Hello everyone once again,We would like to wish you all a Happy Easter. May we all take time to reflect on what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means to us. Sharing communion in church the other Sunday and listening to ‘O Sacred Head Now Wounded’ was a good reminder of what God did as he ‘so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...’
We have wrapped up in Kabwe, Zambia. Yesterday, we arrived in Seattle to begin our 6-month furlough.
We will be starting out in the Seattle area and will be making our way to Co. Springs to see family. This time is not necessarily a holiday as such, for it will be full of appointments and many miles on the road. But even this will be good for us, just to be out of the environment for a little while. The last four years in Africa have been tough in many ways for us.
We will be in the States for about two months, then on July 4th we are off to Denmark to see Jette’s side of the family. Jette and the girls will be there for almost three months, whereas I will be coming back to Zambia July 17th. I will drive our minibus to Cape Town in South Africa, where I will be attending a 3-month International Sports Coalition Leadership course. A course that teaches how to use sports; not only as a physical activity, but as a ministry tool. As we all know, the whole world likes sport, whether you play or not, nearly everyone roots for one team or another somehow.
I know from experience that if you walk through a village here with a bible tucked under your arm you can look over your shoulder and very few people will be following you. But you go through a village with a soccer ball tucked under your arm, look over your shoulder and you will have 20-30 young people following you. Here is your new church. So the idea is to use sports as a tool to train the youth in life skills, spiritual skills, environmental skills, social skills, etc.
What is my role in all of this? I have been selected out of many to go through this course so that this same course can be duplicated here in central Africa. So my purpose after completing this course is to come back here to Kabwe and begin this type course. There is a team already in place here and our first course will start hopefully in April next year. We have lots of people already very interested in coming, including several in the police force.
It is my desire to implement a strong aspect of the “disciplining of the mind.” This, I feel, is a huge key that has been missing in missions here in Africa, it is in the mind. Africans by the millions go to church and call themselves Christians but their minds are still un-renewed, therefore transformation never takes place. And we see the fruits of this through every area of life, still being influenced by their old mind-set.
Everything under the sun has been tried, from governments to the church, to help Africa out of poverty, but to a large degree nothing is changing. It is the world-view that must be changed, a mind-set that must be renewed.
This course will be physically and spiritually challenging. We intend to have some class time but mostly field experience in the bush, among the unreached, on Lake Tanganyika, in city dumps and so on.
Well, this is all from here for now, we will see many of you over the next few months. Please write, if you would like see us or maybe have a group that you would like for us to share with.
Once again, we wish you a Blessed Resurrection Sunday!
Love and blessings,
from Naomi, Mikaela, Acacia, Rachel, Jette and Lyle
