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Key person: Wathabu Simfukwe
Alinani has now gained employment with an NGO in Lusaka so has limited involvement with the youth programmes. We again met with Albert Mwansa in Samfya who is carrying on the work. The funds for the mobile money station are currently invested on fixed interest as they are still communicating with a landlord to rent a site to put up the booth.
The youth ministry has three main parts; firstly, reaching out to kids in schools (share the gospel and help them value life and their learning), secondly run various weekend camps which strives to teach them teamwork, creativity and more about Jesus, and the third is to develop sports teams. The overall goal is helping the youths find their purpose, encourage them to go to church and school.
Currently the school helps out a football team “Samfya Bible School Football Team” with both girls' and boys' teams. The boys’ team was recently dropped from division two to three due to financial challenges as they could not pay club subscription to the Football Association of Zambia. The girls team is in division one. There are great benefits being a paid-up members of FAZ for the team and its development.
These young people have a weekly meeting where the word of God is shared. They are encouraged and get to share their experiences. The kids come from different backgrounds but mostly families living in poverty and need help and guidance to have a meaningful life.
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The extension programme allows for the bible school to reach many more people, rather than just 20 to 30 students on site per year. Currently they are running 24 classes with on average of 30 in each course (over 600 people). The sites are focused on areas where there are past students from the bible school who can learn and help. Once the first year of the course is complete, these ex-students are encouraged to take the same course with the help of a few resources to other areas in their communities. In this way the course multiples without the strain on the bible school teachers. Courses run for two years, with trainings held every month for 2 or 3 days in the local churches.
Another benefit of the programme is in finding potential students for the bible school full-time course, which allows the teachers to get to know potential candidates before they come.
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Samuel says there has been such a big impact with this programme. Often in rural churches literacy is not strong, and church leadership is not well versed in the bible. In fact in one current programme they are starting, there are 24 attendees and not one of them has a bible. By aiming courses to help with reading and writing, and learning God's word, the churches are coming up, and developing a good relationship with the bible school.
Twice a year, they run a conference for all the past students who are teaching the extension programme. They meet for three days to encourage each other and rest. Samuel wants to use some of these times to help empower these local people by teaching them skills, especially in farming to ensure these faithful people can look after their own families in a sustainable way.
Picture shows all areas where extension programmes are currently in operation.
The school on average has 20 to 30 students per year coming for the yearlong course. The course is now normally filled by people that are known to the bible school through the church extension programme, enabling them to see who might really benefit from the yearlong course.
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To run the school costs 1,000,000zmk (US$55,000) in an average year. Wathabu’s focus is to try and see the school push towards sustainability and to stop so much reliance on outside help. He presented us with two options that would require one-off capital injections.
Note that the bible school already has a farm that is set up with housing, goats, a piggery, chicken rearing, and an irrigation borehole to farm crops. The piggery and goats are working, but the rest they are looking for funding prior to employment of the farm manager who is waiting to come.
Maize trading
The school has an outpost in the Mwewa area where they have a store house and grinding mill, plus a small shop.
With the maize season especially bad this year due to below average rainfall and difficulties with the government subsidy programmes for fertilizer and seed, Wathabu states that “We anticipate a shortage in our staple food (maize) this year”.
They have presented us with a proposal to buy 500 bags of maize when it is harvested and store it to be sold later when there is a shortage. Currently the price to buy a bag just after harvest is 180zmk. Last month, before the current harvest started, bags were selling for over 450zmk per bag. If those figures were used the profit would be US$6,761.
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The bible school has a farm about 16km away from the school. They have been working on infrastructures and have completed a chicken rearing unit, piggery and goat house. They have a solar pump and water tank and are working on getting drip lines to start vegetable growing.
The piggery is part of CF, the programme set up by the school to have 100 pigs available per year for slaughter at the bible school butchery. The bible school farm breeds this many pigs per year that are given out to local farmers to raise, who then resell back to the butchery. The broilers unit is set up for 1,000 birds, and they are currently looking to secure funds to start with 300 birds.
The farm will be managed by a trained agricultural man, who worked there last year and proved himself to be trustworthy and hard working. He will set targets to meet on a three-monthly basis to ensure ongoing employment. The one-off amount needed here is US$2,057.
Samuel is the head of the church extension discipleship programme at the bible school. He has been married for two years and has a 7-month-old daughter. His wife studied teaching but is yet to be deployed. She currently works at the shop for the bible school.
Samuel first studied at Pro Christo (ZAM13) and then GLO Discipleship College (ZAM19) in the early 2000's. He then joined OM and was based at Lake Tanginika before coming to Samfya Bible School in 2015. When he came, he was coming to run youth programmes but when he heard about the extension programme, he got excited by the opportunity that was developed by the late Levi Kasoma so started to run the programme.
Samuel is also a trained mechanic, and with his brothers he owns a mechanic shop in Mansa that he uses to support his ministry work.
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Look at a fund to help purchase bibles in local languages for the extension programmes.
Aim to help the bible school move towards sustainability with the maize trading and chicken rearing.
The youth programme is to confirm if the mobile money station will happen soon, if not they are to repay the funds back to Bright Hope World.
The impact of the church extension programme is quite phenomenal. Seeing so many people having literacy and biblical training, and discipleship is really seeing the true gospel of grace spread throughout the local rural churches.
The school is very much Zambian led with Wathabu a strong and wise leader.