A day of hope

Two days ago, we had the dedication service for the new community center that the team from Wisconsin built. This community center was built to help others come to know Christ through different activities. They started two Mondays ago I think. The service was amazing and the singing was absolutely wonderful! Some of the leaders of the team got up and shared with the audience some of their testimonies, stories, and the history of the building. They also led everyone in prayer. Then it was time for the music. And what music! The singing made you want to jump up and down and laugh until your sides hurt. Literally. The women led most of the songs and danced up in front of everybody. Many of the people came up and danced along with them. Everyone had the biggest smiles on their faces!
I enjoyed it so much. The children from the Village of Hope came up and sang "Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleuia, praise ye the Lord" They were so cute! None of them got any of the notes right, but their voices were filled with happiness. At the end, the piano player started playing an African song and everyone- men, women, and children- came up to the front and danced. Not an organized one, but it was like a mob, dancing and singing and laughing and praising God! I have never seen anything like it before! Their faces just shone with joy. The amazing thing is, that most of them definitely don’t have it easy. Take Alice for example. She is in the Chimwemwe ladies club that makes purses out of plastic grocery bags. They do that for a living. Alice's husband has been sentenced to jail for six years. She has two children that she has to support. The elder, a girl of about five of six, has spinal TB that has nearly crippled her. The younger, a baby about six months old, has an ear infection. Of course she cannot afford medical care, so it has just gotten worse. I used to get ear infections all the time when I was little, so Mom knows how it is. His case is so bad that he has stuff coming out of his ear. Yet, he never cries or screams, but you know he must be in a lot of pain. They all live in a one-room grass hut, cook outside over a charcoal fire, have to walk past fifty other houses to get to the water pump, their toilet is a small hole in the ground surrounded by a wall of grass, and Alice has to carry her baby on her back by a shitanga (a wrap-around skirt for all purposes). The shitanga thing isn't that bad though. ☺ It really makes me thank God for all the (unnecessary) luxuries we have.
I know there are many stories like hers. She is not the only one that like that. Every woman in that village is either pregnant, has a baby or two, or is a grandmother to many children. It seems like every day we drop Christine (a young mother that lives with the Schwartz family and has a story that I will share later on) off at the village to check on one of the women with medical problems.
One day, Don (a professional trumpet player that came to share the gospel) went into the village with a few of his Zambian friends. They were inviting the whole village to come to a concert that he was doing at the almost finished community center. At one of the huts there was a little boy lying on a gunnysack. They asked what was wrong and the people told them that he had fallen out of a tree a week ago, but since they could not afford medical care, he had just lain there. Don later said that it looked like his arm was out of socket if not worse. One man in his group took a giant leap of faith and prayed over him. When he had finished, he pronounced him healed in the name of Jesus. The next day they came back to see what happened, but could not find him. None of us could, so we sent Christine to go find out what happened. When she asked, everyone shrugged their shoulders. Later, after about a week, Don announced that he had found out that the boy was great! After they had prayed over him he was healed, and went to school the next day! Praise God!!!
Just being able to see how poor everyone is, but how much joy they have, has strengthened my faith. These people are needy, and they want to hear about the gospel. They do not want people to write a cheque or look at the headlines in the news and say “too bad” and then pass on. I’m not saying that donating money is a bad thing. If no one did that, hundreds more would be dying each day. But they want people to care. They want people to pray and to give of what they have. They want to hear the gospel.
Please pray for the young people in your community, that they would have a heart for missions. Today, in our society, many young people are caught up in the frivolity of life. Many are not seriously thinking of the long-term effect that they could have in hundreds of people’s lives. They need a vision. Even if it is just going across the border for a few weeks, people need to see outside their own sphere. I have. I now want to get a nursing degree and go on the mission field for long-term ministry.
God has given each of us many gifts, and he has a plan for each of our lives. We need to seek His will in each of those gifts.