Greetings to you all from Zambia. This past month has been full of many new and exciting things in my life. God closed some doors, but has opened so many new doors to me as I work here in Zambia.

LORDSHIP INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES OF ZAMBIA
In order for me to stay in the country of Zambia, I must be invited by an established ministry in this country. Pastor Frazer Kane desired for me to be able to stay in this country so he established Lordship International Ministries of Zambia so that I could be under their umbrella in Zambia. This ministry is basically the ministries of Liberty Baptist Church in Kalulushi which Frazer is the pastor of. Once the church building is built, we will begin concentrating on ways to help orphans.
At the beginning of August, I went to the capital city of Lusaka with Pastor Frazer and Clara, the lady who lives with me. We had to go to immigration to renew my permit to stay in Zambia and also to show that I was now under Lordship International Ministries of Zambia. The immigration building is being remodeled so it took us a while to figure out where we were supposed to go. Once we found the right place, it did not take long to give them the application. >From there, we went to pay at the cashier, but ended up waiting for 3 hours to pay. But finally everything was taken care of and we hope to receive the new permit soon.

 

We had a nice time in Lusaka. We got to visit the mall, but only had time to eat. It was worth it though because the food was great. We also got to go through a market area in Lusaka. I had never been able to visit a place like that. We found a huge shop (for Zambian standards) full of inexpensive clothes. We had fun looking through some of that as I imagined buying clothes for orphans one of these days.

KAFULAFUTA BAPTIST CONFERENCE
When I first came to Zambia in 1998, I lived at Kafulafuta mission for 10 months. That is where I first met Pastor Frazer as he was a student at the Bible College there. The missionaries at Kafulafuta never forgot us, so they invited Pastor Frazer to bring Liberty Baptist Church to their annual conference. We did not know how many people would be able to go as Kafulafuta is quite far and transportation costs are quite high. Pastor Frazer asked the people to start giving and see if God would provide enough money for them to go. The Sunday before the conference, people gave what they had. When all the money was counted, it was about $300! No one could believe it. In the past, the church would struggle to come up with $25 let alone $300. People realized that God has been blessing the people in this church as they have learned to be faithful in giving.
On Wednesday afternoon, a little over 40 people if you count the children, left for Kafulafuta. I was sick at the time so I could not think of traveling with them. On Friday, I went to join them. Going with public transport, I could only get to within 6 miles of the conference. I knew that Pastor Frazer was going to send a vehicle for me, but rather than wait, I decided to start walking. I really enjoyed that walk as I passed villages all along the road. It was fun to greet the people as I passed. I started looking forward to walking the whole way, but I only made it a couple miles before I saw the vehicle coming to get me. I was almost sad to see it coming, but glad for the time saved in reaching the conference.
When I reached the conference, I was surprised to find so many people. There were over 120 churches represented with about 8,000 people in attendance. At first I thought I would never find the Liberty people, but instead found them right where I was dropped off. The services started just as I arrived. I sat with the ladies from Liberty on the ground with the rest of the people. There was plenty of singing and 2 men preached. I was able to see many old friends. I had lunch with the ladies from Liberty before I had to make my way home. I was blessed to be able to get a ride all the way back to town with a Zambian missionary to Tanzania. It was fun to listen to him talking in Swahili to his friends from Tanzania.
I wanted to return, but I was still feeling sick so I was not able to return. The rest of Liberty came home on Sunday afternoon. They all had a wonderful time of fellowship at the conference.

SUNDAY SCHOOL PARTY
We try to have an activity for the children every 4 months when they are on their break from school. The children had been looking forward to the party ever since the last one we had. They were thrilled when I told them the day to come. I was excited as I knew that the new Sunday School teachers, Charity and Kenny, would be able to help.

 

They helped me come up with some wonderful games to play. One of the highlights was the relay race. The teams had to fill a bucket with water by transporting a drenched washcloth on their head. The children loved this game as the water gave them a chance to cool off.
As we played the games, more and more children kept arriving. But we had no time to count them all because we were involved in the games by then and just kept adding the newcomers to the teams.
The lesson for the day was about Abraham and Isaac. The children laughed as Kenny came out dresses as Isaac. Kenny's friend, Osward, played the part of Abraham. Kenny had applied white lime to Osward's face so he could have a nice white beard. The children were scooting around, trying to get the best view. The children responded very well to the story and were able to answer my questions at the end.
We finished the day off with our usual water balloon fight. We had made even more water balloons this time. I believer there were about 350 plump water balloons. Within a minute, we were all drenched and my grass got a good watering. They really love the water balloons.
As they were leaving, we gave them each a snack. I had bought 2 bags with 50 snacks each and assumed I would have leftovers. Once all of the children received their snack, I found there was only 1 snack left. That meant there were 99 children at the party. Praise God. The teachers got to share the last snack.

LIBERTY LADIES
The Bible Institute for the ladies is continuing very well. The ladies have been memorizing verses. Some of the women cannot read so if they memorize a verse, then they will always have that verse with them.
I went with 8 of the ladies to visit my good friend, Treasa Banda. Treasa has 3 wonderful girls, but had still been hoping for a boy. This time God blessed her with a boy that they named Moses Banda after his grandfather. The ladies brought her some food and a gift. We started talking and before we knew it, we had been there for over 2 hours and it was getting dark. It was a nice time of just getting to fellowship with some of the ladies.

 

You may remember that my long-time friend, Dickson, past away in June. His widow, Calistus, had once hoped to remain in Kalulushi, but was not able to do that. She is now living with her mother, but Calistus came to visit us this month. Everyone was happy to see her at the ladies meeting. She is doing well at this time and her pregnancy is continuing well. Please pray for Calistus as she seeks God's will for her life and that of her children.

LIBERTY BAPTIST CHURCH
Liberty Baptist Church continues to grow. Pastor Frazer has been working with several of the young men. He goes weekly with them on evangelism. He reported to me that they are becoming bolder with the Word of God as they go visiting from house to house. He is also training many of the young men (and a couple older ones) in his weekly Bible Class. Right now they are studying I Thessalonians. Knowing how Pastor Frazer teaches, I'm sure they will know I Thessalonians backwards and forwards by the time they finish.
We are still waiting from all the proper approvals from the town council before we can start building. The council had to come and re-measure each plot to make sure we knew our boundaries (and so did our neighbors).

LIBERTY BAPTIST PRESCHOOL
The preschool has been on it's one month break along with the other Zambian schools. But I still see the children quite often. I miss having them here and I am excited that classes will be starting again now.

This has been a blessed month. We really see God's hand everywhere we turn. He has been so gracious to us this past month. Please pray for us as we continue to serve God here in Kalulushi.

Praise be to God,
Jennifer Townsend