A Testimony of God's Faithfulness...

So, it is rounding two weeks since I've been in Zambia...what a rich time so far!

But before I go into anything else I first wanted to share one of the most amazing testimonies I have ever heard from one of the Zambian's in our church. He told me his story as we were soulwinning on the streets the other day...I hope you follow the story all the way through to the end cause its pretty powerful...here it goes.. (oh and we'll give him the name John :)

So, about nine years ago this young man John, living in Zimbabwe, found himself with a lot of money, and really without a care in the world until, both of his parents fell very sick. His money started to go towards doctor's visit after doctor's visit for his parents in the hopes that they would find the problem and get well. Well, with no money left to his name, both of his parents entered into eternity. Extremely discouraged, and with nowhere to go, he decided to just start walking. Without any money to eat he began eating from the bush, berries, mangos, anything that he could find to keep himself fed. Over a nine year period of time he just wandered the streets and bush of Zimbabwe, in and out of jail and more discouraged then ever.

Finally, he decided that if he could just get himself to Zambia to find at least one of his mother's living relatives he could start living a normal life. This long journey, on foot, of 1,400 miles brought him to Zambia but did not offer him the hope he so desperately was seeking. He got to Zambia and searched for any of his family members but found none. As he was realizing that he had no one and had travelled such a long distance, the thought entered his mind to go to a church. He thought, "well, at least the church must have some encouragement for me, and maybe even some direction as to what I should do now." So, he walked into town and found one of the largest churchs in Lusaka and thought this must be a place where I can find answers. So, he walked in (and mind you he had been living on the streets for close to nine years now, so his appearance was pretty shocking to whoever saw him) as he walked in, a pastor greeted him and proceeded to tell him this.... "well it seems to me that if God REALLY loved you, you would not be in this condition, so I conclude that God doesn't really love you." John said that when he heard these words his heart just broke. He walked out the doors of that church and said to himself "there is no reason for me to live now, even God has rejected me." So, he thought to just take himself back to Zimbabwe and started on that long journey. As he was walking the police came to him and instantly (because of his appearance) assumed he was either a thief or a murderer and started beating him, almost to death. After their viscious beating, they sent for a minibus to bring him to prison. The driver came and picked him up, and as he was driving, he turned around and said "I could be in the very condition you are in, and at one time I was...so I am not going to bring you to prison, but I am going to let you go free." The driver opened the door, and let John go free. Though John was relieved he was not going to prison, he really had nowhere else to go, and no one else in the world to go to. He kept walking until he was tired and fell asleep. As he fell asleep he started to have a dream...

In the dream it was raining very hard, and all around him where all of these papers swirling around in the wind. He thought to himself "If I could just get one of those papers I would be ok, and my life could change." So, he ran after those papers until finally he got one...as he started to read it, he couldn't understand anything it was saying..just as he was reading the paper he woke up from his dream and realized that it had actually been raining and he was almost drowning where he was. So, he quickly got up and started walking until he was dry. Then it dawned on him the dream he had dreamt that night, and just as he was remembering the dream he looked down and saw the very same paper that was in his dream! He grabbed it and the first words he read was... "GOD LOVES YOU". He thought to himself, there is no way God loves me, the pastor told me God doesn't love me...and then as he was saying that to himself one of our church members approached him and said "how did you get that paper?" John said, "I just found it on the ground". Then the man from our church proceeding to tell him how much God really loved him, and sent His very own Son to die for him. John's heart just filled with hope at these words, and accepted Christ as his Savior. When John parted ways with the man from our church he felt hope and peace for the first time in his life. He awoke the next morning and said to God, "If this was really true, and if this is for me, then have me meet that man once again this morning." So, as John was walking past a school, at ten am, there was the man, right in front of him, who he had spoken to the day before. From that point on he has given his whole life to the God that loved him, and though it had looked like had forsaken him, was simply looking for the moment to be gracious to him (Isa 30:19).


I hope that blessed you...I was blown away when he told me his story. This just shows us that NOTHING and NO ONE is too far gone, too far away for God. He redeems everything, he hears our cries and has prepared a plan, a time, to reveal His gracious heart toward the ones he died for, and loves beyond what we could ever imagine. So, since this blog is already quite long by now :) I'll write more later, but I thought that would encourage you all! I'm gonna include some new pics of what it looks like on our way to the church here in Zambia!

Love you all,

Barb

Our visit to Kitwe

I'm finding it a challenge to recap all that is happenning here once I get to write something on here...Being in such a different place provides so many new experiences pretty fast...haha that sounded more profound in my head..Anyway, so on Sunday morning at around 5:30am we got ready to take a 5 hour ride to Kitwe (a city in the North, where the Speedy's have moved to). The ride was pretty bumpy, as our bus driver was on his third shift and his eyesight wasn't so good, so he usually spotted the cater size potholes just as we were going over them at about 5o miles an hour...it was quite the ride..oh and I can't forget the cockroaches that kept crawling up our legs...haha anyway, when we got there it was all worth the ride, and the Speedy's were so encouraged for us to come. Its really amazing cause after only a couple months of being there, they already have a work started in Kitwe and Ndola with two churches and Bible Schools with a few men that are really hungry for the grace message. We had a service in a very small room, sang a couple songs, and then had a time of questions and answers with the men that had come.
Pastor Renaldo spoke a message called "Grace again"...it was really amazing..He said that when we have failed, and think that God's covenant towards us could change because of our failure, He speaks "Grace again"..God made a plan that took into account my failures, and prepared grace that works all things together for good, and since the covenants He makes is not dependent on me, my weaknesses or failures cannot change His promise. It was very encouraging!

Anyway! The last couple days have been awesome! Lots of soulwinning, Bible school on the book of Romans and Galatians..its so cool, cause we're all squooshed (haha I have no idea how to spell that word) in this hot classroom with Bible's open and notebooks ready, and God is there...Just like He is present wherever His people gather in His name, and in humility want to hear His voice...what a privilege to hear the voice of God..P.Renaldo was saying that in Psa 75 it says..the "humble will hear, and be glad"He was saying that humility is such a key to hear God's voice, and how easily pride can come in and hinder us from hearing what God wants to communicate..it has been a rich time with God so far.

Last but not least, I would just have you all know that last night I successfully killed a massive cockroach crawling up my pant leg and another huge spider all in the same night! I was screaming at the top of my lungs, while P.Renaldo and Joe Roche laughed hysterically at me.

I hope you are all doing well, Im gonna try and upload some more pictures at some point but it takes like a million years to upload just one pictures so we'll see how that goes!

Love you guys...

Barb

A Friendly Visiter...

So, it has been almost a week here in Zambia, and yesterday night we had an unexpected visitor...

So, after an awesome afternoon of soulwinning in Emmasdale, where the Greater Grace Chruch in Zambia is, we headed home for some shut eye...It was about 10pm when we got there, and as we unloaded our stuff in the house I heard Carol scream "Oh my God, Oh my God"! I ran over to see what it was and on our screen door there was the most ginormous spider I have ever seen in my life! We just stood there in disbelief for about 30 seconds, not knowing what to do with the thing..so as typical women we started screaming for one of the guards to come and kill it...so after about 10 mins of that without any success, we decided we had to take matters into our own hands...all Carol could say was "I am so devastated, I am so devasted"! which made me laugh so hard, and made her more upset! So, we got what Africans use for bugs here...DOON and I decided I had to start spraying or the thing was gonna jump out and bite one of our heads off...so I got the courage up and started spraying and unfortunately swearing like a sailor at the same time! So, once I had used all the Doon in the bottle the spider started curling up, but about 5 seconds later it started to uncurl and crawl again which set us off screaming again! So, after about 5 minutes of looking at the closed door (cause we were too afraid to look at the gate)..we opened it up and found the dead spider on the ground...thank God...but we were no fools we wanted to make sure that thing was dead, so we did a number on it with our shoe just for good measure!

Anyway, so after we recovered from that I discovered I had about 4o misquito bites on my legs from being outside for like 10 minutes which just topped off the night with the thought of possible malaria!

We woke up the next morning and asked the guard what kind of spider it was and come to find out in their native language..Nyanga, the spider is called "Kongaeta" (haha I have no idea how thats spelt) anyway, the guy said it is poisonous and you would have to get rushed to the hospital right away if he bit, but he said "No worries it wouldn't kill you" Im not sure that was a relief or not.

Aside from the spider and mosquito trappings it is so amazing to be here!

We have Bible College tomorrow, and on Sunday we are traveling to Kitawe (which is 5 hours north from Lusaka) to visit P.Adam and Melinda Speedy. Pastor Renaldo gave an amazing message on wednesday on Rom 4 that "by faith we have access into the excess of grace" and by that truth we do not live by sight but by the power of God's grace..it was awesome!

So, pray for us as we are looking for a place to live tomorrow!

I love you all and hope you are doing well!

Love,

Barb

I made it!

So I officially made it! It took a solid 24 hours, but we (Carol and I) made it in one piece!
The plane ride was pretty uneventful until we met this older missionary that was on his way to a village in the north of Zambia. He started telling us of his missionary adventures, living in the jungles of Burma for five years, and the faithfulness of God he experienced while he was there...we quickly realized this was the Lord's gift of encouragement to us. He prayed for us, we said goodbye, and thanked God for His great love for us!
We then arrived at the Baptist Mission House we're staying at for a couple weeks...and realizing we had no water, we started boiling some :) Nothin like drinking scolding hot water before bed...
Anyway, so I woke up around 6 to a symphony of birds singing in the background! It was amazing! I was quickly reminded I was in Africa! So, God is faithful, and we are trusting God for an amazing time here! I love you all and I'll get on this blog as much as possible to update you!

Love,

Barb