The Lunds – Zambia
September 2015
Difficult times are ahead for the Zambian nation; last season the rains were poor and the effects are being felt throughout the country. Within the region of Southern Africa, malnutrition is becoming pronounced due to severe food shortages. Only well-managed relief programmes will sustain some communities through to next harvest. Low water levels also mean that electricity is in short supply; we are experiencing 8 hour power cuts daily. Some experts are predicting that there will be a total loss of supply from October until new rains recharge the river systems. The economy is also struggling with power rationing interrupting industry and world copper prices languishing. Mining operations and the companies that service them are beginning to slash their workforces as they move from active production to holding operations while they wait for profitability to be restored. As the consequences of these hardships take effect across the country, the churches will be key in helping the people to endure and maintain hope. It will be a time to see if the skills and training the leaders have are of benefit to the community in bad times as well as good.
There have been done staff changes at the university. Within the library we are very happy to have an extra librarian Miss Ntawa Nakazwe. Marian has temporarily left us for the birth of her first child, a boy, and is due back from maternity leave in January 2016. We were also pleased to welcome back Dr Sidney Cooper, a mission partner from Sierra Leone who last taught in the university in 2005. Since his arrival Sidney has been spearheading the effort of having the institution recognised as a fully-fledged university with the Zambian government. He is also overseeing the implementation of systems to improve the quality and quantity of research output from the institution. It will be great if these initiatives come to fruition because many such moves fail between conception and realisation.
In August the university was host to an international conference on gender and development. Over two days, local and international leaders and academics presented their perspectives on the core theme from an inter disciplinary perspective. Some of the central concerns to emerge were: the short-comings of Western-style development, the inaccuracy of blanket negativity towards traditional cultural practice and the continued need to put women and children at the forefront of developmental change. This was a fantastic opportunity for our students to participate in a world-class academic event. All the papers should soon be accessible on the university’s domain.
Presently most of the theology lecturers are busy delivering their courses to the distance students. This generally involves teaching a semester worth of lessons intensively over three days. To make things easier I uploaded my course materials and recordings of my lectures onto the college domain then arranged for the students to access them. Distance students could then be uptodate on their lectures, reading and assignment work before arriving at the university. Unfortunately the students failed to make use of these resources thus my distance classes have turned out to be just as intensive as normal. Hopefully, as students and staff become more familiar with the opportunities available for e-learning at the university, this will become a thing of the past.
At the beginning of July I was in Lusaka preaching again at Busokololo congregation for University Sunday. The congregation is one of the largest in the country with over 3000 members and the two services took over 5 hours to complete. This year I taught on the theme of charismatic worship, a subject on which there is much misunderstanding in modern African Christianity. Last year the university staff wrote revised guidelines for charismatic worship within the UCZ so I took the opportunity to communicate more of the detail underpinning that statement. The ongoing strength and depth of the ministry there is evident from the fact that 20% of our current first year students come from this congregation.
July to September involved a lot of form-filling, running around and expense; all our British and Australian passports came up for renewal. Wendy handled the bulk of the task but even with meticulous preparations the process did not run smoothly. Thankfully we managed to overcome the various difficulties that arose and now we all have fresh passports valid till 2020 and beyond. Unfortunately the timing of the Lusaka trip to send off our Australian passports meant that I missed this year’s evangelism campaign which was held in some of the neighbourhoods around Kitwe.
We were delighted to have a visit from Wendy’s younger sister, Sally, our niece Bethan and her friend Max during university study break in August. We had plenty of conversations about our various lives and ministries. They were also able to personally experience the places, bustle, smells, noise, activities and personalities that we live with daily. To make sure that they also had the African bush experience we spent two days at Nsobe game park, at the Fisherman’s [sic] Lodge. This was delightful and refreshing with fishing on our doorstep and time to relax together away from regular chores and distractions. On our second afternoon we had a fantastic game drive where we spotted virtually the entire park’s population of zebra and giraffes in one location. One male giraffe was so calm we were able to Get close enough to include him in a series of family photos.
School holidays have finished with Julu and Talitha away once more. Taliesin has restarted his IGCSE studies at home while Mutinta and Kathleen are back to their daily routine of exercise and learning. Kathleen’s epilepsy has slowly become more active so we have been adjusting her medication to try to gain better control in the lead up to our departure. At Chengelo Julu went straight into his mock exams and will be sitting his Cambridge international A level exams in October and November. He has also been putting his British university applications in order. His frontline choices to study maths and statistics are: Warwick, Cambridge, St Andrews and Bath.
Caroline and her family are also facing uncertain times. Their landlord has put their rent up, making it more difficult for them to stay put. Caroline’s husband, Crispin, works as a driver for a mining company; his job is suddenly uncertain and the prospect of moving into their own home is still far off. Some progress has been made towards building a boys’ quarters on their plot, where some of the family could start living. Theft, organisational challenges and unreliable builders and budgets have left the family without further building funds, with only the foundation complete. The family resolutely makes plans about how they will take a new approach for the next stage of the project but better project management is still developing.
Our current contract ends in February 2016. Despite being graciously urged to renew we took a family decision to stay longer in the UK. We have family matters to attend to. Our plans are to return to Zambian ministry a few years hence but with a substantially reduced contingent as it is likely three of the children will have left home by then. When we hop on our flight in early December it will be with mixed feelings. Although we are ready to be away from the intensity of working at the university and the challenges of living in Kitwe for a while, we will miss our students, friends and the vital yet interesting work in which we have been involved. The loss of Wendy’s music teaching, my ICT and library contributions and Kathleen’s cheerful presence in the library will be particularly felt.
Once again this year the fantastic efforts of the presbytery folks in Annandale and Eskdale and Lochaber have successfully raised funds to purchase reference libraries for the newly licenced ministers. (This time 15!) The sets that were purchased and sent last year are in eager use, are benefitting rural congregations and are very much appreciated. There should be just enough time before we depart to receive this year’s consignment books and arrange for distribution. Yay!