Gordon's Birthday - Church and Traditional Lunch

Sunday - my 49th birthday ! Nice to have a couple of cards and a gift from my family which Harley had carried over with him.

We went to church at the local Pentecostal church whose pastor - Pastor Justin - I had met last year and who had written me a long letter outlining his vision for his ministry and asking for assistance. (We have been interacting with him quite a bit since we have been here and have found that he is a man of great integrity and his church is doing well.) They are still worshipping in a grass and pole structure which they had actually added onto during the week as they expected a larger attendance with people knowing we were going to be there !

Photo of the church with the addition on the right side !

The service lasted over two hours with wonderful African singing - only accompanied by a single drum - and a very powerful message. (It was given in the local language - Bemba - and translated for our benefit by an Elder who speaks excellent English.) After the service we were given a traditional Zambian meal with a wide variety of dishes which we all tried and enjoyed - eating with our fingers as they do !! The dishes included pumpkin leaves cooked up like spinach; deep fried sweet potatoes; boiled pumpkin; fried cabbage; nchema (the stiff porridge that is made from corn meal and which most people eat three times per day); a stewed chicken; roasted peanuts; and rice.)

The dishes of the traditional meal

Following that we had a meeting with their youth group and then their elders council at which we gave them a bible and some bible study books which had been donated to us in Canada to bring to Zambia.

Another beautiful day weather-wise and we were treated to a typical beautiful African sun-set.

On Monday morning Harley and I picked up the head nurse from the clinic and drove into Kapiri where we had a meeting with the District Director of Health at the Ministry of Health with whom I had had previous e-mail correspondence. We were able to confirm that our plans to assist the development of the new health centre will be most welcome and that we have the ministry's full support. We also had a good meeting with the environmental officer to discuss the requirements and procedures for testing water from some of the wells in our project area so that we could move forward with that task. In the afternoon Harley, Milt and I went through to Kabwe as we had to do some grocery shopping