This week’s ministry trip took 15 Americans and 4 translators about 2 hours from base into the village of Cidabwe in the Mukeni chiefdom. It was an amazing 4 days of ministry and we counted 123 first time salvation decisions! To God be the glory!!
Cidabwe is a small village and the people who live in or near there mostly survive through gardening. Overland has a branch of their ministry called the SAM Project which is specifically for assisting these farmers and ministering to them through their co-op. These few farmers are a part of a Bible study every other week, but the area hasn’t really had much of an evangelistic focus aside from this. You can read more about the SAM Project here: http://www.overlandmissions.com/sam-project/article/sam_project/
We were blessed with a group of women who came to our campsite to sit for several hours with us and talk about God. They asked us so many questions and were hungry to know more of the Lord. That evening, we had an evangelistic message and about 60 people gathered around the fire under a million stars to hear the best story ever told. Tim shared of God’s great love for us and his redemptive plan to bring us back into relationship with Him again. As I sat on the ground listening to this message, I cried right alongside the Zambians as we marveled at how good our God is. That night about 45 people gave their lives to the Lord.
The next day we drove our huge truck into the bush another hour or so and started walking the footpaths to find more people to share Christ with. To our surprise, we found many people who had already visited our campfire and had accepted Christ earlier in the week. They had walked a LONG way to spend time with us. It was incredibly humbling. We had a really fun time helping them water their gardens and they took a few hours of their day to hear more about growth in Christ.
Our final day we invited everyone to come to our campsite for a day of messages. They listened to my friends and I take turns preaching from 10am-5:30pm. My message was on Friendship With God and it was incredibly well received.
We served them lunch and I had a delightful time of chatting while cooking together.
I missed my family terribly, but everyone did great and we are very happily reunited. The kids were already asleep when I arrived back on base, but in the middle of the night, Miesha was asking for me in her sleep. I cuddled with her for a few minutes and she woke up just long enough to say, “Our family is together again.”
(I tried to upload pictures, but blogger keeps turning them all sideways...if you want to see ministry pics, check out my facebook page "Hartleys in Zambia")
