It has a few weeks since our last update and there is much to inform you about. The month of September is always special as it is the only month in which we have two birthdays (Luke’s 29th, Emma 7th) and Payton celebrated his 5th the end of Aug. We have been enjoying some hotter weather which was perfect for Emma’s Hawaiian themed party which was held her in own tropical backyard (we included some pics for you). We also enjoyed a recent visit from Luke’s Uncle Jim and his fiancé Jacki who were in Lusaka with Willow Creek Church in Chicago conducting a seminar on Biblical Church Leadership. It was great to see and reconnect with them and see how God used them help strengthen the Zambian Church.
September also saw the completion of the first 2:7 discipleship class, which Brent Roberts and Luke had been facilitating over the past few months. Along with the Roberts we hosted the graduates to a barbecue where they received their certificates of completion as well as being encouraged to remember to always lead by serving first. With the completion of one class also came the recruitment and enrollment of a new group of students who, Lord willing, will complete the 2:7 course over the next year. Please continue to pray for these leaders as they go out to make disciples of all men.
AZ’s Pastoral Leadership Development Team (PLD), also saw the addition of another Zambian to its consultancy staff to specifically be working with Brent and Luke in the area of Discipleship and Evangelism. Pastor Wozifera Ngoma will be the fourth Zambia to come on staff with Action Zambia and we are very excited about God adding him to our team. He is a wealth of cultural insight and wisdom and it is AZ’s hope that he will help us to serve the Zambian people in a more effective way. Please take a moment and visit Action Zambia’s website: http://actionzambia.org/ to learn more about Pastor Ngoma’s story.
Hospital Ministry has also flourished over the past month as Luke has seen many new doors open up. The AZ team, along with local pastors, are visiting patients in five of the local area clinics and hospitals. At one particular clinic Luke visited this past week, the head physician informed the group that because there are so many patients who are medically untreatable the need to ministering to them spiritually is immense. He actually said that most of his patients are really more in need of spiritual attention than they are medical (Amen). Luke said the best part of the day was to see the excitement on the faces of the local pastors he had traveled with who could not believe the opportunity God had opened right before their eyes. Praise God with us and continue to pray that He would raise up an army of Churches here in Zambia who will compassionately reach out to the sick and dying in Christ’s name.
Moving from ministry to school, Elise has seen such an improvement in the kids’ involvement and retention of schooling material. Although she would deny it, much of the credit goes to her amazing amounts of patience and love that she exhibits towards the kids and their sometime infuriating learning patterns (praise God for kids). School has also gotten easier now that our house helper Pauline is watching Tazi during the morning school session. One highlight from this past week was Macie’s acing her Math exam which, as we would expect, she is very thrilled about. God has also blessed the kids with the opportunity to participate in classes at the International School just up the road from our new house. The biggest blessing is that the school offers some of these classes for free to homeschool students. Macie and Emma are doing swimming classes and Patyon is in beginner’s football (soccer).
As a family we are well and blessed and enjoy learning daily more about our dear Zambian friends and their culture. We have decided to try our hand at raising chickens, much to the delight of our chicken-eating dog Spud. Yes we have already lost two chickens to mortal wounds inflicted by this savage beast; but amazingly, the kid’s love for Spud really does cover a multitude of sins. We continue to praise God that He has faithfully keep us healthy and malaria free as the mosquitoes have become horrendous over the past few weeks.
With that we say goodbye for now but please know we love and miss you all dearly. As always thanks again for being such great supporters and teammates of what God has called us to accomplish for His sake here in Zambia. Please keep praying without ceasing for us as we are always in need and could not function without them. We would love to hear from you or maybe talk sometime -- for those of you on Skype you can reach us at username: Taziona6 . God bless and keep all of you and remember to forget what’s behind and press on to the things He has called you Heavenward in Christ.
Lesa Masuma Nshito Shonse (God is good all the time)
The Whitfields
