Report by BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit in June

Key person:David & Nana Lukama

Recent Events

GAP Year Course

The GAP year course was in the last week when we arrived and we had the privilege of attending the graduation dinner. It was great to see the youth celebrating with each other and the GLO Alive leaders for the transformation of lives for Christ.

In one of the speeches at the dinner Tu Pimue said, “you know I feel like GLO Alive is a washing machine. You come here all twisted and dirty, then they put you in the tumbler and after some hard times and lessons you come out all straight and clean”. 

Sakanya Community Projects

Sakanya is the local shanty town that was set up mainly due to smuggling goods with the Congo across the border. It is not a normal village in the sense that there is no chief or structure, just a lot of people living in the area. Now that smuggling has stopped, or is more controlled by the governments, the area is very poor. This is 6km from GLO Alive and they are wanting to work with the community to help present Christ as a light to this world.

Health Clinic
GLO Alive has been helping in the clinic by sending students to help with cleaning. They have also been advocating to the government for some medicines that should be there. 30 ladies from the shanty town have mobilized themselves to be the link between the clinic and the community, making sure that sick people are getting the help that they need, not just medicines but often just being there to talk with them and encourage them. They also visit people in their homes to wash and bath them. GLO Alive meets with these 30 ladies to encourage them in the work. The government pays the ladies a total sum of 35 kwacha per month, i.e. just over 1 kwacha (20 cents) each per month.

Kaniki Youth Friendly Corner
There are a group of youth that GLO Alive has been mentoring, who are wanting to be a positive influence in the community helping the elderly and disillusioned youth.

Two things the young people quoted to us:
• “If we help our community we will improve our lives” 
• “As long as some of my people are poor, I am poor”

They have seen that the elderly often get left to fend for themselves, and youth are bored with life and have no hope for the future, meaning they get involved in drinking, smoking and living immoral lives. They aim to set up some sports programs, drama lessons, and get the youth to come and have something to do. Then they will be able to get alongside them and counsel them and teach them of Jesus.

Their vision includes raising some funds by keeping some chickens at the GLO Alive chicken house. They want to raise 500 broilers at a time. Judith the chairperson has a lot of experience in looking after her brother's chickens at home so knows what to do. To raise money for the first batch of chickens they are starting to grow some onions for sale. They are hoping to get a loan as well so they can start. The funds raised in these ventures are not for them, but for helping with the projects in the community.

Agape Ladies
Many young children come to GLO Alive for extra school lessons three times a week. The mothers in the community have now been visited by GLO Alive to see how their lives are. Many stories came of ladies who are struggling to support their families with food and school fees.
• One lady has a husband who earns good money but every time he is paid at the end of the month he gives her 100 kwacha ($15) and then disappears for 3 to 4 days going drinking spending the rest of the money.
• One lady has had three of her brothers die so she is now looking after many children
• Another lady has a husband who is sick and cannot work
• One husband just drinks all day

GLO Alive want to help with the empowerment of these ladies to enable them look after their families so they have started a sewing group who meet each week. At this meeting they are also taught lessons from the Bible and some parenting skills. The teacher, Phyllis Chibuye, has been teaching them to sew bags that they hope will be sold in the west. Phyllis is a trained tailor and the bags are very good quality.  She says “I teach others because when I am not around they will be able to carry on and this will help my community”.

Their aim is to also raise enough funds to be able to start a chicken run at the GLO chicken house. GLO Alive has been working with a local commercial farmer who has a good market for all the chickens they will produce.

Personal Stories

Tambulayi Chiwale

Tambulayi (also known as Gabriel) is 18 years old from Kasama and has no brothers or sisters being an only child. He had very good exam results from 2014 when he sat his grade 12 exams. He achieved 4 distinction and 3 merits. He would like to study law.

He heard about GLO Alive from an outreach program that was held in his town by the GLO Alive team in 2013. He communicated with them and enrolled for the course.

His expectations for the GLO Alive course was that he would be at a big Bible college with a lot of people, with many lessons in a classroom. These expectations were not met and he found it a much more personal course, especially with the mentoring programs that they did. 

The Friday program with the policeman coming for boot camp is something he really struggled with, in fact at one point on the mid-term break he didn’t want to come back! But in the end he saw what they were trying to teach him and liked the fact that he was able to achieve the physical exercises. He liked the adventure and how they had to work as a team.

The main things he learnt on the course was about the trinity, and how to study the Bible. He learnt a lot about his relationship with God and people. The GAP year has made him a stronger and more focused person, he used to be easily influenced by his friends but now has stronger values based on what God wants for his life.

Lemesa Sheba

Lemesa is 17 years old and has done very well in school, wanting to become an accountant; maybe! She was brought up in a Christian home attending a Baptist church. She is the youngest of three children and her parents both work. Her brother Emmanuel attended GLO Alive in 2013 and she was interested in doing the course after seeing how it had helped her brother.

She gets very bored at home so was happy to come to do the GAP year. She was hoping to learn how to interact with people and to learn how to speak in public (note: she gave a speech at the GAP year graduation dinner and did very fine!)

She liked the lessons about God and now has a much deeper understanding about her relationship with God. She now sees worship as her every day life.

She got on well with most of the leaders but would have liked more time to answer some more of her questions. 

Raymond Mwanza

Raymond came from Chipata and finished grade 12 in 2012 but decided to re-sit some exams to get better marks. He worked very hard but was not happy with the results that he got. His father has his own business making stationery, and he has five other brothers and sisters in the family.

He heard of the GAP year course through the youth camps that he used to come and attend in school holidays at GLO. He wanted to come in 2014 but could not afford to. He didn’t expect to be doing hard things in the GAP year, like exercise and the police boot camps, he thought it would be more theological.

He was brought up in a Christian family but has spent many times walking away from God. He says his friends can be a bad influence on him. He still feels that although he believes in Jesus he cannot fully commit to him as he is not sure what will happen to him if he does. There is still a fear there stopping him. He has been working through this with his mentor leader “Uncle D” (David Lukama). 

Prayer and Praise Points

1) Pray for the GLO Alive students as they finish the course and return to their homes - that what they have learnt will remain with them and their relationship with God will continue to strengthen
2) Pray for the Sakanya community and the influence GLO Alive is having in that community
3) Please pray for a lady called Charity who is very sick with sores and bed ridden. Her daughters have pretty much abandoned her leaving her care in the hands of some young grandchildren. The clinic ladies have been helping her by bathing and she has been provided with some food and a bed.