Impact Ndola 2015- Day One

Ndola, Zambia is 9 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time and for our Impact Ndola 2015 travelers we are just catching up.  Determined to keep jet lag at bay we went out on the town Monday morning and visited our centers of ministry for the next four days.  Four blue and white small buses took us and several Northrise University students to Mapalo Morning Glory Academy, Arising Life Ministries, Makenzie School, and NUCare medical clinic.

While the programming for the children at the schools for orphaned and vulnerable children, for the women and men at the conferences, and the general medical clinic don’t start until Tuesday the ministry work did start today!  God’s love was made evident by our visit, by the engaging questions asked by Northrise students getting to know these ministries in their community, and by our promise to come back tomorrow.

The Build Team led by Tallowood Baptist Church’s team and joined by other hard-working volunteers picked up their hammers this morning before the rest of us finished breakfast!  They are on a tight time-table committed to completing this church-build in just five days to leave Mapalo Morning Glory Academy with a chapel building ready to host the community for praise, worship, and fellowship.

The dental team led by Dr. Art & Norma Parkins also got started today to be sure to see as many patients as possible during this week.  The Parkins sent by Kindred Community Church were eager to put the newly donated equipment to work so that they could double the care that they provided during Impact Ndola 2013.

At the end of the afternoon the dining room was full of Northrise students and their American guests preparing for the ministry in the morning.  We had students cajoling one another to be the one to tell the children’s Bible story in the local language of Bimba and encouraging others to lead in worship with the children.  We are all excited and nervous to greet over 650 smiling children tomorrow for a full day of Bible story teaching, games, and art.

The table seating the ladies preparing for the Women’s Conference was a bit quieter discussing how to adjust to more than double the registration than anticipated!  God has blessed Northrise with about 250 women and 200 men to attend the Women’s and Men’s Conferences and He has blessed the team with grace and wisdom to adjust and welcome them all.

One statement sums up this first day of ministry and it came from Mrs. Mukuka at Mapalo Morning Glory Academy as she shared her story of founding the school with her husband, Pastor Emil Mukuka a Northrise University graduate.  After arriving in the community of Mapalo with the mission to build a church they looked around and concluded this,

“We have to start a school, this is our church.”