And YHWH, being the awesome God He is, had one just waiting for me. It was the last one available. Not only was one available, but it was “under construction” – in a different sense to the former one – so I got a huge discount. For R500/mth It’s a large room with an en suite…large enough to also cook in the room. Thank you Father YHWH for looking after me so well. Thank you, too, to everyone who prayed. Please pass this message on to Margie and Clive’s life group, too, for they also prayed for the best accommodation the Lord could give me.

May 4 to 10 – Holidaying in Mwinilunga (Pt 1)

Hi Everyone – Was quite impressed with Intercape’s new drive to leave on time. I think we departed Park Station at 09h30 instead of 11h00 this time round. You should have seen what Beit Bridge looked like on our arrival. We had been making good time. But it was 4 May. Apparently the South African government allows Zimbabweans a duty free period at the end of each month. We arrived smack bang in the middle of thousands of Zimbabweans queuing along with bus arrivals and private individuals. Usually the SA govt immigration officers separate folk. But no, this time they lumped us all together. Passengers on our bus had to try and squeeze in where folk allowed us to do so. After about two hours I went to the front of the queue with a guy on our bus who wanted to assist me. He had already paid a bribe along with a number of other of our bus passengers. When the lady officer at the door saw him she was angry and called him forward. Apparently he nearly got a “NO ENTRY” stamp in his passport for trying to help me. Anyhow, as soon as she saw my grey hair she put me in 5th in the queue because i was “old”. Yeah, well no fine. I never thought my hair would give me preference. What a joy, but we still had to wait for the rest who had not been so fortunate.
We were supposed to arrive in Kitwe on the Copperbelt at 9pm on 5 May. No such luck. Instead, we arrived at 03h15 the next day. I had not slept for two nights by that stage. Trying to sleep while travelling through Zimbabwe’s heinous roads is impossible. But I will say this. The Verimark backrest is a godsend. Awesome. I think I would have been in very bad shape by the time I reached Mwinilunga had it not been for this backrest. It gets you in the small of the back, just where you need it.
After arriving in Kitwe at 03h15 I waited until 05h30 to while away the time. There were some of us who needed to travel to other centres, and our next means of transport only departed at 06h00. and 09h30 respectively. I took at taxi to the Likili bus station nearby at 06h00, put my three pieces of luggage into the hold of a bus that was waiting nearby (the driver kindly allowed me to do so as he was not departing straight away), and went off to see if Boccello’s was open. They serve a good cup of coffee. But of course, I was way too early at (by then) 06h30, so I just walked and walked and walked to get my legs into gear again after two and a bit days of travel. I also needed to change money. Unfortunately the Bureaux de Change only opened at 08h00. But eventually I was able to change money at the Post Office. I had already done so at the border (R1000 only) at 590 to R1. I got a better rate at the Post office for the rest of my Rands.
I can say that the Likili bus was the nearest thing to the bullet train. Eish! We travelled like the wind. Thank you Lord! Usually the Tickley bus stops at every little village and takes hours. Unfortunately for me, when we arrived at Solwezi, i thought we would be stopping over for an hour or two as per usual. But the Likili bus was an express bus (I only learned about this later). So off I sauntered to buy a toasted chicken mayonnaise sandwich. Twenty minutes later I happened to look out of the front doors of the restaurant, and there I saw my bus making its way out of Solwezi!! I had to abandon all thought of food and a refund, dashed outside, frantically looking for a meter taxi (minus the meter of course), and off we sped. But the bus was going so fast we couldn’t catch up. Soon we sped towards a police checkpoint. We waved, arms flailing out of the windows to indicate we were chasing after the bus which was fast disappearing into the distance. What was I going to do about payment? The money was adding up. The policeman let us through, immediately being able to interpret our gesticulations. But do you think the bus wanted to stop even though they saw us waving frantically? No. With one last burst of speed the taxi managed to veer in front of the speeding bus, and hooted and hooted for the bus to stop. Which it did. I learned that the young man – my seat partner – had told the driver I had left the bus in Solwezi – despite my things still lying on the seat. This cost me – at a discount – R116.00.

HOLIDAYING IN MWINILUNGA

Apologies for not posting sooner. I had 142 emails to attend to as soon as World Vision gave the go ahead for me to use their internet service. If you don’t mind, I’ll copy my Facebook posts for the moment, until I can find a way to download my photographs. My cellphone provider – MTN – appears to be rather useless in Mwinilunga and I can’t seem to connect with them here to download the pics. I hope that by the end of the next week all will be up and running.

 

MWINILUNGA – “ARE WE THERE YET?”

A few months ago I came across a 2011 booklet – “Our Daily Bread.”

Their March 9 theme was, “Are we there yet?” and their theme scripture was Deuteronomy 8:2. It reads as follows: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

The writer refers to the times we feel as though we are wandering around in circles and we ask YHWH, “Are we there yet?”

In many ways this trip to Mwinilunga is to ask that question, “Lord, is this really where you want me? Am I “there” yet? If so, you will need to open the doors much wider than before. I can’t keep going back the way I came. I need to settle, have a home, build relationships, serve – in one place.”

So for those of you who can, I would greatly appreciate your prayers at this time.

MWINILUNGA, 4 MAY

You may recall that in December 2012 I prayed, “Father YHWH, if you want me to go back to Mwinilunga, please provide the funds.” After praying I left it in the Lord’s hands. Joyously, in answer to this prayer the Lord provided me with a job on 14 January 2013 at the University of the Witwatersrand. My assignment ended on 15 February 2013 due to a bout of malaria.

I decided I would leave for Zambia as early as possible in the first week of May. Now, finally, there are only three nights left before l depart by bus from Johannesburg to the Beit Bridge Border (South Africa/Zimbabwe), INSERT and from there to the Chirundu border (Zimbabwe/Zambia).

The trip through Zimbabwe is awful. The roads are so filled with potholes and lumpy spots that few if any passengers are able to sleep on the bus. One is jostled back and forth, up and down. After one trip to Mwinilunga through Zimbabwe I wondered if I would ever walk properly again. Honest.

On reaching Lusaka’s Intercity bus terminus in Zambia (it’s not a pretty place), most passengers will disembark while the driver will attend to clients who want to board the bus to travel to Ndola, and Kitwe, towns situated along the Copperbelt.

My destination is Kitwe. If the bus is late (it usually is, because of Customs delays at former border post), I’ll sleep on the bus once we arrive in Kitwe. By six a.m. the next morning I will have to offload my three bags of luggage and take a taxi a very short distance to the Tickely bus terminus to book a seat.

The bus is supposed to leave at nine a.m., but if the bus doesn’t fill up immediately, the owner will wait until every seat is taken, which is usually by eleven a.m. (passengers know that the bus won’t leave without them, so they take the opportunity to sleep in).

To reach Mwinilunga the bus will travel to Solwezi, a six hour journey from Kitwe, where we will stop over. We are only supposed to stop over for an hour, but most of the bus drivers have lady friends in Solwezi, and only return about two hours later. I can’t tell you how infuriating this is. I will have already been travelling forty-eight hours by then. So any inconsiderate delays really stretches my patience – enough to make me want to shout, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” But I’ve learned that this doesn’t work at all.

After Solwezi another 3½ hours lie ahead of us. We should arrive by nine p.m.

All this is to say that my posts will continue as soon as I have determined what facility will be available to access the internet. World Vision used to allow me unlimited access. But they have a new manager to whom I need to introduce myself. Alternatively, if their facility is unavailable, I will need to use a USB modem. As soon as I’m online again, you will begin to receive posts.

The Faith of Abraham – Giving voice to the cry (Pt 10d)

What mostly impressed me about David Wilkerson’s preaching as I listened to many of his sermons, was the cry of his heart.
It was a cry the Lord of the harvest had given him.  But not only for the harvest…, for the Church, too.
Time and time again he would say in a sermon,
“I am not a prophet and have never called myself one. “
“But I am a watchman.” And as a watchman, he spoke truth to the Church wherever he was invited to speak.

As I listened to his sermons I began to cry, too.
Here was a man who spoke my heart language.

As I listened to his sermons, his words entered my heart and the Holy Spirit too those words and reached down into my heart, pulling out a cry I had been unable to express in a way that brought healing. It is a cry that had been suppressed years ago when I realised that no matter how I longed for more, I would have to be satisfied the way Church was. One can’t leave Church once you have been baptised into Messiah – unless, of course, one totally rejects Him after believing in Him. So I was stuck with a way of life in Church I could not get out of. I longed to be part of Church where we allowed Yeshua Messiah to visit with us, instead of us engaging in a program.

As I began to be filled up with the life of the Holy Spirit through Wilkerson’s teaching, or to change the metaphor, the wineskin of my life began to fill up with new wine, it was clear that the Lord had heard not only Wilkerson’s cry, but mine, too.

Not long after listening to these sermons – at the time when I was being told (at 62 years old) to settle down and get a job – a question popped into my mind:

“What exactly is the faith of Abraham that we hear so much about?”

The Faith of Abraham – Giving voice to the cry (Pt 10c)

Back at home David Wilkerson asked the Lord,
“What that was all about?”

He had done what the Lord wanted him to do.
Yet he had been humiliated.
Now he had to face his congregation who had supported his trip to New York.

Instead of relenting, the Lord told Wilkerson to return to New York’s streets again and again over weekends, and in so doing the Lord  showed Him the answer to “the more,” for which he had been crying out.

In obedience Wilkerson walked the streets of New York time and time again, openly weeping and praying and crying out to the Lord for those whom he passed by as he observed their lives of drug abuse and gang violence. Lives that were being destroyed.

It was soon after the court case in which he had been summarily evicted from the court house, that he was accosted by gangsters just as he parked his car and got out of it. Fearing assault and robbery, he braced himself, wondering how to get out of the situation. But instead of assaulting him, one of the gang members approached him and slapped him on the shoulder in full approval of his courtroom disruption. They suggested that Wilkerson should go and preach to a rival gang “just down the street.”

That brief encounter opened David Wilkerson’s eyes to lead his first evangelistic campaign in New York. It was held in a basement below street level and all the street gangs were invited.

At that meeting a notorious gang member, Nicky Cruz, gave up his life to the Saviour of our souls. And with him others began to stand up too.

Thus Teen Challenge Outreach was born.

If you have not read Nicky’s book, “Run Baby Run,” it is a gripping story of the reality of YHWH’s power through His Son Yeshua Messiah, to deliver us from the kingdom of darkness into His glorious light.

Part of his story reminds me of Jackie Pullinger’s work among the opium and heroin addicts and Hong Kong triads, most of whom were instantaneously delivered of these drug addictions. Humanly speaking this is an impossibility. But with the power of YHWH, all things are possible.

I cannot help but say, that it takes one who lives in darkness to recognise light.

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The following excerpt is found at http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1218518809p5/141492.jpg

“Nicky was only 3½ years old when his heart turned to stone. As one of 18 children born to witchcraft-practicing parents from Puerto Rico, bloodshed and mayhem were common occurrences in his life. He suffered severe physical and mental abuse at their hands, at one time being declared the “Son of Satan” by his mother while she was in a spiritual trance. When he was 15, Nicky’s father sent him to visit an older brother in New York. Nicky didn’t stay with his brother long. Instead, full of anger and rage, he chose to make it on his own. Tough, but lonely, by age 16 he became a member of the notorious Brooklyn street gang known as the Mau Maus (named after a bloodthirsty African tribe). Within six months he became their president…

When David Wilkerson first told Nicky Cruz that Yeshua Messiah loved him, Nicky slapped him through the face. No one had ever told him that he was loved.