Dear Prayer Partners and Supporters,

After our last newsletter, about six weeks have passed. In between we have had enough news to fill another newsletter for you, to keep you updated and connected with us.

In the second week of July, the College opened the doors for its second semester this year. We welcomed our students and up till now also a number of visiting lecturers. We are very grateful to the Lord for providing to us such men who are willing to help out while we are facing a shortage of staff.

Pastors Albert Ngoma, Chipita Sibale, and this week Francis Kaunda have been teaching, while the principal will take up the next three weeks thereafter. We are also thankful for Samba and Margret, the principal’s wife, who do a lot in the background to let things run smoothly.

We also welcomed Timothy Woo who did a course about the use of the library. Before he arrived, two young men arranged all the books in the library in the way it should be. Thanks to volunteer Gydo from The Netherlands and Dalitso, the son of the Sakalas. Both young men used part of their holiday to serve us in the mission field and we count that a blessing!

We can also share that the fencing of the garden area for the College is done. The purpose of this new garden is to grow winter maize for sell.

We are thankful for Pastor Charles Mwanza, who was teaching the course “Farming God’s Way” at the College. We hope the students will practice what they learned to be able to sustain their families in the future when they are pastoring where the Lord will call them to serve.

Pastor Mwanza and the principal have also worked together on a new initiative: formation of Covenant Chapel. We realized that with the big number of weekend students this Chapel can give a good opportunity for them to practice preaching. We also hope that it will be an example for them to see how to plant a church and how to evangelize in the neighborhood. Furthermore, Pastor Mwanza is helping us in another way. He is now overseeing the Farm. This is a big relief for the principal and Samba, since they were the once having this burden on their shoulders from the time the former Farm manager left.

In between a big portion of our land is fenced with wire. We want our cows and goats to graze here. We hope this will be an example for others as well so that less people use little boys to take care of their cows and these boys will have an opportunity to be educated as well.

Another step forward is the arrival of Peter Phiri, who is serving us as a driver. Very helpful with the many trips needed to be done to sell chickens, eggs and vegetables from the Farm.

But the driver is not the only one on the road. Our CEM ministry leader and his team made many kilometers by visiting the community schools. At the moment the schools have their August holiday. That’s why last week; we hosted more than 60 teachers for a CEM conference. Trainer Wilson Tembo was in charge of teaching Bible storytelling, ministry leader Musonda taught about monitoring pupils and assessments, while Marjanne did a lesson on explaining difficult Bible words. In the afternoons she kept the teachers busy with mathematics and literacy games and also by letting the teachers make their own teaching
material.

In July, Marjanne again undertook a trip to the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. She was asked to train Sunday school teachers for a full week in Kalulushimining town and to share a message at a training centre for teachers in the same town. It was a very cold experience to teach in an old mine building while the outside temperature was very low. But the response from the people was heartwarming!

Being in the Copperbelt gave Marjanne the opportunity for a short follow up visit to the teachers at Pleap and the Sunday school teachers from Nkana-west Baptist church in Kitwe. This visit enabled her to attend the wedding of Kabamba Mvula and Taonga Sakala, daughter of the principal and his wife. We look back with a lot of good memories of that day.

We hope this newsletter gives you enough information to praise the Lord for His blessings and to pray for more blessings to come!

Pastor Emmanuel Sakala

Principal