Zambia trip October 2016
In October 2016 Pastor Richard, together with David and Nicky Summerhill and Pete Moorcraft, travelled to Zambia for the 2016 Path of Life Ministries "Cave Gathering" held in Solwezi. This was a first for Nicky and a first for the conference who have never had a women preach there before. We had a packed itinerary, including first of all visiting the church in Lusaka on the Monday we landed, and then the infamous long drive to Solwezi for the conference and to visit the Beacon of Hope School that we support.
Enjoy the videos and photographs of the trip. There's lots of them so just pick and choose what you are interested in.
We continue to thank all who faitfully sponsor the School4Kids project.
A message from NLC to Zambia
A message from New Life Church Bristoly
The Journey
The Journey
The journey was particularly difficult this year as the roads north of Chingola continue to deteriorate. It takes roughly 12 hours to travel from Lusaka to Solwezi and requires concentration we you try to avoid the endless number of potholes. Enjoy this humerous video of our journey. NOTE - there is currently no soundtrack; we are working to fix this problem
The Conference
The Cave Gathering Conference
The Cave Gathering Conference was held over 4 days, Thursday through to Sunday and approximately 400 adults and children attended the conference. As always it was a pleasure to join in with the wonderful African worship and we were blessed to see several people give their lives to Jesus on the first day.
One new thing for this year was the addition of people from the Mwinilunga region. Their transportation had broken down and so we sent a lorry to pick up the 58 stranded people - yes, 58 people travelled over 170 miles on the back of an open truck lorry.
The School Visit
Visit to Beacon of Hope School
General Photos of the Trip
The visit was really interesting and successful and it was great to see the new church building being used by the school. It was operating there with 3 classes meeting in different rooms and 1 meeting in a corner of the main church hall area. We visited all of the classes and observed them having lessons on numeracy and literacy. A number of children that were attending the school have stopped attending for different reasons. However, there are currently around 40 children now attending the school, which is excellent, and others are looking at starting in January when the next intake will take place.
After looking around the school we all gathered in the large church area where we gave out the gift bags that we took out with us; these were greatly received by the children. We would like to thank you all for your kind donations; these gifts mean so much to the children as they have very little. Once we finished with the gifts bags we then gave out the flip flops and socks that Sally so kindly sent out for the children. After this the parents/carers and children gathered as families and we presented each family and staff with a 25kg bag of mealie meal.
You may remember that last year we visited two pieces of land, one for the Church and one for the school. As you know the church has been built and is where the school currently meets. We now went over to see the school land and it was a great surprise/shock to see the site has a number of trenches and a partially built building and a well. Interesting questions would need to be asked such as, how was this financed? Discussions took place later that day and we were advised that this building had been self-funded by Evans, Maureen and additional funding received from a local politician before the presidential election that took place recently.
There is no rush to complete the school build, although to get the school registered with the government it cannot continue to meet in the church, as classrooms need to meet certain standards and sizes to meet government requirements.
The long term vision for the school is to be within the primary school sector which goes up to year 7 in Zambia. Currently we have 4 classes and another one will be needed in January 2017, then one a year until we have all 7 years covered. This will need another teacher each year for then next three years and planning how this will be funded needs to be looked into.
gain like last year, after the school visit we went to see the homes of some of the children and their families. This was a 10 to 15 minute drive away, so around 2 miles which the children have to walk everyday to attend the school.
The Children Coin Collection's first £100 was spent on Umbrellas for the children to use in the up and coming rainy season. This is great way for children here to support children in the school in Zambia. Again thank you to all our children (Adults) for your generosity in this area.
Evans Address to NLC
Pastor Evans address to NLC
Towards the end of the conference, Pastor Evans wanted to show his appreciation on behalf of Path of Life Ministries for all the help and support that New Life Church Bristol provide, both in terms of his personal support for the church but also for the running of the school. See the video of his address
