AP

Sunday

I feel like I’m experiencing something special attending Sunday morning worship at Kanele prayer house, Lundazi. I know there are Pentecostal-type churches back home with names like “Experience Church”, but the experience I speak of lies not just in a name but with the entire 4-hour event at Kanele CCAP. Most of it is in Tumbuka which escapes me, but I sort of got the gist of what was going on. 

Seven praise choirs and each of them with two songs. Any of the groups would be hurt if they were omitted from the order of service. It’s their chance to praise God with familiar words, beautiful melodies, gentle swaying of the body and the occasional ululation (look it up!). The joy of the Lord was in the air.

Prayer time can take 20 minutes, announcements another 15, welcomes and introductions 20 … so it’s no surprise to me that I’m called on to preach 2¼ hrs into the morning’s worship. AND there’s not a murmur, or furrowed brow, or closed eye, but a reverent expectation and heart-felt interest in God’s message from the Word of God. I preached from John 6 (as I did in Blantyre and so I could remember how it went without referring to notes). With freedom that a preacher rarely feels and, despite the annoyance of the heat, no breakfast or coffee that morning, tiredness, and of being translated, I felt the connection was there. I think I went for 45 minutes.

For those doing the maths (I said 4-hours) – after the sermon there’s a prayer and hymn, then the collection (which can take quite a while). Then, there’s the debrief in the elders’ vestry with thanks, prayers, visitors’ book, ‘Amazing Grace’ and handshakes. Nothing must be omitted.

One comment from a wise old minister: “Our people don’t have much going in their lives, in fact nothing much happens in their lives each week, so they don’t mind celebrating God with each other all Sunday.” 

We drove the ‘horrible’ road Lundazi – Chipata by dark Sunday afternoon so that we didn’t have the entire drive back home to face on Monday.

Monday

Nothing to report except another 5.30am start and a long drive home to Lusaka, with pleasant company and good conversation: this time the General Secretary Rev Sevatt Kabaghe and the Moderator Rev Chesason Chunda. I learnt so much from spending time with them in the car. 

Before checking into my Lodge, I took the car for a much-needed clean, as it was carrying quite a bit of Chasefu mud on it. At one police road block, checking for the conveyance of animal and plant products, a very courteous police woman frowned and ordered me; “Go straight and get it cleaned please”.

Culture-shock

Or, rather cultural exchanges – they still catch me unawares. I learned most of this in the car between Petauke and Chunga:

• When asking an African for directions, or asking how long will it take … the answer is invariably a vague wave of the arm and “not far” or “not long”. I’m told: “Wilson, it’s a tradition from way back, when there was no motorised vehicle and all movement was on foot. You’d never want to discourage your friend, or suggest he give up, would you? So, you give him hope by saying ‘It’s not far’”. Never tell a person bad news directly.

• I’m frustrated by delays and by what I see as ‘African muddling’. I mumble to myself: “Why can’t they organise things better?”. Well, I’ve eaten my fair share of humble pie and I apologised to the GS and Moderator over this one. On Saturday during the 4-hour Licensing Service at Chasefu, there was an inordinate delay in proceedings. I’d preached, the men were licensed, the benediction pronounced, and then everything paused. There was a flurry of conversation between several concerned organisers. They appeared flustered. No one seemed to know what to do. I thought it was because they didn’t know what to do next in the program, so the choir was asked to come forward and sing, and sing, and sing repeatedly. I was incredibly frustrated (which is code for: hungry). Then he arrived: His Royal Highness the Senior Chief of Chasefu district with his entourage and body guard. He’d been invited, but was late. If we had finished or looked as if we’d finished the meeting, or worse, if we were dismissed, there would have been a severe rebuke from His Highness’ palace and the recompense for the church to pay would have been – a cow.
• On the worst of the potholed road, there are some holes so deep they’d immediately damage the car if you attempted to drive straight over. So, if the skirting of the road (the bit off the shoulder) can’t be used as a bypass, the only thing to do is stop, ease into the ditch and then out the other side. At one such ditch I saw the sad and pathetic sight of an 8-year old boy with a bucket and spade. What? What was he doing? Explanation from the GS: “Watch him: as we approach he’ll shovel a big spade full of dirt and with flurry throw it into the ditch and then wave to you to show you what he’s done. And while you stop to enter it, he’ll approach the window for money. He does this all day. All day. Then, at night, when all transport is off the road, he’ll dig the ditch out and make it even deeper for tomorrow.” Sure enough, such is the devastating poverty of this country, that’s exactly what he did.

• We saw a disturbing sight on the way home. About 50km from crossing the Luangwe River, an accident had just happened. Down into a valley a truck driver had misjudged and his vehicle completely jack-knifed on itself lost its load and crushed his cabin. It lay in a ditch with smoke emerging from a hot engine and burning oil. A hundred locals ran across the road to ‘assist’ and a few brave men were frantically perched on the crushed cabin trying to prise it open. We were waved on. There were many ‘helpers’ on the scene. We don’t know if he survived, but it didn’t look good. On top of this, there’s an ongoing tragedy that probably doesn’t make news back home – in Chingola 30 people, some of them children, are trapped in a flooded and collapsed ‘mine’. They were illegally entering disused tunnels of an open pit copper mine. Such is the desperation of poverty here that this is not an uncommon practice. How sad. I don’t know if they have been rescued. Perhaps I should Google it.
• I asked about how the church survives when the members are so poor. They said: “Barely, and it’s worse this time of year because it’s planting time. Everyone has a plot of land somewhere (either next to them, or more often out of town ‘somewhere’. Because of the cost of planting, especially of fertiliser, they have nothing left for the plate, so: offerings dip, the minister suffers, the Synod has no income.”

What next? What can we do in partnership with CCAP Zambia Synod? 

This comes from the GS and Moderator, together:

1. Please be a partner that encourages us in evangelism and church planting and calling Zambians to faith in Jesus Christ. That is the urgent need for this country even in the face of coexisting with dire needs because of famine and poverty.

2. Please consider the needs of our ‘heartbeat’ institution: Chasefu Theological College. You might think it’s so out of the way to be annoying, but it’s essential for us to survive and it’s the reason we have new candidates emerging into ministry each year. MOST URGENT:

• scholarships for the support of CCAP candidates at College (it costs the church to send them and feed them, yet the church has no central funds to work with);
• lecturers to come and stay for a term (say, 6 – 8 weeks) and teach whatever specialty area he might have (it’s a shoestring budget,  and there are no funds to pay lecturers – they are volunteers).

3. Please continue come and offer what you do (e.g. the contributions of Graham Nicholson, Steve Jones and John Wilson): ministers’ enrichment programs – teaching that lifts us to see Scripture more clearly and preach it more effectively and to evangelise better. Every time these men come, we are inspired.

4. Please continue with valuable gifts for spot projects, such as roofs for churches and improvements to manses or school renovations.

5. Please consider a different approach altogether – a CCAP Trust Fund. CCAP Zambia Synod is an impoverished, struggling denomination – mainly because there are no invested funds, no property except for the Chunga farm, no prospect of bequests and therefore no income stream. The GS doesn’t even take his monthly ‘salary’ when congregational gifts for Synod diminishes. Similarly, the CTC Principal isn’t paid his due either, nor retired ministers their pension. Instead of repeated donations for spot projects, could there be a one-off gift for a Trust Fund (have a PCA member on the board of trustees) to be invested with the dividends only as an income stream for a stated purpose? Even put it to the people of PCA: “What about leaving a legacy for this Trust Fund?”

6.  Don’t forget, looking forward, can there be an Australian representative at the 40^th year celebration of CCAP Zambia Synod, October 2024? Is there an experienced husband and wife ministry and teaching team for a Ministers and wives retreat in April 2025?

John P Wilson

(December 2023)