Home Again…

We returned home on February 11th after a great trip to winter temperatures and rain. Yuck! Our dear friends, Robert and Cyndie Howard, met us at the airport and gave us a ride home. Yahoo! We found our refrigerator well stocked thanks to our Lake Forest Church (LFC) mission support team, led by Lisa Hunter. Yum!

Since arriving home, we’ve slept surprisingly well and our body clocks are moving toward a full reset. We quarantined for seven days per CDC guidelines so we watched too much TV, read, and took drives to get some fresh air.

The Lord blessed our trip, and we are very satisfied with the training we accomplished and the reconnections we made. Spending time with Percy Muleba was amazing, as always, and we have made good plans with him for a second 2020 trip from late May through early August. We also made the decision to change our strategy a bit.

We will continue to train pastors and leaders as we’ve always done using our three phase approach, but on our next trip we will begin focusing on a few former students whom we have identified as having the potential to become dynamic trainers in their own right. We will begin coaching them during a one week “boot camp” on how to use our training manual effectively, and then give them the opportunity the next week to train a new class with us. We’re pretty excited about this!

To be clear, many of our former students are already using our manual to train others, and we’ll continue to encourage all of our students to multiply our training. But, we have never formally trained trainers in this way, so we’re looking forward to it!

As we look back, we’re glad we took the trip. It was sobering to see the devastating effects of a Covid lockdown on a country with very few Covid deaths. Yet, was also amazing to see the dynamic faith and adaptable spirit of Percy and our students. No matter what, the students’ desire to learn and grow remains insatiable. For us, then, getting to know and training them is such a joyful experience. We are eager to return.

Please pray for Percy and for Zambia, and please pray for us as we plan for a much longer trip in late May. And, as always, when we go, you go!

We had a fabulous time worshipping with old friends in Musokotwane. Abby led Bible study and I preached. Afterward, we were graciously served a delicious “village chicken” dinner.

John Zulu, a student and friend, and Theo (short for Theodora), will be married this Weekend! We trained both Theo and John on this trip.

We enjoyed training this class of young evangelists in Livingstone. From L to R: Esther, Sylvia, Winnie, Lameck, Titus, Golden, Nash, Mike, and Gift.

We enjoyed training this group of business leaders in Livingstone. From L to R: John, Webby, Carol, Wisdom, Peggy, and Theo.