Zambia Missions Trip Presentation

The purpose of our trip

All right, well, next up, we are excited to share a bit about the trip that eight of us had to Zambia. You can see the whole team there. And then there's Million and Manasa are with us in that picture. So let me just dive in. So first, I just want to give a little bit of a history of our partnership. And for those who are new, and just a reminder for members. First, just a note about our mission's philosophy. So we as a church really see the goal in missions to center around seeing healthy churches established in strategic places. So mission's all about getting the gospel where there's not a lot of gospel witness. And we think that establishing a church really has to be the primary focus. Because if you go into evangelism, and a lot of people believe, but there are no healthy churches there, And then you just leave. Well, it's sort of an incomplete vision, because how are they going to be discipled and taught to obey everything Jesus commanded? So we need to have some vision for either planting a church or working with existing churches so that people can both believe and then be discipled. And then, so yeah, so our focus is really either with church planting or pastor training so that churches are strengthened or new churches are formed. So with that background, KBC, that stands for Kibwata Baptist Church. This is a church in Lusaka in Zambia. And Conrad Mbewe is the pastor of that church. It's a well-established Baptist church, Reformed Baptist church there. And they have been training up and sending out missionary pastors to establish other churches in other parts of Zambia and even some of the surrounding countries in Africa. I actually think that number is closer to 40. than 20. So they have planted a lot of churches, and this work has been enabled not only by their church, their members giving generously so that they can send guys out and support them, but also our church come alongside them, a couple other churches, and then HeartCry Missionary Society partners closely with them as well. All the churches that are being established are 1689 confessional Reformed Baptist churches. And when they send somebody out, the idea is we're going to support you for a window of time because we want this missionary pastor to be able to give himself fully to the work of evangelism, discipleship, establishing the church. We don't want to have to work a job on the side at the same time. But over time, he should have members of the church that or people who are part of this, it would be giving. So he can become increasingly financially sustained. That church can begin to support itself. And so at some point, then the church would constitute membership, then they would call their own elders, and then that becomes sort of a self-sustaining, autonomous church. And so generally, that's about an eight-year window of time, but they sort of adjust that longer or shorter depending on particular circumstances. And then just a note, so Zambia itself, a pretty high percentage of people would identify as Christian there, but a pretty high percentage of those who say they're Christian don't have a very deep understanding of the Bible and theology. And there's a lot of kind of aberrant theology, cults, a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses, there's a lot of Seventh-day Adventists. There are, you know, some of these prosperity gospel-type churches. So, yeah, there's a lot of Christian in name only with a need for sound doctrine. All right, so we have been able, over the years, to partner with two of these churches that Cabana Baptist has sent men out to establish. And so these are the two pastors. On the left is Million, and on the right is Manassa. Obviously, that's a picture from right here because they came to visit us last year. And I want to give a little bit of a history of our partnership with both of them. So we first began supporting Manasseh and the church plant that he was doing in Kaperium Poshi back in 2011. This is It's a developing area, but somewhat more rural, at least compared to Lusaka. It's about a four-hour drive north of Lusaka. And so the church that he has in time established is called Grace Baptist Church. I first visited back in 2014. Then me and Nate Bowen were there again in 2016. That's when they had their first five baptisms and constituted membership with 13 members. Then we had a team from the church go in 2018. They moved into their new church building and called their first two lay elders in 2021. We had another team visit in 2023, and then Manassa came here in 2024. And I have some pictures that I think are kind of neat to see. So this was from our trip just this past month to give you a picture where they're at now. But that was 2014. So I remember Manasseh just showing us the church plot. And for those who were there, there's buildings and houses and all sorts of development here. And it was just open field at that time. That was where the church was meeting in a little school room. You can see how small it was. Then 2016, so this is when Nate Bowen and I were there. This is at the church plot. And so, interestingly, the first thing they built was the baptismal. So there we are singing some hymns. That's the baptismal, which they just filled up with barrels. And then here's one of the baptism candidates sharing her testimony. And you can see they just have a few rows of blocks. But that was the site of where the church will be. This is where they were meeting in 2016, so it had grown a little bit. It's a bigger room, but still not very big. That's the whole congregation there after the service. Then this is 2018, so this is our first sort of group trip and you can see the church building is sort of begun to be built. So that's the inside, you can see the windows framed. And then this was our last visit back in 2023. So now you can see they, they, they had the building completed or well, it's cosmetically not completed, but it was usable by this point. Uh, and you can see it's, it's grown dramatically. Um, so. That's just a little bit of our history in Kiperi, and then we'll share more about that. But then I also want to give the history in Silverest. So this was a plant that started in 2020. Milian Kimbuli is the pastor. It's named Silverest Central Baptist Church, which is just like a town in Lusaka. So it's right there, kind of the capital, much more urban kind of environment. Two lay elders were appointed in 2023. You may already be noticing how this whole thing is developing on a much shorter time frame. A big reason for that is this is close enough to KBC that they just sent a group of members with Millian. So he had a critical mass to start with. It's also a wealthier area. So they were actually, I think, their fastest church plant to become sort of able to be self-sustaining. We sent a team to visit in 2023, and then Million also came here in 2024. So this was in 2023. This is their church plot. You can see Crawford there with Million. That's like the little corner piers that tell you where the lines are. But it's just a field. And then there it is now. So just in the past couple years, they have a structure built. They're forward thinking. So on the left, those are the bathrooms. Then this structure, once they get the walls in, they can move in and start having services there. But the plan is that this later becomes part of a school, and they want to build a much larger main meeting area. So they have this master plan that they're sort of building piece by piece. They'll be able to use that temporarily, and then they're hoping to build something larger. So yeah, millions very forward thinking on these things, which is neat to see. Just one other picture of the plot as it is right now. All right, so I want to say a few words about the purpose of our trip. So why do we go visit? Number one, and I really think this is maybe the most valuable thing. And it's, you know, a lot of times people think mission trip, you know, are you going to go build something? You know, what are you going to do and accomplish? I really think going to encourage is so important. I think, especially in Capiri where, you know, they don't get a lot of visitors. It's hard. It's a place a lot of people move away. I mean, you just can feel very forgotten. And the fact that we would come is just a huge wind in their sails. So I think, yeah, it's hard to overestimate how much that means. And even in Silverest, I mean, I think they have been just greatly encouraged. The fact that, you know, people came back, kept being mentioned, like, wow, you guys are back again. So they were really encouraged by the handful of us that were there for the second time. So I think, yeah, our visits mean a lot in that way. And, you know, we just want to encourage them to...like at the end of the day, nothing we do in a short time is going to have nearly as much impact as the regular ongoing ministry that they do week after week, year after year. Number two, it is a chance for us to assist in some evangelism and discipleship. We'll share more about specifics of what we did, but I did some preaching, the whole team was involved in teaching in different capacities, we did some evangelism together, so it is sort of just a chance to serve in that way. Number three, it's an opportunity to better understand how we can support them and be praying for them. And there's a couple things I hope to draw out about just by being there, you realize, oh, this is how we can better support them. So we learn things from the visits. Number four, we learn from them. I mean, it's definitely mutual. There's ways that I think we are all encouraged to reflect and we see how they're living out the Christian life in ways that in and areas are more faithful than us, and we learn from that, we're spurred on by them. And then finally, I think it just, it helps both those who go, and hopefully you who are hearing about it, be more missions-minded. Just kind of expanding our awareness of what God is doing in the world, the need through the world, how we can be involved in missions. So we hope that, yeah, trips like this just help us as a church be more engaged in missions. All right, well next up, so for the presentation, basically we had three legs in the trip. One was our time in Capiri, then we had a visit in Livingston, and then we were in Silverest. So just kind of want to go through each of those. This picture, this is at the little guest lodge that our whole team stayed in while we were in Capiri. But one of the things that we did in Capiri is kind of went around the neighborhoods. You can see a picture that's just sort of, you know, pretty typical Capiri. A dirt road, there's little houses and buildings as you go. I guess there's a little barber shop right there. And we handed out invitations to invite people to church and then kids and youth to events that we had planned. And then we also got to do some evangelism. And I know we had a couple team members that had some encouraging stories from the evangelism. Any of you guys want to jump up and share? I think we got a... Hello. Yeah, so it was really sweet getting to do evangelism in Capiri. So the first time we went out was more focused on handing out the flyers for the events and for church, and then the second time we were more focused on having gospel conversations, and the young man that was with my group that was from Manassas Church, he said that was his first time going out evangelizing, so that was really cool, just to see his boldness. And he actually was translating for us for the most part. Most of the people we interacted with did not speak English, so that was an interesting but cool experience, just seeing the Lord work in the midst of that. and I got to have a conversation with a woman named Mary, who's from a Catholic background, and we were going back and forth, and I asked what she was putting her trust in, and she said works, and I was able just to share the gospel with her, and she communicated to the Zambian man who was translating that that was new information. faith in Christ alone rather than trusting in your works and she just seemed kind of open and soft. So that was just really encouraging and it was just cool being able to go around and people were just so welcoming that you could just walk up into their front yards and up to their house and they would be just open to have a conversation with you. So it was really encouraging. Hi, so one of like a evangelism conversation we had, I was with Ruby and this guy named Laxton and Laxton was from the church and he was translating for us and we just like walked up to somebody's backyard and there were a few older ladies and a bunch of kids and we had invited them to the children's event for the next day. And one of the older ladies was like, can you guys share us a word of encouragement from the Bible? And we're like, sure. And so I turned to Ruby, and I was like, what should we read? And she said Psalm 23. And so I read it, and Laxton was translating for me. And then I got to share the gospel afterwards. And it was really sweet, because the older lady mentioned that that was actually one of her favorite passages. And it was really encouraging to her. She hasn't been able to go to church for a few weeks because she had some issues with her feet. Then Laxton was able just to talk with her and figure out how she can get to church. But it's cool how the Lord works. Yeah, so same thing, doing the evangelism. Had the opportunity to go with a young man, his name was Blessing, both in the morning and in the afternoon. We had one really good conversation with this older gentleman. He attended Seventh-day Adventist Church. And as I was talking with him, I asked him, well, what does your church teach about how someone is saved? And he said, by keeping all the law of Moses. So it was a good opportunity, I got to read a number of passages from Romans and talk with him and share the gospel. It seemed like he was really listening. And then after the whole day of evangelism, as I was walking back with Blessing, he just mentioned how he's going to college in a couple months, and that was just really encouraging to get to do evangelism together and preparing to go to not as much Christian community in college and how that was encouraging him to be a bolder witness. So, yeah. So here's a picture from the children's event. We had like a couple hundred kids came. So they're all gathered together for part, and then we had them split up into different groups by ages. So there's Hannah with some of the kids. Here's Ruby with some, and Anna with some others. So yeah, it was neat to see their enthusiasm and get to spend that time with them. We had one of the biggest games of Duck, Duck, Goose I've ever seen. And then we also had a youth event, so for some of the older teens and young adults. And so similarly, I preached to everybody, and then we split into groups and had some discussion from that. And then also they had a chance to have some fun. There's a group of them playing volleyball. I think that's popular there. We provided food for both of these events. One, it was amazing how much some of these little kids would eat. And yeah, sadly, I think a lot of them are not getting fed very well normally. So that was just meeting a real physical need. Yeah, June was very helpful with the cooking. I think they're making nshima there, so that's like the staple thing for like every person in Capri's favorite food is Nshima. So they eat that with just everything. There's just another picture from the youth event. Then we also had, so on Sunday, there was a Sunday school program. So I was inside teaching the adults. They've been going through the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. So I was teaching from Chapter 8 on Christ the Mediator. And then Caleb was teaching outside with the children. And then we were all together inside, so I was preaching that morning from Ephesians 4. And there's the picture of everybody after the service gathered. Then some other highlights. So we attended a school play. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Something about the church service on Sunday, so cool. There was this girl who showed up, it was her first time, and she was deaf. There was somehow a guy at the church that just knew sign language. During the service, he just goes up and he starts signing. He didn't know he was going to have to do that. There he's on the right in the white shirt signing, And then there's Ben preaching in English. And then there's a guy named Laxton translating into Bemba, the local language. So I just thought it was so cool that there are three languages proclaiming the gospel on that Sunday. Amen. Yeah. Hello. OK, so one thing really encouraging was there was this 14-year-old girl whose parents were divorced. Her name was Sally. Do you remember her, Ben? Sally. And she was really encouraged to seek unity in the church. And she told me, she confided in me that she would go talk to her father about reconciling with her mother after the service. And just this little girl who was encouraged. We were greatly blessed by hospitality It was very evident just how much people were giving us their very best. So I think we were really touched by that Also the hand-washing, you know, so someone would pour water over your hands while you washed before you eat Then Yeah, that's Nadi. So that's Manassa's youngest son. He was adorable. And then, yeah, we were really blessed. I wanted to... Now I'm blanking on their names, our hosts. Chika and Saponi. Yeah, so there was a couple in the church. They hosted a dinner for us on the last night. And it was just really sweet. We were there with the whole, much of the congregation. And it was really neat to hear from Manasseh a little bit of the back story because Sapone, I think earlier, He had been really struggling financially and getting established as a young man, and Manassa had really helped him. Since then, he has started a printing business that has thrived. sort of most well-to-do members in the church. They've had a house built. They're, like, wanting to host and have been a great support and blessing. So it's just really neat to see, you know, the way that now they're, like, supporting Manasseh. And, yeah, they were just wonderful hosts for us on that last night. So a few concluding thoughts. I think we've mentioned most of these, but one big one. Manasseh had a couple elders that were sort of elected to serve alongside him. One of those elders' families, within the past year, just they had to move. His wife got a different job and so they moved out of the area. Then the other one fairly recently, a few months ago, resigned. There was just some sort of Tensions about not like issues of integrity, but just difficulties working together. I actually spent quite a number of hours talking to him, talking to Manasseh, just trying to be helpful with these brothers. That elder and his family had not been to the church for some time, but we did have a very positive conversation. So it was a really good step. Manasseh just let me know that they were back at church for the first time this past Sunday. So we want to praise God for that and just can be praying that there would continue to be you know, steps toward understanding reconciliation, but also want to pray for other elders in that church. That's a big need, so please be thinking and praying for that. In the interest of time, I'm not going to say a lot about traveling challenges and mercies, but there were a few things. The police tried to bribe us. There was another situation where a driver got stopped, didn't have his license, but thankfully another person just happened to be there that was able to kind of step in and straighten it out. The police are really not your friends, okay? Yeah, you gotta watch out. They made up a new law that didn't really exist. Thankfully, one of the guys from Silverest knows the police chief and that got it straightened out, but anyway. Yeah, it's not good there. So, next thing. We... Correct. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. Police in Zambia. Exactly. Yes. So. Then we went to Livingston. This is where Victoria Falls is. There's also a lot of wildlife. This was a lot of driving. We were only there for like one day. But it was incredible at the same time. So we had a group picture. You can see the rhinos in the background. There were men with guns that, at the time, we thought are there to protect us from the rhinos. Turns out, no. They clarified, no, these guns are for people, not the rhinos. So these are to protect the rhinos from poachers. But if the rhino comes after you, the men with the guns will not help you because the rhinos are more value than the people. And yeah, so anyway, thankfully we didn't get charged. Also also note we were able to bring moon and his wife and Manasseh and his wife with us So that was a real treat to spend that time with them Manasseh commented that you know, he had not been able to do something like this with his wife Really ever so he he was very grateful Yeah, so that that was really sweet It's a closer picture some of the animals. There's a lot more pigs. I'm gonna show you another time. Here's where we were staying These little that on the left. That's a little chalet. And so, you know a couple of us got to stay in in one of those Then This is where we were eating, so this is kind of where that lodge was, where we're staying. Interestingly, right from where we are, you can see the crocodiles. There were signs there, you know, beware of crocodiles, beware of hippos. At first we thought maybe these are just, you know, like a goofy little thing. Well, no, they are dead serious because This is actually nighttime. I don't know how Ruby's camera made it look like daytime. This is night. We're trying to walk back to our little chalets and then word comes out there's a hippo in the way. If you don't know, hippos are like extremely dangerous. So, anyway. Ruby got some pictures up pretty close with the hippo. This is Victoria Falls. By far the most amazing waterfall I've ever seen. Yeah, it was just spectacular. There's Caleb and Stephanie. So if you get anywhere close, it's just raining. There's so much mist of water. And Yeah, so there we are, that's sort of a further overlook. Ruby next to a very large tree. And okay, so our time in Silverest slash Lusaka. There's a picture, you know, that maybe knows a little bit of difference. It's similar to Kpiri, but there's more walls, there's sort of a little bit more development. Here we stayed with host families, so it was sweet to have different members of the church host different individuals or pairs of us. I know some of the ladies enjoyed doing some cooking and learning how they cook over little charcoal fires. We went to the ACU, this stands for African Christian University. Some of you may, if you know the name, Vodibacham, this is where he previously had gone to serve as a dean. And yeah, it was great to have a tour of that, just learn more about it. That's also a place that Million teaches classes. And I'll come back to that point in a minute because it's encouraging to hear about how that's been going. This is Caboada Baptist Church. So this is where Conrad Obey was the pastor. This is the sending church for both Million and Manassa. So it's pretty big. They probably seat 500. But yeah, there's our team. there. Did a little hermeneutic slash Bible study seminar at Millions House one morning, so that was a good time. This is the Sunday worship service with Millions Church. As you can see, so it's in a university classroom right now. They're still building. They're building, but yeah, they're really packed in that room. But yeah, it was great, great being with them. And then the afternoon there was a youth meeting. I didn't have a picture of all the participants, but this was one of the leaders of that. He did a great job. And there was a number of students from the ACU who were there. They have a choir that had come and sang as part of the church service. And then a lot of them stuck around. And I had numerous conversations with ACU students who were from Seventh-day Adventist, Pentecostal, all sorts of different backgrounds. And they kept telling me about this class. They were like,

I have this new appreciation for the Bible. I've never been around Baptists, but now I'm understanding how the whole Bible fits together.

And they kept referring to this grand narrative class. Well, then later I find out Millian's the teacher of that class. But it was just evident people that had sort of grown up in a quasi-Christian context, but they just had never understood the overarching picture of how the Bible fit together. And they'd been just really positively impacted by Million's teaching. And so it was really encouraging, both for Million specifically, but also the ACU. I mean, they're reaching people that are just, the whole way that they're thinking about the world about Christianity is really being reformed. So I was really encouraged by that. Also, this is at Moon's house. They hosted, the whole church hosted this goodbye dinner. I heard, you know, I was trying to get ready to preach, and I heard the ladies up at like 4 a.m. You know, they were already up early, Preparing for this so you know they really went above and beyond to serve us And yeah, I prepared this this really nice feast. It was neat outside the weather there was so nice. This is their winter They think it's so cold, but you know we're like wow. It's just nice crisp like 70 degree kind of air. It's great Also, Million took Josh and I to see his future house. So he's been renting. He's had to move like three times since we were last there. But he's been saving up money little by little. And as he has some savings, puts down a payment to get the next stage of his house built. So he's very much looking forward to be able to move in to that house. So a few concluding thoughts. One thing that was really helpful, talking both to Million and then also to his elders, so now that they're really independent of KBC, we've been doing everything through KBC. And it was just helpful to kind of realize, okay, we might need to kind of change up some things, have a little bit more direct communication and oversight. I think that, so it was a good chance to begin talking about that with them. Million also is really hoping for a sabbatical. He's just, Really tired, he does, he works very hard, does so much. He's really wishing his other elders can kind of step up more and take more responsibility to free him, to be able to be away. So, yeah, that'd be a great thing to pray for, that Million would be able to get the rest he needs and that his other elders would step up in a way that would enable it. I mentioned his gray narrative class. Another thing that came up that was interesting, a number of the ladies seemed to be wrestling with questions related to like career and motherhood. So not that different than what, you know, there's a lot of kind of thinking that through here as well. And so that was just one particular thing where, you know, Even though we're on different parts of the world and very different cultures, there are related issues that people are thinking about. Million lost his brother two days after he left, just died suddenly at home from something related to high blood pressure. There was a pastor that died right before we got there who was very close with Conrad and in these circles. There was another member that had just died from Grace Baptist Church. Every time I go, there are numerous deaths. And so just the, and many of whom, I mean these are young, I mean these are people in their 40s, 50s, many of whom I think if they were here would probably survive because of the different medical care. So just a reminder of just how prevalent death is in that community. part of the world. And so it is something just to, yeah, be thinking about, to pray for them in and things we can be grateful for. But spiritually, it does just help remind people, like, life is brief, you know, live for eternity. Yeah. And then, and then once again, just it was encouraging with the host families. Any other Things, I think you maybe wanted to mention about the singing was one thing that stood out, but just a chance if there's any other team members that wanted to share a quick word or takeaway. Yeah, it won't be surprising to you all that I enjoyed getting to sing with them over there. Yeah, it was just really beautiful. They all sing really well and really loud and just joyfully unto the Lord, so that was really cool. And in Kapuri, we got to sing a couple of songs in Bamba, the native language there, so that was cool as well. and then unrelated to singing, but our host family was just very sweet. And the husband, Kapambwe, he was a missionary pastor for several years, and then he was an elder at a couple of different churches. So we got to have just a really encouraging conversation with him, and he was really just encouraging Caleb and his desire for ministry, and just telling him things that the Lord had taught him in his time of ministry. So that was just really neat to get to have that conversation with him. Well, if nothing else, it would be brief, but any question or two? It's, I think it's about 30 minute drive. Yeah. So not real close. James. Yeah. So a lot of it would, so like Silverrest, everything's English and even at Grace Baptist, a lot is in English. Um, he later added a Bemba service just because he's realizing so many of the people in the community just, don't speak English. So when we come, they do a combined service. So that's why they're sort of the blend of both. So the Bimba, I think some are translated, maybe some are more original. I'm not sure, but they use this Grace Hymns book that they, and a lot of them would be songs we would know. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, so the car, yeah, we rode around with him. He's been using it well. It's definitely been an asset for his ministry. Also, the well is up and running at the church. In general, the water supply in Capiria is horrible. Like, we hardly bathed, but the church has great water supply, so at least they got that going for them. They do, yep. I think usually, yeah. All right. Well, thank you for your attention, and yeah, certainly have more pictures and things to share for those that wanna talk offline. But for tonight, in the few minutes we have left, I do want to have a brief time of prayer. We don't have the prayer list, but I've got just a few, well, A few things to pray for regarding Zambia, and then a few other requests, and I'll just look for volunteers, if you can just raise your hand, and then a microphone will be brought, and we'll pray together.