It was with great sadness we were informed that Lonard passed away on 19th January 2015 following a battle with stomach cancer.
Lonard was a great example of someone who cared so much for his community and the people around him in an unselfish way. He was a trained engineer and could have spent his life making a lot of money for himself. But he wanted to help others, because of what Christ had done for him. He showed Gods love to many people in various ways.
Lonard was running an orphans programme, helping to put some young people through school, and helping them with programmes once they had left school to try and give them a hand-up with life.
He was also currently involved with setting up a rural community Bible college totally funded by very poor local churches, who were providing the bricks and labour to build some small buildings. The idea was to then run short courses to help teach people in church leadership.
In addition, Lonard was a trained dentist providing a service to the community. Actually the dentistry was pretty scary to us - his skills were basically to pull out teeth, but this was needed by many people. They used to queue up outside his house. He would turn his most comfortable chair towards the only window in his mud hut for light and get to work. By then we were quickly off somewhere else to see some farm plots or whatever else we could!
He also planted 26 churches in his area, and continued to disciple them.
Lonard was an amazing farming trainer and after coming to be trained at Maplehurst farm, he went back to his village and trained many people in the community, increasing maize yields by 500%. Almost every photo we have of Lonard is him bent over with soil or compost in his hands teaching whoever he happened to be talking to at that time.
Lonard used to have Sophie, our eldest daughter, on when she wasn’t listening. He would say “Sophie, do you have bananas in your ears!!”
Please pray for his wife Rosemary, and other members of his family. Also for wisdom in regard to this partnership going forward, which we will review when visiting them in March. His son, Stephen, has been involved with the partnership, and Norman Tonga as well, so these people will be ready to take up the baton.
Jerry and Hayley Field
Zambia Partnership Facilitators