Hope for the Hopeless

There is a new church plant that we have in a village called Njalazi. This year I decided to go back and strengthen the church and help them grow in God's word. The second time I visited this church Mercy, who is 21 years old, and her daughter Princess came up to me after the meeting and Mercy was sobbing. This normally does not happen because Zambians usually don't show this kind of emotion in public other than funerals. The story she told me was that she used to live in the capital city, Lusaka with her uncle because her parents were dead. She then said that her uncle died and this left her there with her Aunt who is from a different family. Her Aunt then told her to move out. She was desperate and had no where to go and the only other family she had was a half brother and half sister one in Njalazi the other in another village in our area. So she decides to live with her sister who is a widow and technically from another family by Zambian standards because she is only her half sister. Mercy has been living in Njalazi for the last two months with her sister. The family she has been living with has been giving her only scraps to eat and really do not want another mouth to feed. So Paul Masiye and I search the story in the village to see if it was true, and every one agreed that it was. We told her that when we come back the next week to teach she could come to the Nyimba with us and we could find someone to teach her how to live on her own. Well... Zeria on the left in the picture below has taught her how to cook and sell fritters which should be sufficient income to live off of in Nyimba. Also today Joy shared Christ with her and Mercy prayed to receive Christ as her Lord and Savior. Now you can see she has hope and a smile instead of desperation and no where to go. God is good! "Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow." Isaiah 1:17