Are you still ‘available’ in a crisis? The Lord often (not always) chooses to use those who are available and obedient to Him. Being 'available' means that we humbly admit that the Lord's ways are higher than ours and that He may want us to do something that we don't necessarily want to ourselves!
A huge part of what OM Zambia is involved with is envisioning and equipping local churches so that they see they too have a part to play in God’s mission for the world. Our theme for the year is ‘Live out Love’, as the Lord first loved us, our response should be to love others, to share the good news of Jesus to everyone and everywhere. As the COVID-19 crisis has unfolded we have had to grapple with how we can serve the Lord in a day like this.
Does the unfolding events suddenly change the vision that the Lord led us to in the past? I don’t believe they do, but it should affect how we go about things. I'm sure that I am not the only one in a position of leadership who is in desperate need for wisdom on how to do this. Matthew 10 is a helpful chapter when thinking about risk, here are two verses:
16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. Matt 10
As Jesus sends out the twelve, they needed to be wise and innocent, they were to take precautions, there were situations to avoid, however they were also promised hardship. Jesus never promised to remove the risk of dangers being realised, the lives of the Apostles are a testimony of that.
As the Global Pandemic crisis affected OM Zambia our first step was to pray, in fact as OM missionaries worldwide we have been having regular global days of prayer and fasting, pleading for the Lord’s mercy and wisdom. We then set up inward and outward crisis response teams, we needed to look after our missionaries and we also needed to respond in Love to those around us.
Over the last 6 weeks it has been wonderful to see how the Lord has used the virus to give OM Zambia an open door to speak to so many churches and radio stations. Many of these are new relationships and we are praying that in the future we will be allowed to share with their leaders about their responsibility and calling into the Lord’s mission for the World - we want to see Zambian missionaries crossing borders for Jesus.
Partnering with the churches during this COVID-19 has brought a lot of response and gladness. We have been handing out some Bibles, teaching how to do a Discovery Bible Study (DBS), sensitising people, handing out masks and teaching the ladies how to make masks. The churches were very interested in the ideas we shared with them regarding how they can actually reach out in their own communities during these times. It made them realise that they themselves can do something!
DBS enables them to still be ‘Church’ during these times and seeing our masks made them realise how important the wearing of a correct mask is. The usual response from the 
church would be, “but it is a big challenge for us to act in this matter as a church”. We then showed each church that they could make their own masks and it was great to see the gladness in their eyes when receiving some masks and realising that the church community could actually do this themselves. They realised they could donate cotton fabric they had available in their own houses so that they could make masks for the whole community. Once we spent time with the church leaders their response changed to, “Oh, we can definitely do that!”. This made a great impact.
We are thankful to God for:
- No OMers have caught COVID-19
- The opportunities to build deeper relationships with churches
- All of the little messages of encouragement we receive
We would appreciate prayer for:
- We are tired now, please pray for a refreshing from the Lord.
- The Lord to keep preventing the rapid spread of the virus here
- Wisdom for the leadership team in their decisions regarding the virus
Thank you so much for partnering with us in the Lord’s work.