Family Seminar

Friday evening through Sunday afternoon we got to witness a new priority for many of our Kaonde brothers and sisters, family. Over 100 church members trekked to Mumena Christian Outreach for a weekend of encouragement for their families. Many of the youth walked 6 six hours to get here, talk about inspiring.

Our theme verse for the weekend was Ephesians 5:1, "Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us a and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Jason and I helped with the youth classes which was a hoot. At first it was hard to get them talking but when they had the opportunity to make up a skit or song about what it means to be a child of God they just came alive. Two groups made up very elaborate skits, with great acting of course, and one group of girls wrote a song (in 30 min!). Their creativity was astounding. We hope their churches will continue to build them up because they can be such lights!

Probably my favorite part of the weekend happened this morning before our church service. Everyone broke up into their individual families to have family devotionals which promoted them pray, read, discuss, and memorize scripture together. It warmed my heart to see families making such an effort to grow together. Our hope is for them to now have the confidence to regularly have family devotionals at home.

Here are few more pictures:

Please be praying for the families in the Mumena chiefdom!

July-August Update

We recently sent out a new newsletter and below is our "Notes from Jason and Erin" portion that gives a quick update on our life the past couple of months in Mumena.

It has been very odd to me that life in Mumena is much slower than our American lifestyles were used to yet time has been flying by. We can't believe we are now in our 8th month in Zambia.

Jason has been very busy with the school production project this month. While the kids are on break from school he has been offering Ag in-services for the production teachers. With the possibility of growing their own feed and encouraging local farmers to grow the crops needed for the animals, Jason's goal of sustainability could really be within arms length.

July was a wonderful month that included the Allison's visiting for the marriage seminar and our Sunday school teacher's seminar at the refugee camp. Janet and Fielden Allison travel several months out of the year from their home base, African Christian College in Swaziland, to teach marriage workshops. The material they present is contextualized in a way that Africans participating can take the material back to their churches and teach other couples. It was such a joy and inspiration to sit in on their classes. I would love someday to be able to follow in their footsteps of teaching about the Christian marriage and family in cultures that readily struggle with this specific area in their faith. It was my first visit to the refugee camp the Saturday the missionary ladies from Mumena taught about the importance of teaching children Bible lessons as well as easy techniques to do so. It was a very neat experience to visit our lively Congolese sisters and we hope and pray they will continue to be excited about teaching their little ones about the Lord. Sondra, Whitney, and I are looking forward to starting back up with our lady teacher's Bible study in September and are hoping for a good number of teachers who will be committed and excited about studying together each week.

Thank you for your prayers and support!