"Kanyama?" the teller queried me, with a polite but reserved smile. What I had put down on the bank's form just didn't seem right to her. I look like a typical affluent white foreigner, and I had put down an address in Kanyama, the black slum on the western side of Lusaka. "Yes, Kanyama," I affirmed. "At the parish?" she ventured, spotting the little golden cross pinned to my shirt collar. Parish is not the word I would have used, but she had the right idea, so I nodded my assent. I was living in a poor and sparsely decorated township of Lusaka, Zambia's capital, because I was on assignment for Frontline Fellowship.

White men are not merely sparse in Kanyama, they are altogether absent. Though I lived there for most of my three month Zambian trip, I only saw other white men there if they came to visit my host. The people in the neighbourhood thought I was a remarkable sight, too. Whenever I moved through the street, children would excitedly greet me with a well practiced "How are you?" In response to my reply, they would sustain the exchange by again asking, "How are you?" Their English repertoire seemed a tad limited, but they were delightfully friendly. Sometimes they would persist until I was out of earshot. The children would also call out to me as "Mzungu! Mzungu!" (white man). The adults too, were quick to give friendly greetings as I passed them in the way. Celebrity came easily with my white skin, even though I have never appeared in any movie.

Kanyama: Vehicular skeletons, like these, and deep holes, like the one they're in, abound

My host informed me that typically only the Roman Catholic missionaries lived among the poor they ministered to, while the Protestants took residence in the affluent parts of town, where the other white folks live. The Catholics were more successful, because they had the right idea. The example of our Lord was, "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), and the disciple is to be as his Master.

Though Kanyama is garbage strewn, some residents maintain islands of beauty.

Immediately after we had completed Frontline's Great Commission Course (GCC), our Field Director Tim took Brett and me into Zambia to introduce us to the field. Tim conducted a week of ministry, then left us in the care of local pastors and departed to fulfill other tasks. Brett could only stay one month, but I remained for three (August-October). When we reached Lusaka, we were warmly welcomed by some of the Zambians who had participated with us in the GCC. "Now you're in the real Africa!" they said. South Africa did not count to them, having too much of the stamp of Europe upon it. Zambia was certainly a very different society from the Western civilization I grew up in. Living with a local bishop in the heart of the slum gave me a really good introduction to real life in the real Africa.

Part of African culture is being late for everything. In the West, it is a time-honoured tradition for the bride to be a little late for her wedding, and her only. At the African wedding I attended, even the minister did not show up until 80 minutes past the time appointed. They think it proper to wait for all the late people. We think it rude of the late people to willfully make others wait for them.

Another cultural difference was cutlery, which most Zambians do not bother with. Some made it a point of cultural pride that they eat even the messiest of foods with their fingers.

While poor folk in oriental cities get around on bicycles, these are rare in Lusaka. Folks either walk or take a taxi, which is not the same as a North American taxi, but rather is a combi (mini-van) running a bus route. In Africa, how many can you fit in a taxi? Always one more.
Although English is the official language, it seems to have this status for its utility as a second language to most, as it is the first language of few. It serves as a medium of communication between the 73 different language groups, but within a community the local African mother tongue shows itself much better understood and preferred. Bwanali Phiri, our gracious host, instructed us that, "In heaven, there will be no American, no Canadian- only Chichewa."

While a classic Frontline newsletter tells a tale fraught with peril and hardship, this one must break faith with the genre, because God not only kept the dangers at bay but far away. When I returned to Cape Town, someone said, "So, you managed to cope!" "With what?" Life without running water, bathing pitcher-and-basin style, subsisting on a rudimentary and unfamiliar diet, living out of a backpack, dust so ubiquitous that your white clothes need washing after every wearing, being isolated from all your family and friends- it was just an extended urban camping trip.

I have tried my best, but as you can see, I can only come up with trivial grievances unworthy to be complained of. The Zambians were very friendly and welcoming, so being a lone white man in a black community was neither lonely nor frightening. If ever I was careless about the security of my belongings, he who stepped forward was not a thief but a benevolent stranger who would warn me about thieves. At every turn God positioned people to look out for me, not to harm me. It doesn't make for an action packed newsletter, but it does testify to the fulfillment of my home church's prayers that I should be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, and that the Gospel may have free course (II Thess. 3:1-2).

We spent our first week at Frontline's Covenant College in Eastern Zambia. Tim conducted seminars while Brett and I helped with the construction of new facilities. Being a missionary requires a willingness to do some workman's math- adding some calluses to the palms of your hands and taking away some bark from your knuckles. The apostle Paul, the great missionary pioneer, set for us this example of labouring with our hands (Acts 20:34-35, II Thess. 3:7-9), and said "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Cor. 11:1). It was an inspired policy then, and it still is now. The counsel of God does not go out of date.

Some students at Covenant College said the program had taught them to understand the whole Bible, a great blessing after years of performing pastoral ministry without such knowledge. They said that many pastors draw their sermons from just one or two books of the Bible, being at a loss to comprehend the rest. For this cause our Zambian partner Eugene Kalunga stressed to us the importance of continuing the work of Covenant College. The local Christians must be equipped with Biblical knowledge if they are to turn back the advances of Muslims and witch doctors in eastern Zambia.

The distressing level of ignorance among the pastors is an extension of general conditions in Zambian society. Operation World states that while official literacy in Zambia is 78%, functional literacy is under 25%, and declining. In the poor side of Lusaka, a typical bookstore was really a stationary shop with a few elementary school textbooks on hand, and maybe a dozen or two real books. In the bourgeois side of town, there were a few genuine bookstores. All told, there was very little literary supply for a city of three million. In all my time among Lusaka's poor masses, I never saw anyone reading a book, though the people spend plenty of time out in public view. Basic reading and writing play a small part in the economic transactions of daily life, but billboards and soapboxes do not stimulate literary prowess. I reckon this cultural disinterest in reading is why many of the Christians had not valued having a personal Bible enough to have procured one. In Europe before the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the common folk were also described as ignorant and unlearned. The Reformers transformed society by popularizing the notion of education for the masses, that they might comprehend the riches of the Scriptures. Zambian society seems to be part way down this same path of improvement, but the task will not complete itself without hard work. Thankfully there are a lot of missionaries in Zambia, but there is room for more. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth reapers (Matt. 9:37).

The bulk of my trip was spent in Lusaka and its rural environs, working as part of local evangelist Bwanali Phiri's team. There was no shortage of local churches eager to have a foreign missionary as a guest preacher. Often Brett and I felt too highly honoured, the beneficiaries of reverse-racism. Some African societies have an animosity against white men, but we found none of it in Zambia.

Bishop Bwanali also runs a Christian elementary school, and I had the pleasure of teaching daily during my final weeks there. We also taught Bible study groups at churches and participated in several evangelistic crusades which the Zambian ministers were running. During the day we would do hut-to-hut evangelism or hand out Scripture booklets in the markets, and at night show a Gospel film. At Chikumbi after several days of such evangelism, the crusaders put some poles in the ground and stretched plastic sheeting across them to make four walls for the new church's inaugural service, which was the next day. I asked the leader who would pastor the new church, and he said the pastors would get together that afternoon and decide that amongst themselves.

"My Kids" - the class I taught.

One rural crusade that we participated in involved camping on location. When we saw that Bwanali and five of his men had no other shelter but his combi, Brett and I insisted that three of them use our tent. We laid out our sleeping gear under the open sky. The Zambians made comments that, "You're the REAL missionaries!" because we were sleeping in the open on such a cold night. I think it was around 15C, which is on the low end of the scale for them. That's the mid-range of the scale in my part of Canada, so I thought it was a great night to enjoy sleeping under the stars. They thought we were making a noble sacrifice, while I was enjoying the fresh air. Bishop Bwanali told us afterwards that what really impressed his compatriots was that we white men had insisted on three young black men taking the tent instead of ourselves. A little dash of the spirit of Mark 10:43-45 can go a long way, and sometimes it doesn't even feel like a sacrifice.

First service tomorrow!

Adults were quick to receive the World Missionary Press (WMP) booklets when we were handing them out, and the children were eager, too. Too eager, rather. I would soon have two dozen children gathered round about, clamouring for the booklets. The problem was some kept coming back into the scrum to entreat for more. As I went along it was impossible to keep track of which children I had given to, and we found that some had ten or more stuffed in their pockets. When Brett and I started requiring a demonstration that they could read before we gave them a booklet, we found that most could not. That did not stop them from clamouring for the booklets, so I had to wade through the children to keep distributing to adults. (Children were plentiful on the street because the government school teachers have been on strike since the beginning of the year). We hope and pray that from little hands which cannot read them the booklets will find their way to those who can. We came to Zambia with over 30,000 WMP's, and had expended them before the first month was out. When Tim came to fetch me, he brought another 30,000+ to resupply our Zambian colleagues.

One day as we were in Kanyama handing out WMP's, some of the sots outside a bar took them with thanks and urged upon me that their boss inside the bar needed me to bring him one. I offered him an extra, that he might bring it. No, I must bring it, he insisted. I opted to keep working my way among those outside the bar. Then I spotted Brett in front of the bar's verandah in a heated argument with nearly a dozen men pressed close around him. I stepped in close to Brett, so they could see he had support, and the two of us strode through the midst of them into open ground. Had there been a fight, we had been badly outnumbered, but the Lord restrained them and there was no violence. The quarrel had begun when Brett went into the bar to distribute WMP's; they closed around him and tried to loot his pockets. He bolted outside, they followed, and he had turned to confront them when I spotted him. They were brazen thieves, but we thank the Lord that they were neither adept nor violent. Brett lost nothing.

Since this was a foreign society to me, often I prayed to the Lord to show me what the people in Zambia need to hear, so that I could preach relevant sermons. One Sunday as I was preaching the final minutes of my sermon, a heavy truck pulled up right outside the church door. The spectacle and noise of this machine executing a protracted parking maneuver a few metres from the door forced me to pause my sermon. After the service I found out that the truck was delivering sand and bricks so the men of the congregation could work that afternoon on the incomplete building we had met in. Perhaps, I reckoned, this is a divine intimation that they need some teaching on the Fourth Commandment, which says that the Sabbath day is sanctified for worshipping God and work is therefore forbidden.

At the end of my trip, Tim and Rob linked up with me on a short trip of their own. We ministered for a week in Kabwe at Excellence Christian Academy, a model school which lives up to its name. Principal Eugene Kalunga, ECA's founder, expresses his conviction about the importance of sterling Christian education with the saying, "The trees of today are the forests of tomorrow." We had the privilege of teaching classes in the mornings, and in the afternoons we conducted lectures from our Biblical Worldview Seminar to teenage students from several schools.

A week was also spent at Covenant College, helping them begin moving from a rented property to new facilities on Frontline's own property, even as classes concluded and the College held its first graduation. I did more workman's math, chiefly installing electrical wiring on new facilities. Mrs. Fraser, the Principal's wife, treated us to such good cooking that we agreed if our supporters knew of it, it would jeopardize our reputation for working in austere conditions.

New buildings at Covenant College.

On the wall above my bed at Covenant was a 9cm-baboon spider, with a thorax the size of a grape. Tim advised that creepy critters are less spooky if you think of them as pets; I dubbed it "Herman", and went to sleep.

We made a brief foray into Zimbabwe to deliver food and literature to a local pastor. Why are we in the food delivery business? Zimbabwe's economy is withering and collapsing under the direction of President Robert Mugabe. (See Frontline News, 2003 Edition 1). His ZANU-PF government has been seizing farms from white farmers as retribution for the alleged crimes of colonialism. Farms which once provided food and income for the nation now lie neglected and fruitless. International observers estimate that over five million people are in danger of starvation in the coming months. In Harare, the capital, we found restaurants still serving at regular prices and fresh produce on sale at the roadsides, so at first blush no problem appears. However, racing across the country by highway and stopping briefly in the cities does not make you knowledgeable about socio-economic conditions, aside from the most cursory details. The pastor told us the prices are now out of reach for most peoples' incomes, and it is expected to get worse. Ironically, it is the rural areas, where food should be produced, where sustenance is most scarce.

Zimbabwe looks normal when you drive through it, but I am told the society is really imploding. I beheld dozens of service stations operated by familiar multi-national petrol companies, and they looked fine at first glance. A more observant look revealed that none of them were operating their pumps or even posting prices. I am told that the government has put a cap on fuel prices and will not adjust for the skyrocketing inflation as Zimbabwe's currency continues to disintegrate. Back in May inflation reduced the real worth of the set price in Zim dollars to less than the real cost for service stations to fill their pumps, so they have all closed. The country's fuel now comes through the black market, via the ridiculously inefficient means of individual citizens crossing the borders and filling their tanks and jerry cans.
Zimbabwe's GDP has fallen 40% in the last 4 years, and next year looks worse. Inflation is somewhere over 500%, so high and volatile that economists have trouble ascertaining it. Frontline News, 2003 Edition 1, reported $1USD trading for 1200-2000 Zimbabwe dollars. We found roadside moneychangers giving as much as 5000 Zim dollars per American dollar. Curiously, the Internet site I checked on 20 November for currency exchange showed the Zim dollar holding steady around 800 to the USD all year long. People sometimes question why Frontline field workers give a version of events so different from what the news agencies report. All I can say on this one is, we report what we find on location, and somehow the international banking system is working with a very different scale. Another site listed 800 per USD to sell Zim. dollars, but no rate to buy them. A third listed neither rate, so perhaps some banks are giving up on Zimbabwe's currency altogether.

Since Zimbabwe is a socialist police state where either official policy or any soldier's capriciousness can do you a world of hurt, including summary execution, we went in braced for trouble. President Mugabe is very hostile to white people, so we might encounter such hostility from any of his agents. Earlier this year importing food without permission was illegal, which is pretty bizarre for a country with mass starvation predicted to be just over the horizon. The allegation against the government is that they wanted to ensure any food went to the friends and members of the ruling ZANU party, and none others. The excluded group would include our Christian friends. So, as we were laden with food, we were glad that we encountered few officials and those we did were in no mood to converse, politely letting us pass with little inquiry. We thank the Lord for opening a smooth path before us.

According to Operation World (2001), 85% of Zambians are Christians. Many taxis have Christian slogans on them, and Christian sayings are posted in many public buildings. My favourite was, "Many who plan to seek God at the eleventh hour, die at 10:59." Now consider that phrase from another angle. "Many to whom we would preach the Gospel at 11:00, die at 10:59." Although 85% are counted as Christians, most are not well grounded in the Word. There is a great need for discipleship teaching, so that the genuine Christians may be rooted and built up in Christ Jesus (Col 2:6-8), and those who mistake themselves for Christians may see that they are not and remedy their situation.

Today, the doors of Zambia stand open for Gospel messengers. We have free access, the Gospel has free course, and the people gladly receive the Word and the man who brings it. Tomorrow, all this may change. Some Africans are proud of their traditional culture, with all its heathen aspects, and given the chance would lead their people back into the darkness of animism from whence years of missionary activity have delivered them. Islamists are working hard to subdue all of Africa to their false religion. Marxists and other irreligious opportunists may gain political control, such as they have in many African countries. If the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ does not fill Zambia more and more, some pernicious doctrine will secure the country and close the door. Now, while the door is open, ask God in what manner you can promote His Kingdom.

I leave you with a verse from the hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains":
Shall we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation! O salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till earth's remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's Name.

In Christ,

Lawren M. Guldemond
lguldemond@yahoo.ca
Frontline Fellowship
PO Box 74 Newlands
7725 Cape Town
South Africa