Mama Janet

Meet Mama Janet, she is 59 years old. She has been a 4th grade teacher her adult life, passionately sowing into children’s lives.

In 2020 she lost her first leg to diabetes. In 2021 she had her second leg amputated as well. She has 6 children, 16 grand children and now lives with her two youngest daughters.
I asked her how she is coping and she said she doesn’t want to give up. She wants to keep teaching, but getting to school has become difficult.

As we placed Mama Janet onto her P.E.T., her eyes lit up and she began to pedal and laugh. She thanked us over and over for this gift. today her life has been changed!♥️

 

7 PETs to Kalomo

 
Today we traveled an hour and half outside of Livingstone to Kalomo with 7 P.E.T.s in tow. The Ministry of Education there reached out to request for help for 7 children in their district in desperate need of mobility. Most of the children had been traveling on crutches, on the back of a bicycle, or by being carried on someone’s back for nearly 3 kilometers each way, every day to get to school.
We were met by the teachers advocating for the children from the different schools, the District Manager of Education and a local news person recording the event.
I sat with the children and listened to each of their heart wrenching stories of disability and daily trials. We reminded the children that God has a bigger plan in all of this and they have a calling and a purpose, even in the midst of their struggles. We told them that God sees them…and calls them blessed. This gift of mobility is just a reminder that he loves them and knows their hearts. He never leaves them and will always bring help when we cry out to him in our struggles.♥️

Another School Year

After a delay to the school year due to a cholera outbreak, the 2024 school year has started!  We are happy to have kids back in school and learning! The preschools have opened and enrollment is going well. The extra lessons have also started today with most of our students from last year returning for Grades 11 and 12, and a new class of Grade 10s starting up. Our aim to give kids a strong start in preschool, and then work with some of the secondary students in Garneton and Kawama to help them learn more and be better prepared to take their exams and eventually pass Grade 12. This gives them a lift by giving them more options after school. We pray that God works in their lives this school year!

Possibilities Preschool Opens for 2024

One of the cute faces at Possibilities Preschool! First week of classes and the kids are slowly coming back along with some new faces too. Praying for a wonderful school year!

Another School Year Comes to a Close

Last day of class for our preschoolers! We had a great last term of 2023! One is graduating to grade 1 and we hope to see all the others back next year 😊

Work Team in Zambia – Lessons in Trust

International travel is hard right now. COVID has made it much more challenging and mission organizations have seen a dramatic decline in teams visiting the mission field right now. We just had a team that braved the challenges of this crazy time and came to visit us anyway. It’s the first team we’ve had since 2019. It was also a special team in that it consisted of five family members to one of the missionaries, Emily.

This team dealt with disrupted fundraisers, last-minute passports, positive COVID tests, two team members having to turn back before arriving, lost luggage, flight changes, and government restrictions changing what they could do. In other words, it was an experience filled with opportunities to let things go and learn to trust God more. Like the old adage, “We make plans, and God laughs.” Our plans were constantly being disrupted and yet God knew it all before we did and it was a part of what He had for them and us.

The team was able to play with kids, put together some PETs, sand and varnish church benches, attend a PET distribution, clean and repaint the NLC kitchen, attend a church service where the church benches were being used, experience Chisokone market at its busiest, and get to know the NLC staff.

Teams are important to ministries. They get to see the work first-hand. The pictures and stories become flesh and blood. It’s no longer a vague or far-away thing that they hear about once in awhile from a newsletter, or a blog, or a social media post, or from hearing a missionary speak. They get to really experience a small taste of the reality that the ministry is seeking to serve real people with real needs. Team members become ambassadors for the ministry – helping spread the word and need to others, keeping us in prayer and on people’s minds. It’s one way of moving from a supporter to a partner. Supporters are great and needed! Partners are even better.

20 PETs Delivered to Mufulira

Over the weekend, we delivered twenty PETs to Mufulira. We worked with Pastor Zemba Wellington with the SDA church who has worked with us many times over the years to help identify those who need help with mobility. In one beautiful act of kindness and selflessness, one woman who had claimed a PET saw others who had come too late and willingly gave up the claimed PET saying “Please give this to someone who needs it more than me.

We pray that all twenty people will be able to become more active and involved in their families and in their communities now. And that we can continue to provide PETs to those that need them, including that selfless woman. That in providing this gift to others, we can show the love of Christ to a group of people that are too often forgotten.

Working Towards Sustainable Preschool Education

Possibilities Preschool was built with the support of Possibilities Abound, Inc in Kawama next to Grace UMC a few years ago. We at New Life Center entered this partnership with Possibilties Abound with the idea that a preschool could be a way to help the community and one of our sister churches.

There has always been a need for more quality preschools that give a solid start to a child’s education. Churches often struggle with their finances and in ways to help serve the communities in a practical way. We saw a long time ago that maybe we could do something to help meet both these needs – partner a preschool with a church. The church provides the location; the preschool helps the community and brings in some church income by “renting” the location with a small percentage of their income.

It has been a bumpy road as we have navigated this venture with that wonderful but sometimes elusive goal of self-sustainability before us. Providing quality education at a reasonable price that allows the school to be maintained properly and the teachers to be paid a reasonable wage. Every year we have made changes to help us on this road to get closer to the goal.

COVID has made things extra challenging with the government closing schools down at different points last year and this year but we are still hopeful as we have seen some promising changes this year – an increase in the quality of education and the number of paying students which increases the overall income, getting us closer to seeing the preschool become self-sustaining. We aren’t there yet but we are getting closer!

Thank you to the preschool staff – Teachers Rose, Jane, and Elizabeth – for all their hard work in caring for these kids and helping them with a solid educational foundation.

Training Women

Women work hard to care for their families. New Life Center seeks to train and empower women to help them in that work. We regularly have women’s seminars where we teach women new skills – tailoring, gardening, and cooking – are all examples of things we taught in the past. This year the women learned how to make two different types of floor mats and small bags made out of chitenge material. We also took some time to teach the women about bookkeeping and starting a small business. Our prayer is that the Lord would guide these women to using their skills and resources to help provide for their families.

Investing in the Future Leaders of the Church

COVID may be slowing down our ministries and what we can do, but God is still working! Limiting the number of attendees to follow health restrictions, New Life Center hosted the UMC youth leadership training this year. It’s said a lot – the youth are the future of the church.  We say it a lot because it is true. Investing in the youth means investing in the future. We want the church to be filled with leaders who are servant-minded, grounded in the Word, honest, discerning, and most of all truly love the Lord. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes intentionality, time, work, love, mentorship, encouragement, challenging them, patience, wisdom, and truth. Seeds have to be planted and watered, and given time to grow.

This training taught on everything from servant leadership to financial integrity. Our prayer is for strong future leadership in the body of Christ.