"ZOE STORIES"

Last night, we sat with 13 new people, doing "7-Footsteps". The setting is a simple cinder block room, in a 3rd world compound, Kwacha, Kitwe, the open home of a precious new body member. Smiles, expectation, warm greetings, and each one has their story. Many unique stories. Life has so many stories. Being with Jesus was like this. A day must have been like a thousand years... Full of life, jam packed, fun, life, stories... I suppose if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Jn21:25. That was Christ on earth. Imagine the accumulation of all the precious life stories of the corporate body of Christ on the earth today! That's the privilege of missions here in the Zambian
Copperbelt. People are so precious. As a missionary and a pastor, my heart is sometimes overjoyed, and sometimes broken at the stories. Some I can write, some I can't. But the books are being written. And we get to be a part of it. Think of Paul & Silas. Or Peter knocking at the door and being left there. Pastor Emile tells the story of his days in the dorm, walking 2 hours to prayer, something he couldn't have done without his dorm mate Clive, who once walked to Zimbabwe! I tell the story of doing a visit with Clive, and after walking for 2 hrs, hearing "its just near" we found ourselves seeing the same places we were at 2 hrs before! And we can all relate, because it's life.
One amazing full life is David Livingstone [See picture]. I just put together a video tribute to the life story of this great missionary who "went before" in this part of the world. (We will youtube it & it will be on TheSpeedyz.com -below). David Livingstone's supernatural life stories are rich. "David Livingstone, I presume?" Years later we are in the same place as him and reap because of his sacrifice.
The story of the Foster family, (cf., Sword & Scalpel), who came to the north of Zambia (it was then Rodesia) and Angola, etc, by ship in 1917, after supernaturally missing a ship which was blown up because of the war. But their story also has huge personal losses, under extreme conditions, losing a child to mental illness in one night, due to local disease, and having to send the other children back because of the harsh conditions, not seeing them for 7 years at a time. The story continues with the son, Bob Foster, without bitterness, becoming a medical doctor and heeding the call to return here to Africa as a missionary!
As we go around the room we realize each unique member in particular has such value, has their stories, and by the end of the night, we are leaving, well hanging around, lingering, laughing, chatting, smiling, and the book of remembrance is being filled, which we will look back to for all eternity. Mal3:16. I wouldn't trade it for a natural, rigid, program. It's Acts... continued!
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