Gap Year CourseNow in our fifth year, we continue to mentor and train young people in the Gap Year class, training future leaders to be responsible and God fearing in their life. This year we are blessed with 21 Gap Year students who will finish this June on the 25th.
For now, lessons continue; physical training, spiritual lessons and our core value of mentoring the young people. This is all done for character building in the development of the young person.
We have Youth Leaders Training coming up next month in Samfya town of Luapula province of Zambia as well as at GLO Centre and in the various churches.
This year the young adults will take a mission trip to the Central Province of Zambia for evangelism and to help plant a church in the village of Mankanda Mkushi. This is 68 kms from the Mksuhi boma. We would value your prayers for this trip of young adults this July when they take the love and praise of God to the known and unknown.
The course continues three times a year with more people attending. At the beginning of April we 
had an overwhelming attendance of 23 from different churches as this is an interdenomination gathering for leaders from different church backgrounds. Last time they met they looked at Leadership and Culture.
Some of our students in the Advanced Leadership Course have been attending the course since its inception and have graduated for the first four courses. They now aim to encourage friends to do more courses and never miss any.
Our Advanced Course is on for a week at the GLO-Zambia centre with participants so far coming from towns within the Copperbelt Province.
Now in its second year, our Church Based Program has continued with massive numbers of people wanting to learn. This teaching is taken to churches, leaders and members that want to learn about the Word of God.
Our pilot program in Ndola seems to be bearing good fruit and we shall now aim at launching the program in the districts. Mufulira is the next venue and we hope to start the course sometime in August. We are living at a wonderful time in the history of the church and gender. Many women are getting training and contributing positively to this training.
Our Kaniki/Sakania Ladies have engaged in an entrepreneurship venture. The group seeks to encourage and build the community together by motivating and encouraging ladies to work together. At this venture community ladies work at building character and community with our role to empower through tailoring and devotions.
The ladies meet together every week working on different projects.
Kids CampEarly April we had our Kids GLO Camp for ages 8-12. This year again the camp was full of fun as they together looked at the Holy Spirit, taking it up from Acts 1:8. Kids were challenged and made to understand the importance of having the Holy Spirit in our lives and how one can live a life committed to Christ.
It was a fruitful and fun time for the young ones and their instructors. This year we had a bigger number than the camp last year.
Each GLO staff member is involved in school and after school work helping and facilitating in Scripture Union, Young Achiever and Christians in Action (CIA) groups in schools. This is for both primary and high school. In all teachings they are seeking to pass on the love of God.
GLO-Zambia has been blessed with a new set of faces helping out with work and pushing things forward. We have a new couple encouraging the team and bringing new energy to the work.
We have Geoffrey Mukwala, a trained accountant, keeping and managing all GLO account matters. He has joined GLO-Zambia with his wife Chitimba and daughter Emet. The Mukwalas have come from Kasama (North Western Province of Zambia) where they both have been involved in the work of the Lord.
Chitimba is a good addition and support to the women's team at GLO. Having experienced the worldly difficulties and challenges of young people, Chitimba is open to talk about things and mentors many young people especially girls among the students.
Apart from new staff at the centre, we have new GLO board members too. This is encouraging to us and we are able to do more work with new energy and wisdom gained from other men and women of God.
Please do keep us in prayer for the new ones to settle into the work and the old to be accommodating and willing to embrace change.
Volunteer Staff
We have Irina Svetlova, Yvee Ngoe and Chisenga Chibuye as volunteer staff for this year.
Irina is a trained nurse from Russia and has devoted her time and passion at GLO for this year. Irina has been in Zambia for a few years working in Mpulungu town. She has been involved in the GLO Youth Camps and this year dedicated her time to get involved in more GLO work.
Chisenga is a previous GLO Gap student who is currently undertaking studies in Engineering at Northern Technical College in Ndola. He is helping in all hands-on work and Gap year course physical expeditions on his break from College.
Yvee has just finished his training in Missions with the Foundation for Cross Cultural Education. He is a missionary serving from Congo. Yvee is one quiet guy but with a level headedness. He is mentoring and leading Gap Year students.
In our community work and involvement, we continue to engage the police, clinic and the community school in our programs. We have had some fruitful forums in discussing matters that affect our community and GLO is seen as an important stakeholder in the community projects.
Our calendar is packed with various items. We do value your prayers and support as we work together this year.
* The church based program continues every month with many wanting to learn, grow and contribute to the church. Bible Survey lessons should be finishing soon. There are plans to take the church program South and West of the Copperbelt of Zambia and to the capital city Lusaka later on. Many have shown an interest in the program and cannot wait to start learning.
* The missions team are all geared to go out and evangelise and encourage other Christians involved in the Lord’s work. After many years we head back to Kazungula; Southern Province of Zambia. Our mission team head South and North West of Zambia this year.
* The Gap Year Students class graduate this June on the 25th.
* Plenty of renovations are taking place just now at the GLO centre, with staff homes, student’s rooms, guest wings and GLO surroundings. The next project after putting up a security fence is renovating the staff room for meetings and tea times.
* September 17th we hope and plan to have an open day. More information will be shared on this as we get closer to that date.
The plan is to have everyone with a good working space and build a conducive environment for our students to learn and grow. There are still a lot of buildings that have been left hanging due to a shortfall of funds. We pray for funds and people with a heart to build to help us renovate our many structures.
In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul encourages the saints on how to look at the challenges and adversaries we face as believers. He acknowledges the fact that life is not easy at all. How pressured they had been, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. In all this they did not despair neither were they destroyed. They were never crushed nor abandoned. This does not mean they did not feel abandoned, crushed or struck down. I am sure they felt all that, but the difference is that what we feel does not necessarily indicate the reality of what is.
Transitions come with challenges that drains strength out of people, relational frictions, various dilemmas, draining of resources, and both human and material stresses. Our transition has not been free of any of these challenges as an institution. Many times we have felt defeated.
However, when we look at who we serve and who is on our side, we feel the strength and a hope that surpasses human understanding. Now we see this God given hope bearing fruit in the work here. Our faith in the Lord is bearing fruit and we thank God that He has been with us to encourage us through all the challenges.
Here is an acknowledgement that we are seeing the hand of God and that God is doing a new thing in our midst. As Isaiah writes, we are seeing a way in the wilderness and streams of water in the desert. The process of this transition has helped us to reflect on the world in general and gone back to the drawing board, asking difficulty questions about the needs of people and how we can best reach out to them as a ministry. We have made decisions that have not pleased some people, but with the vision endowed on us by the Lord we have a responsibility to the body of Christ, each other and are accountable to the Lord for his work.
We are grateful to all those who have stood with us during the hard times through prayer and material support. We are managing to do what we can do only by his grace and your support.
We hope you will continue to stand with us in the years to come even as God continues to use GLO Zambia to reach out to youth, church leaders, women, men, children and vulnerable communities of Zambia and beyond. He is surely doing a new thing and with our eyes of faith we can see it. Can you?