Dearest friends and family of the 2012 HIZ group,
I hope you are resting well. The sun just rose here in the North-Western Province of Zambia, and in a couple hours the group will be eating breakfast and getting ready to take split up into four groups to visit four different churches in this area.
We are in Mumena, Zambia, in the North-Western province, fairly close to the border of the Congo. In two days we drove from Namwianga to Mumena, and got here late Thursday evening. The point of this trip is to see a different style of mission, we're hosted by missionaries who are doing church planting and development work in this area in cooperation with the local chief (who we got to meet!) and church leaders throughout the area. We're being hosted by Rick and Karen Love and Sam and Ellie Rodriguez here at the Mumena Christian Outreach Center through tonight. We leave tomorrow morning..
On Friday morning, we heard from Sam and Rick about their team's strategy for this area (as developed originally by Brian Davis and others on the team) and the story of their work here. Then Rick taught about how he and his team have dealt with witchcraft and other animist beliefs here in the area. After lunch we had free time, which we spent with the families. Before dinner, Rick and Karen shared some of their story with the group and and answered questions specifically related to "Families on the Mission Field," i.e. what is it like to have kids and raise a family in Zambia.
As dinner was about to get started Friday night, Chief Mumena, the leader (by heritage/descendants) of this area, came by to welcome us to his chiefdom. He spoke some about how British colonialism had come in and worked with, through, and around the historical kingdoms in Zambia, and after Zambia gained independence, how the area chiefs work together with the elected officials to govern. It was fascinating to hear his story, a Christian who was chosen by the tribal matriarchs to be chief, but because of his refusal to believe in the ancestors' protection was told he wouldn't last a day on "the throne". He has used his position as chief to share his story and faith in Jesus throughout Zambia. He has even been to Abilene to share some of this story with the church who supports the work (along with others who attend the benefit dinner). We sang some songs with the chief and his wife before calling it a night.
Yesterday morning we had an early breakfast and hit the road for a two hour drive to Meheba Refugee camp. This camp has a long history, and, by land mass, is one of the largest in the world. It is so big that, as you drive through it, it looks like you are driving in any other part of the bush in Zambia, with different small collections of mud huts and other small shelters.
We went to visit one of the churches at the camp who had set up a "gospel meeting" with singing, preaching, and praying. Three of our guys preached (and were translated into Swahili) and our whole group performed about ten songs, some in Tonga (which isn't spoken as much in this province), one in Ubale (more common up here), one in French (spoken some by those who speak swahili), and English. It was a lot of fun, this group of students is incredible. Kaitlin Plachy taught us "Lord, Reign in Me" in French as we drove up to the camp, and a few lessons in French phonetics later, we were performing it. When I get the chance I'll post part of the video I took of us singing.
While it was similar to other meetings we've been to so far, the differences are profound. When we start to ask questions of why people have ended up where they are, the refugees have completely different answers. While we didn't get to hear many of their stories, we did get to eat, sing, pray, and read with them, and all the while think and ask questions about systemic injustice and a Christian's place in all of this.
We got back to the Mumena Mission yesterday evening and completely shifted gears. We ate dinner, celebrated River's birthday with a delicious cake, and got dressed up to help the American kids celebrate Halloween. All of our students got dressed up and had candy to give out, and the kids came by and "Trick-or-Treat"-ed. After visiting all of the student rooms, they walked over to their playground that had been set up as a "Spooky Playground" and had fun being led through that.
We closed last night with some singing before showering and going to sleep.
This morning we're splitting up into four groups to visit 4 different churches in this area. Even though we'll be in smaller groups, the "Harding Chorus" will likely be asked to perform in each location, so we're splitting up our guys and girls as best we can to perform songs. I love hearing our group sing and hearing our guys preach; it will be impossible this morning to hear it in every place, but you can be proud of your students who are doing an admirable job of encouraging both American missionaries, refugees from the Congo, Rwanda, Angola, and Burundi, and Zambian Christians wherever they go.
Well, that's the best I can do for now. Hopefully I'll have a chance to send out another update before we make it back to Namwianga on Thursday. You can probably look for some pictures in the next few days as I'm sure students will be posting things once we get somewhere with an internet connection.
Grace and peace,
Jeremy Daggett
HIZ 2012 Field Director
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