On Mission to the BaTonga People of Zambia

September 2010

“Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power.” R.A. Torrey

Thank you for praying for us and the Gwembe Church this past month as we hosted the 2010 youth conference for the Southern Province of Zambia. It was truly a BIG undertaking for such a small church, but we serve a BIG GOD which makes all things possible. The theme was love and unity, and we truly saw this come about as the Gwembe Church worked together to prepare for the conference.

In Zambia, when you have a conference, no one knows until the day of, how many will come. We were expecting as many as 200, but about 130 registered. This was the perfect number for our facilities—the Lord knew what we could handle.

Wes and I knew we were on the program, but since it didn’t arrive until the day of the conference, we didn’t know how many times we would be sharing. The youth committee brought the program with them, and were surprised when some of the guest speakers they had selected were not even at the conference. I think the Lord had Zambia in mind when He said to be ready “in season and out of season.”

Wes spoke twice about unity, and the youth had a good time working together to pick him up off the ground. I think they got the message that when we work to-gether, difficult tasks can be accomplished. He was thankful that they didn’t drop him.

I had the privilege of teaching three workshops. I talked about destroyers of unity in two of the sessions and had a real good response from the youth. The last session was a question and answer time about courting and marriage. The young girls of Zambia are concerned about finding marriage partners because the women of Zam-bia greatly outnumber the men. One of the older youth even said she was even tempted to settle for a drunk just so she could get married.

Pray that the youth will take the things to heart that they learned at the con-ference. Pray that the youth of our churches will choose to follow God’s ways and not the ways of the world. Once again, thank you for your prayers!

Please notice the change to our blog address: www.wilcoxzambia@blogspot.com

“Prayer is not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to do. We are a generation that avoids pain at all costs. This is why there are so few intercessors.” Henry Blackaby.

Last month we asked you to pray for Dixon, the witch doctor. He showed up on Sun-day morning, not knowing we were having a youth conference. He stayed for the en-tire church service, and heard a pow-erful message by one of our pastor’s about the prodigal son. He was even mentioned in the sermon, although not by name when the pastor told the people that they should not be go-ing to witch doc-tors.

Continue to pray for Dixon that the messages he has heard will sink deep into his heart and that the Holy Spirit will convict of his great need for a Savior.

One Sunday morning our Gwembe youth sang a special. Although they did a great job, our hearts were breaking as we looked at the youth standing before us. The small youth choir was made up of 5 girls and two young men. All five girls have had babies out of wedlock, and two have had two children. Two of the girls had their children before accepting Christ, and have been faithful since that time, but the other three have had their children after their deci-sion to follow Christ. We’ve talked to them about their wrong choices, yet see little change. Only the Lord can judge their hearts, but their lives do not match their words. We have taught many times on the topic of sexual purity, but the culture of Zambia is so promiscuous, that very few really accept the challenge to stay pure until marriage.

September 6-16, we will host a team of two from Union Hill Baptist Church in Oklahoma. Lance and Staci Norton will come to partner with us in reaching out to the youth of Gwembe. Not only do we hope to bring in some new youth, but through this ministry, we hope to en-courage the youth already attending, to make wise choices. For four nights we will meet with the youth and talk about making wise choices. The youth from the church are supposed to invite nonbelievers, so we will talk about daily choices, but also about the choice to make Jesus Lord. We will wrap up the youth meetings with an Saturday youth fellowship at the church. Please be in prayer for these meetings, that God will work in the hearts of the youth and that they will take seriously the choices and commitments they are making. Pray that those who just “think” they are following Jesus, will make true commitments to follow Him with all their heart.

In addition, we will go into two schools to do share an evangelistic message on “Choices” with the youth. We will visit the Gwembe Church, but will also be going into a school in an area called Singonya, where we did outreach evangelism several months ago. Since that time, we have struggled to get back into this area due to the Catholics who are spreading the rumor that we are satanists. We are praying that this will help to dispel this rumor. Pray that God will touch lives in both of the schools, and that He will use our time in Singonya to help break down the lies of the enemy.

Pray for Lance and Staci Norton for the following: Safe travel, luggage will arrive with them, boldness in sharing in a strange culture, good health, wisdom and strength. Pray for us to also have wisdom and strength as the next few weeks are very busy.

Prayer Requests: We have already given you several requests, here are a few more.

Our Gwembe Church has always been made up of more men than women, and the few women we have are very inconsistent. Although it is great to have men, we need faithful women. Many of the men that come are married, but their wives were already attending church somewhere else before their husbands accepted Christ. In Zambia, it is not uncom-mon for husbands and wives to go to different churches. Please pray with us that God will add some committed, faithful women to the Gwembe Church, and that the wives of our men will join their husbands for worship. Pray that the women who are attend-ing will be more faithful and committed, and that they will reach out to other women in the community.

Sometime back we shared a story about a lame man, Kizito, who accepted Christ in a new area just outside of Gwembe (Nakavanga) where the church did an evangelistic outreach. Each week, Brian, one of our members goes to his village to disciple him. Recently, Brian had the joy of leading Kizito’s wife to the Lord, and now he has two to disciple. There were other new believers in this area, but as of yet, they are not being gathered for discipleship. Although we have shared with the Gwembe leadership that a church needs to be started in Kizito’s village, nothing has been done yet. If we go out and do the follow up ourselves, the Gwembe Church will never learn to do things on their own. Please pray that the Gwembe Church will realize the importance of reaching out to all the new believers and start-ing a church near Kizito’s village. Pray that the people will learn that they can do the work without the missionary.

Each week Wes meets with of the Gwembe Church and another young man who is coming up in leadership. A few years back, when the current leader was chosen the people, he was bold and we could see great leadership qualities in him. He loves the Lord, and still has great potential, but we are concerned about him. He hardly ever gets up in front of the church, he would rather others preach, he is not prepared for Bible studies, and since tak-ing the leadership, he has become shy and does not want to step forward. We do not un-derstand what has happened, although we have a few thoughts. Please pray for God to do a mighty work in this leader’s heart. Pray that whatever is causing these issues will be resolved in his life. Pray that God will give Wes great wisdom and patience in working with him.

Thank you for your prayers.

In His Love,
Wes and Laurie Wilcox