Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator

Key people: Wathabu and Samuel Mululu

Recent Events

Church Extension Programme

The 200 Bemba bibles funded in 2023 were a great help to the extension programme, being in the local language. Samuel, who leads the programme says, “The Bibles indeed brought more light especially in the area where they were most needed”.

The class in the photo has 42 students that meet twice in a month for 10 months before their graduation. The students are coming from four church denominations: Christian Brethren, Catholic, United Church in Zambia, and Grace International Ministries. 18 church leaders are attending this training along with other church members.

In the picture Samuel is sitting next to an old man. Though he is not young, he still has the desire to learn and serve the Lord in his old age. Please remember him in your prayers. He stays with his young sister and has some struggles in terms of food. He has no children.

Samuel hopes that this year the Lord will help with more Bibles. The price of a Bible has just gone up to about K300 (approx. US$11).

At one of the church extension programme areas, they ran a youth conference which resulted in 34 youths being baptized.

Maize Trading

In 2023 the Bible School was given a capital fund to allow them to purchase maize from farmers at harvest and store until later in the year when maize becomes scarce, and prices increase. Wathabu says they have learnt a lot in this first year. They managed to buy 537 bags of maize, which was 37 more than expected. The main learning point was to not sell the maize too early, as the price went up significantly after December. 

They have kept all the original capital and the profit aside, and request to run the maize buying programme again. This year in Zambia there has been a significant drought meaning many areas are lacking in stocks of maize. For Samfya, in the Luapula province, the rains “have been just ok”, and farmers have some stock to sell.

Farm

The Bible School farm has been working ok, with some challenges. The new manager has proved to be a very faithful man and is doing well at his job. The chickens have been producing some profit, except for the second round when they had too many deaths due to disease outbreak.

The next rounds have been working well, and there is still significant demand for chicken from all the lodges that have been built along the Samfya beach front.

Plans for the Future

They will continue with another round of maize trading. Given the lessons learnt and all the capital items already purchased, this programme has potential to secure a good income for the Bible School to help with their financial struggles.

Bibles are a request each year, and very much needed with all the extension classes that are going on. They would like to secure an ongoing amount to fund Bibles each year.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) For God's provision. The trips for the church extension programme are quite costly and the school is struggling to raise money to visit the churches. There are 17 classes in total with an average number of 25 participants.

2) God to provide iron sheets for a burnt church building.

3) More intimacy with the Lord and passion to serve him for those receiving training.

4) From Samuel, thank God for my family which has been encouraging me with all these trips I make and sometimes my wife comes along with our little two kids.