Service at Miracle Life Church this morning was amazing, it is a new
beautiful church that can seat 3,000 people and the Senior Pastor is actually
from the U.S. The music and worship was fantastic, the talk was compelling and
like it was written especially for us and the people were warm, friendly and
welcoming, it was a wonderful experience
After church we went to visit Chikumbuso widows and orphans project, “Chikumbuso”
means “in remembrance of” as I explained in the earlier post, this is a co-operative
of HIV / AIDS widows who work and live together to support themselves. Our
visit was, for me and my wife, a life impacting experience, these women are
amazing, resilient, loving and have a faith and love for our Savior, Jesus
Christ that is unmatched, it was convicting.
This is a group of woman who have lost their husbands to AIDS, 98% of
them are HIV / AIDS positive themselves, many of them have been shunned by
their families and friends and have had the kind of tragedies in their lives
that could break some of the strongest people in the world. Yet because of this
small ministry in an extremely poor area of Lusaka, these women have hope and
the joy of the Lord pours out from these women like a fire hose.
This started out as a small micro-financed business to just support
themselves and has grown into a self financed school system that teaches almost
350 children up to the 6th grade, those that are excelling in school
will be sent to higher education all paid for through this amazing group of
woman. They have also added a tailor shop where they teach local single parents
how to sew and make clothing in their 1 year course. Everyone who has finished
the course has gone on to find jobs, while not all of them are working in the
tailoring industry, this course gave them the confidence in themselves to go on
to other careers.
God is teaching me and speaking to me through these people, overall I
have a very blessed life, yet I often let a little speed bump become a major
hurdle, these women have made mountains into less than mole hills, through
their unbelievably strong faith. I pray that when life starts getting me down,
I can remember the women of Chikumbuso and remember their faith and strength
and give my problems to God, just like they do every day!
