One of the missions projects our church has supported is the missions work that Cornerstone church of Ames is doing in Zambia. When I came home from church today, I saw this update on their blog. For many reasons, we need to read it. Take the time to read other posts on the blog, too.
For our church, I am so thankful that we have a growing heart to hear about how the hope of the gospel can go out to dark places in the world.
There is a small village not far from here. I guess “far” is relative. It is about 90 kilometers from here. All on bad bush roads. One English lady here told me it is about as far into the bush as you can get in Zambia. The place is called Chisomo, also locally known as “the valley”. I visited there a couple of years ago with a team from Cornerstone. We traveled there in the back of a truck for about 6 hours. While we were there we showed the Jesus film and started a church. Pastor Navice has been working with the leaders there to grow the church.
Why am I telling you this? Well, as I was working today with one of the guys Willard. We saw some helicopters flying over. I thought that was kinda odd so I asked him what they were doing. He said that there is an out break in a village called Chisomo. He said it was cholera, and “people were dieing like animals”. (he was surprised that I had been there, as he had lived here for his whole life and never been there) I later found out that they don’t know what the problem is, all they know is that lots of people are dieing. The government is bringing in food, medicine and doctors to help out. I don’t know a lot about this stuff but I do know that things have to be pretty serious to have this kind of relief come in. I know that there are many who are very sick.
Chisomo is a desolate place, frequent floods, poor farm ground, located at the end of a long, bad, road to nowhere there is little traffic from outside, little food, little medicine, and little hope. It is one of the most hopeless places I have ever seen. I was just talking with a government official about the village on tuesday, before all of this came up. I asked why they don’t leave, with all the suffering and stuff? He said that the government had offered to relocate them but they refuse. They like looking at the mountain views, their ancestors are buried there, they can’t leave. They will suffer and die there because that is where their forefathers brought them. My worker Willard put it well saying that “they are ignorant.” The picture above is a picture I took there of their school when I was there August 2007.
(Note from Jeff — When Zack and I visited there with some others in 2007, some kids were in this school and when they looked out the windows and saw us coming with our white skin, they jumped out of the back windows of the school in fear. They’d never seen white people before!)
Click here to go to the web site.
As we “Christians in the USA” read news like this I always think we have such a hard time getting our minds around it. Its so unfamiliar to us. I always wonder how would I adjust to those kind of conditions? We are so blessed in this country that we just can’t comprehend it. I will pray that the outbreak stops and that they can bring the Good News of Jesus to those who survived. And I will Pray for all of us to wrap our minds around the fact that there are area’s where survival is literally day to day. I feel so lazy and complacent as I sit here in my nice warm house and say to myself, Wow I hope they stop the Outbreak! I sometimes think its us that need the most Prayer. Marc