Mission to Zambia

Hot, dry, oppressive. Not being a seasoned field missionary, the midday sun of the Zambian dry season was tough going. Tim, Frontline Fellowship’s Field Director, and I headed off overland from Cape Town at 4am in the morning. Tim had skilfully packed our 4x4 to make it appear as though we were not carrying over 30,000 Gospel booklets, Christian books and “love boxes” – boxes filled with non-perishable food items destined for the persecuted Church of Zimbabwe.

Tim commented on the possibility of spending hours crossing the borders – his record, 25 hours to cross one border (into Zimbabwe). By God’s grace, we had none of that, and even Tim was pleasantly surprised.

Half a Roof
We pressed on through the night to arrive in Lusaka Zambia to hopefully get preaching opportunities at the Sunday Services. The Lord opened the doors. After finishing my sermon I went to the church Tim had preached at. They had finished the service and Tim and the leadership were discussing finances, or lack thereof. The church building was a mere shell, with half a roof over the rickety church benches and an open heaven over the pulpit. The envisioned finances was to go towards the building fund. “How long has the building been like this?” I asked. “Since 1985”. Okay, we have a problem. We offered self-help solutions, whilst discouraging a handout mentality.

From Prison With Praise
We soon met up with Lawren, a Canadian missionary working with Frontline Fellowship. He was full of stories of his past three months in Lusaka. He was staying at Bishop Bwanali Phiri’s house, a local evangelist, who visited the Lusaka Central Prison over fifteen years ago on an outreach, only to discover our Director, Dr Peter Hammond locked up in a cell. The friendship and ministry relationship has grown ever since.

Not Enough
Bwanali Phiri’s World Baptist Evangelist Association, is based in Kanyama, a densely populated impoverished slum of Lusaka. Kanyama is a place devoid of colour and is characterised by irregularly shaped holes along the sides of the roads, some of whom are large enough to swallow a car. They are not potential long-drops gone awry, but rather earth digs to make the clay bricks to build their houses. We dropped off all our evangelistic tracts and Gospel booklets at Bwanali Phiri’s compound to equip his 70 evangelists in their outreaches throughout Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. After piling box upon box, Tim asked Bwanali proudly, “Is that enough?” “No!” came a terse reply. “I admire his faith” Tim later quirked.

An Excellent Example of a Family Man in Africa
We then set off for Kabwe, a former mining town north of Lusaka to meet up with Eugene Kalunga, principal of Excellence Christian Academy (ECA). We arrived well after sunset only to find Eugene Kalunga busy cooking in the kitchen with his wife and all four children, which admittedly is a rarity for a man in African culture. I immediately took a liking to Eugene (perhaps because I also enjoy cooking), although admittedly, being a humble Godly man with a heart for people, a peaceful family and a love for his wife and children, amongst other very attractive Christ-like qualities, it was difficult not to like him.

Excellence Christian Academy
The following day we began teaching at his school. It was a joy to teach every grade, from preschool to the seniors. In the afternoons we ran a mini Biblical Worldview Seminar for high school children around Kabwe. More than 50 attended and the numbers increased as the seminar stretched over 3 days. A personal highlight for me was preaching one evening at a Christian fellowship at the local Teacher’s Training College, on “Courtship versus Dating”. Since they were teachers in training, I enjoyed coining the phrase “prayer homework”, which I gave them – go home and pray for your future marriage, for your children and grandchildren yet to be born. Prayer has the power to cross all boundaries, including time (that is future time, not in a Catholic sense of praying for those already passed on who find themselves now in so-called “purgatory”).

Keep Writing
We also got to visit the local pastor’s fraternal. It was delightful to see such unity amongst different church denominations. We handed a copy of Dr Peter Hammond’s latest book, Biblical Principles for Africa to each of the pastors. One pastor summed up their sentiments, “Please tell Peter Hammond that we are most grateful for these books. And tell him to keep writing, because we Africans do not write”.

Which God?
Eugene was an excellent host, showing as all the historical sights – the huge slave tree used by the Muslims to round up African slaves, the rusted out dilapidated copper mine (destroyed by the socialistic nationalisation policies of Kenneth Kaunda’s government) and a famous large rock which translated into English means “which God?” It can perhaps be considered as a rock of destiny for the Zambian nation, as the name suggests, “which God” will Zambia follow? It was the site where Kenneth Kaunda used to espouse his humanistic doctrines, with speeches of up to eight hours at a time and thus cast his influence over the nation. Attached to “Which God?” was a campsite built by Kenneth Kaunda, a retreat centre for him and his political cronies. The architects ensured that they built a local campsite pub. Kaunda’s quarters were obviously superior, however, by Western standards, nothing spectacular. We even got to sit on the Kaunda’s original lounge suit chairs and lie on Chiluba’s bed (Chiluba is the backslidden Christian former-president of Zambia who succeeded Kaunda). We then went across to a private residence used to house presidents of other African nations. The caretaker, whilst showing us around the residence, explained, “And this is where Super Kenny used to stay!” “You mean Kenneth Kaunda (the man who bankrupt your country, devalued the currency and introduced humanism as the official ideology)?” Of coursed I never asked what is in brackets, but I certainly was tempted. It is amazing how often in Africa, the first president after colonialism is seen as the “father of the nation” or the “liberator” who is incapable of doing wrong. For example, Winnie Mandela has still managed to avoid jail time despite her criminal convictions because she is, after all, “the mother of the nation”; and despite all the good Nelson Mandela has done in terms of advocating reconciliation, he was the man who signed in the abortion legislation which has – so far - effectively killed more than 300,000 pre-born children, most of whom were black. It is to this same sense of indebted gratitude to which Robert Mugabe is appealing, to hold on to his despotic tyrannical reign in Zimbabwe.

Covenant College
From Kabwe we headed to the Eastern Province of Petauke to a Reformed Bible college - Covenant College. Rev David Fraser, the principal of Covenant College, has spent his last three years of his 26-year career as a missionary in Africa training pastors and evangelists. He emphatically describes it as his best three years of ministry. Isn’t it amazing how God saves the best for last?

Tim was rewarded with the good physical work of moving all of Frontline’s equipment to the new base (the college is locating to a new farm), Lawren was rewarded with physical work of sorting out the electrical work on the new buildings and I was rewarded with all the administrative tasks of doing a stock take of the library, then packing all the books into boxes, setting a test on the book of Ezekiel and marking it, writing and lecturing two lectures, calculating the year marks and writing reports and certificates. I think I got that because of my teaching background. It was great fun.

Training Teachers
One of the main reasons for me going to Zambia was to write and present a Christian Teachers’ Training Manual. It was 62 pages in length. The local pastors and teachers have seen the need to get away from the failing and anti-Christian humanistic education (introduced by none other than “Super Kenny” himself) and replace these with Christian Community Schools. What a worthy project. And this has been inspired entirely by the local populace and the LORD. The seminar was only one day long and as time went on, more and more people kept arriving. Soon I was out of manuals and sent Tim to go and print more. No sooner were these printed and distributed, when a new batch of latecomers arrived. If I remember correctly, we ran out of chairs too. The seminar was well received. One comment was, “Ah, we can see you are a real teacher”. Sadly though, time was too short and more of the manual should have been presented. Gauging from my interaction with the class, one lady, Florence, stood out as being very sharp and said she had already started a Christian Community School. I thought, since her school was probably the best of the Christian Community Schools thus far in existence, I must pay it a visit. Two days later, Tim and I went to visit. It is the school of choice in the area. She even has to turn children away as it is too full (Eugene Kalunga has the same problem with ECA). We were greatly encouraged to see the hunger for Christian education. Frontline Fellowship is embarking on the excellent task of raising awareness of the need to support this worthy project – supplying Christian textbooks and providing training for these Christian school teachers (after all what good is a “Christian school” if they are using the failed and flawed humanistic state textbooks?)

Graduation Service at Covenant College
The graduation was another highlight for me. Not only was it the very first graduation of Covenant’s College three-year programme, but it was also Rev and Marion Fraser’s farewell, as they were heading back to Scotland. The festivities, speeches, calls to noble Christian service and hymns were all inspiring, but none more so than the class of 2003’s gifts of gratitude to the Frasers. It was a glimpse into heaven. The Bible commends to lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can destroy (Matthew 6:19-20). The Frasers will be remembered, recognised and praised for all their sacrifices spending three years out in the bush training pastors. Their (and our) good works will be remembered for all eternity.

“And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.” I Peter 5:4.

As a gift of thanks they gave Marion Fraser a painstakingly handmade double-breasted traditional Zambian outfit and a live chicken. I don’t know if the chicken made it through customs.

Please Come Back – Your Accent Is Clear
As we were leaving, two students told me, “Please come back, we enjoy your teaching and understand your accent. It is very clear.” I wasn’t sure what this was in reference to. Perhaps, Rev Fraser’s Scottish accent, or Tim’s American accent or Lawren’s Canadian accent? Either way, I concluded, the South African accent must have adapted to the African continent for pragmatic reasons of “clarity”. I never imagined the South African accent could be such an asset.

Serving the Suffering in Zimbabwe
Our next mission objective was to deliver love boxes to the troubled country of Zimbabwe. One is struck by the sheer beauty of the countryside. Merely travelling through, one would assume there to be no problems. The infrastructure and general state of the buildings is infinitely superior to those of Zambia. As we drove into Harare, we even saw massive mansions being built. Crisis? What crisis? We later found out that those mansions were the only signs of development in the country and were exclusively the building projects of ZANU-PF thugs being rewarded for their loyalty to Mugabe. But there were signs of desperation where masses of street vendors were begging to sell us their skilfully handcrafted sculptures for a pittance, crying, “Please buy, I have not eaten since yesterday!” Since I had no money left I told the one group, “Sorry, but what you guys need is a new government.” They all looked at each other ominously and the one said to the others, “He says we need a new government!” I thought I would shut-up at that point, not knowing who’s a war vet and who’s CIO.

Other signs of the pending crisis included, the line of people outside the banks (as Mugabe has imposed a moratorium on the amount of cash in hand), the queues outside shops to get one loaf of bread and the empty petrol stations. We even met an ex-patriate who arrived at a filling station we were at, saying disappointedly, “I came all this way because I heard there was fuel here.” There was none.

We even had to siphon diesel out of a pastor’s car to make it through to South Africa. “How much do we owe you?” Tim asked. “Well its difficult to say. I paid Zim$2,400 per litre for that in the container, Zim$2,600 for what was in the tank of the car and if the petrol stations ever get diesel again, it will be at least Zim$2,800 per litre.” We paid him the replacement cost. We handed over the love boxes and completed what was a very successful mission. (For those of you who may not be that familiar with the Love Box project, it involves non-perishable foods packaged into small shoe size boxes, which are destined for the suffering Church of Zimbabwe and even used in evangelistic outreaches).

I would like to thank Frontline Fellowship for the opportunity to go to Zambia and Zimbabwe and to be able to write and present the Christian Teachers’ Manual. It has been a dream of mine, a desire from the LORD, to do just that.

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” Psalm 37:4.

Yours for His Kingdom and glory

Rob Mc Cafferty

For related articles on Zambia and Zimbabwe see:

Zambia and Zimbabwe – a Tale of Two Countries

And A Canadian in Kanyama