In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of Afrikaner Boers migrated east out of the English controlled Cape Colony in search of new land. They became known as the Voortrekkers, and their migration as the Groot Trek. Like the pioneers of the American West, they lived out of their covered wagons. Our journeys certainly do not compare for duration or privation, but we can identify with the living out of the wagon part. Ask Tim (our Field Director) where he's from, and he will answer by reciting our license plate.

Timothy and I recently completed a trip covering 16,000km by road and more by air, visiting eight different countries in eight weeks. We set out from Cape Town early in February with the back of our pick-up truck ("bakkie" to an African) laden with books earmarked for churches throughout south-eastern Africa, our personal kit, and food stores for the new principal of Covenant College in Zambia.

Celebrating Christian Education
Once in Zambia, we met up with Frontline's Director, Peter Hammond, and visited Excellence Christian Academy (ECA). At ECA we were given the privilege of teaching lessons, and thankfully the children's English skills were everything the school's name promised. Since I see a general need in Africa for more knowledge of the Old Testament, I taught about Abraham, Sarah and Isaac in the classes I visited. There was one precious little girl in the fourth grade who could tell me about Abraham in great detail. She was rehearsing it in her own words rather than reciting Scripture exactly, but she was able to go on and on, correctly inserting many of the minor details of the Biblical narrative. Surely she must be blessed with godly parents as well as a good Christian school. "For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children," Psalm 78:5.

Our second day at ECA was their seventh anniversary celebration, for which Peter was the keynote speaker. They set out a great feast- call it a braai if you're African, or a barbecue if you're Canadian- complete with abundant cases of 300ml Coca-Cola bottles. In Africa, there is no hospitality if there is no Coca-Cola. A few years ago in a speech to his own company's personnel, the CEO of Coca-Cola said, "A billion Coca-Cola's ago- was yesterday morning." I do not know what proportion of that billion gets consumed in Africa, but it must be all out of proportion to the meager incomes here.

`Twas A White Christmas In Lusaka
On Sunday we split up to preach at various churches in Lusaka, and heard tales of how they had a real winter storm on Christmas day. They had actually had snow, and high winds that took the roofs off some houses in the poor townships, including Bwanali Phiri's house and church/office complex. The house walls are made of concrete bricks much like the cinder blocks we use in Canada for basement foundations, and thus are fairly impervious to high wind, but the roofs are asbestos sheeting resting on a few thin pieces of lumber. They do not build for a Canadian snow load. On many roofs there are rocks, which I presume are holding the sheets down against the wind. I guess that screwing the sheet down would have the drawbacks of making holes (read: leaks), risking breaking it while working on it, and would cost more. Some houses had part of the walls come apart when the roof came off, so there must have been some fastening of the roof to the wall. But when we arrived, all this had been fixed up. At Grace of Calvary Baptist Church, where they meet under ragged tarps beside a parishioner's house, they had a new frame for supporting the improved tarping. The old rig had been wrecked by the storm.

It's The Little Things That Bring You Down
After being interviewed at a Christian radio station in Lusaka, Timothy and I parted company with Peter and went to Covenant College. Already on site were 4 volunteers from 3 different churches in South Africa, England and Scotland. Covenant College was unable to renew its rent on the property where Frontline founded it three years earlier, so this year it began operations on its own property nearby. These volunteers were managing the completion of the humble buildings constructed on the new site. While I helped install the electrical wiring, Timothy made visits to the Christian schools in the surrounding areas. On one foray his track went through a swampy area, and he got the bakkie stuck in a muddy morass. By the time he got it free a few hours later, those little flying hypodermic needles known as mosquitoes had made him give blood generously. A bunch of mosquito bites is just a routine annoyance in Canada, but in Zambia the mosquitoes may inject you with malaria. It has a gestation period of a week or two in your blood before you feel it, and a week and a half later, Tim would be feeling it.

Making Known His Commandments
After a week at Covenant College, we headed east for Malawi. Local pastor Nedson Milanzi organized a venue for us to teach a two day Biblical Worldview Seminar in his village, which was attended by about 60 people. We taught about the differences of a Christian worldview from a secular humanist one, and applied it to subjects like education (stressing the need for Christian schools rather than secular ones), crime & punishment, economics and government. We also gave basic expositions on all of the Ten Commandments. At the end of our two day seminar, the village headman (mayor) thanked us heartily, and said that others preach vaguely that we should not sin, but do not define it. Our lectures on the Commandments were the first time his community had a proper exposition of what God actually requires. Those of you who go to a Reformed church where the Decalogue is read every Lord's Day may find this surprising, but in most of our ministry locations we find the Ten Commandments are only vaguely known. American Pentecostalism is the model many African churches take after, and antinomian neglect of the Law is prevalent. Accordingly, exposition on the Ten Commandments is one of our favourite lecture topics. "Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart," Psalm 119:34.

A Multitude Of Mosques
From Blantyre we drove north through the length of Malawi and through Tanzania. It was a beautiful drive through lush forested mountains. Here, as in most of my African travels, trees seem to reach only half the height of those in a Canadian forest. Along this stretch of the journey, we saw numerous mosques and Islamic education centers in the rural towns, though we were a long way from Mecca. Although these are black African's countries, not Arab nations, 32% of Tanzanians and 13% of Malawians are Muslims. I find that troubling, since I do not believe any of that politically correct cant about all religions being equally valid (i.e. irrelevant). Jesus Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father but by Me," John 14:6. The apostles testified, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," Acts 4:12. The path Mohammed charted out for his followers utterly fails to reconcile sinners to God, but rather leaves them subject to His holy wrath on the Day of Judgment. Abundant mercy and forgiveness may be found by sinners great and small, but only through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The Government Of New Sudan- Headquartered In The Kenyan Capital
Early in March, we reached Nairobi, which is a hub of activity of Western missionaries and humanitarian organizations. There we made arrangements for flying into Sudan. Since the infrastructure of southern Sudan is in shambles from two decades of civil war, the rebel government (Sudanese People's Liberation Army-SPLA) maintains their offices in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Electricity, phone lines, stores, postal service and other conveniences help a lot with effective administration and communication. So in Nairobi we got our travel permits from the SPLA to visit southern Sudan. To visit Khartoum you would have to get clearance from the Government of Sudan (GoS), controlled by the National Islamic Front (NIF), but the south is controlled by the rebels and the NIF's claims to exercise authority there are rebuffed.

The leaders of the ECS (Episcopal Church of Sudan) have their offices in Nairobi for the same reasons as the SPLA. We met themwith to arrange our ministry work in their churches in Sudan. (By the way, they are quite disturbed by the pro-homosexual decisions of American Episcopalians). At lunch one day they gave us a prized treat for dessert, a bowl of wild honey. They said in some tribes, a man about to be married has to go collect the honey, because the women want him to prove his courage. This would be more of a challenge than it is at a Canadian apiary, because African bees are nastier, there is no bee suit, and he has to break open a natural wild hive, not just slide the drawers out of a man made bee box. I am glad that I am not engaged to marry someone from one of those tribes.

Osama's Collateral Damage
While in Nairobi, I visited the memorial park where the American embassy was destroyed by an Al-Qaeda attack on 7 August, 1998. On the memorial for the dead, most of the surnames were clearly those of Africans rather than European-descent Americans. Stats posted on the internet report that among the 213 dead there were only 8 Americans and 32 Kenyans working for the embassy. In many of the photos of the bomb damage was a tall building which I had taken to be the embassy. I saw now that it was the Co-operative Bank House beside it. The embassy stood at a busy downtown location, and consequently bin Laden's `anti-American' bomb wounded over 5,000 Kenyans on the streets and in surrounding buildings.

Legacy Of Those Little Flying Hypodermic Needles
Timothy went down with malaria while we were in Nairobi, and we thank the Lord for such merciful timing. The missionary guest-house in Nairobi was much more convenient for his convalescence than rural Sudan would have been.

A Peaceful Visit To A War-Torn Land
Since independence from Britain in 1956, Sudan has seen few years of peace. The Arab Muslim population of the north runs the Government of Sudan, and their attempts to enforce Islamic law on the non-Muslim Negro population of the south have provoked rebellions which have continued for decades. Thankfully, there has been a successful ceasefire agreement in force for over a year in southern Sudan, so we were not endangered by bombs and bullets this time. The government is currently trying to crush another rebellion in the western province of Darfur, but that was far removed from our locale.

Our first destination in southern Sudan was in Mundri county. Two rebel soldiers were on hand for security at the bush airstrip, and a ride was provided by another ministry. They brought us to the river, and disembarked us there, while another land rover awaited on the other side. In this season the river was running low and leisurely, not the formidable obstacle it sometimes is. We picked our way across the ruins of the bombed-out bridge while local men waded through the river with our cargo. The crocodiles do not normally come to this part of the river, word has it. In Mundri, Tim and I did several days of lectures for local schoolteachers on Christian views of many educational subjects. We also had opportunity to give some instruction to the local ECS church, including teaching the youth about the Ten Commandments.

We almost missed our flight out of Mundri. We arranged a ride to the airstrip, but a few hundred metres down the road the driver declared he thought the vehicle was going to break down, and he turned back. It was over a dozen miles to the airstrip, and even if we did walk the plane would have abandoned us hours before we got there, to make their dusk curfew at the base airport. Missing a meeting because of vehicle failure is something you have to live with here, but missing a very expensive flight because the driver gives up before something goes wrong is just too disappointing. God had another plan lined up for us, as the town commissioner offered to drive us himself. En route he told us that he had crossed paths with Osama bin Laden in another part of Sudan, back in the days when he was quietly assembling his Al-Qaeda network. He did not then realize that this Arab businessman was organizing a terrorist organization.

We had come in a tiny plane with negligible cargo, but the exit flight we arranged was a DC-3 delivering a handsome load of Bibles in the local Moru language. The DC-3 is an American twin-engine plane made between 1935-1947, used extensively for both civilian and military cargo and passenger roles in the Second World War era. There are almost 1,000 of these still in use throughout the world today. The original radial piston engines have been replaced with modern turboprops.

Bibles- Weaponry Allowed In The Ceasefire
Our next destination was in the Nuba Mountains, on the southern fringes of the Sahara desert. In the past Frontline teams have had to sneak in without the Government of Sudan (GoS) knowing, because they were bringing contraband Bibles into a war zone. This time, we notified them that we were coming. More precisely, we notified the Joint Military Commission (JMC), on which the GoS has representation. The JMC is an operation funded by several European governments to monitor the current ceasefire agreement. Their mandate includes "Inspecting all supplies to both Parties" and "Approving all flights destined to the Nuba Mountains and assure notification to the Parties." A team of four men was waiting at the airstrip to inspect our cargo of Bibles, Gospel Recordings cassette tapes and film projector. The team was commanded by a British ex-Royal Marine, and also included a Danish policeman and an officer from each faction (GoS and SPLA). Their primary concern was to enforce the ceasefire clause requiring the cessation of "Supply of ammunition and weaponry and other war-related stores to the field." We are not in that business, so that was no problem. Our cargo of instructional materials passed inspection without difficulty . While I was chatting with the team leader and explaining our mission's work, he asked if any of our teaching is hostile to Islam. "Yes," I said, "we preach Christianity, not religious pluralism." I added that there was nothing against Islam in the literature we brought this time. If there had been, it may have been a problem, as the ceasefire has a clause forbidding "All hostile propaganda between the Parties, including defamatory, untruthful, or derogatory statements, both within and outside the country."

Water In The Desert
The ceasefire has allowed a lot of humanitarian organizations to get to work in the Nuba region. A UNICEF crew was operating in the same area, drilling 13 deep wells. They sink the shaft 50-70m, depending on the water table, and install a large, rugged, hand pump. It stands on an ample concrete pad which runs off into a water trough for cattle. The great depth not only provides insurance against drought, it reaches safely below the bacteria present near the surface. We were glad to see such a first rate provision being made for the Nubans' water supply.

My key-chain thermometer broke back in Zambia, so I do not know what the temperatures were. We guess it was in the low 40's, but in the low humidity perspiration cooling works excellently, the sweat evaporating straight from the pores without the skin even feeling wet. Just drink 3 litres of water daily and you will be fine. Drink more than that if you are planning to do anything more ambitious than merely breathing.

Tires Are For Walking
Many of the men in Nubia were wearing sandals made from the plies of old automotive tires. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I guess they have been so impoverished and isolated by war for so long that making their own was easier than acquiring cheap Chinese-made footwear. In my Zambian travels, I never saw such home-made footwear. Zambians are poor, but it seems they could sooner find the money to buy flip-flops than spend the time making their own.

The Nuba Mountains are near the middle of Sudan, a region where Arab north Africa meets black sub-Saharan Africa. Everywhere I have been in Africa the culture is a mix of African custom and Western influences, but in the Nuba Mountains there are also Arab influences. The inter-tribal trade language is Arabic, whereas most of Africa uses English or French. In the rest of my experience, Africans only use two spices for their food; a bit of salt or a lot of sugar, as appropriate. In Nubia, our gravy and our tea were mingled with exquisite spices. There were camels at the market, and a monkey on a leash.
Timothy noted that there were more goods available in the markets than before, as also in Mundri, evidence that the cessation of hostilities was allowing commerce to improve. The man who hosted us the first day had a flour mill driven by a new agricultural diesel engine, manufactured in China last year. That would have been very difficult to acquire before the ceasefire.

A Quarter Of A Bible
On Sunday I was not far into delivering my sermon at a church when I encountered a problem. I was preaching from a text in Acts, but when I directed them to turn to a passage in Isaiah, the translator hesitated as though he did not know that name in their language. I sensed that he and the congregation were quite unfamiliar with Isaiah. When I prepared my sermon, I had not thought about the fact that the Moro language Bible is only a New Testament, as the Old has not been translated. Only those who were reading from an Arabic Bible would have access to the Old Testament and know something of the prophets. The experience prompted me to reflect on the great difficulty faced by those who do church planting- how can they instruct the church unto a mature understanding of the full counsel of God, if they only have the last quarter of the Bible in their own language? Please pray for the continuing work of Bible translation and publishing throughout the world. "I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil," Psalm 119:162.

Cops & Robbers
From Sudan we flew back to Kenya, and began our return trek. En route we learned about theft and law enforcement in Zambian society. We had parked our truck at the curb on Cairo Road, the promenade boulevard in Lusaka, and gone into a store. When Tim came out, he found the side window of the box cap open, and a man reaching in to grab our luggage. Tim threw him against a car and snapped the window shut, then saw a couple of other men running through the crowd with some of our luggage. He gave chase and they dropped the goods in their panicked flight. The nice thing about Zambian petty criminals is that they are not generally violent. These three men, and perhaps others from the ever-present crowd of loiterers, might have tried to fight back and overpower Tim, but instead they just fled. (In contrast, South Africa's copious thieves have a reputation for injuring or killing regardless of whether or not you resist). When I came out of the store, Tim was back at the truck, amid a tumult of witnesses who were each clamouring to be heard above the others.

On taking stock we found that while Tim had been recovering his laptop from the fleeing criminals, someone else had made a clean getaway with mine. Some of the witnesses told us they knew exactly who these thieves are and where they hang out, and they offered to go with us to report to the police. The police told us they would wait for nightfall and catch the thieves at their favourite bars. Since the thieves would flee at the first sight of an approaching police vehicle, they would sneak up in a common taxi. Having explained the plan, they asked us to finance it. They asked us to donate 50,000 Kwacha ($14 Cdn) to cover the cost of hiring the taxi. In Canada, I would have greeted such a request with disbelief. In Zambia, our friends guess that the monthly pay for a policeman is about 300,000 Kwacha ($85 Cdn), so I guess the Department probably would have trouble finding the money to finance the arrest operation. We gave them the taxi fee.

We could not tarry in Lusaka to await the outcome, and were well into South Africa six days later when we received word that my computer had been recovered. It will have to wait in Lusaka for my next trip there. Even in episodes like this, we see the hand of our God upon us for good. Consider that Tim happened upon them in time to prevent the loss of all but one piece of our luggage. The thieves did not even try to fight back. If we were going to lose a laptop, mine was certainly the right one to lose. It is a first generation Pentium (166MHz?) model; so old its value is marginal. I backed up all my files before we left Cape Town, so neither did I lose data. On the other hand, Tim's laptop is fairly up to date and valuable, and was critical to running the PowerPoint presentations we were about to do in South Africa. We give thanks to God for a trip so well blessed that such a minor nuisance was one of our biggest problems. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them," Psalm 34:7.

Inflation Reduced To 602%
If you have been counting to find the eight countries I mentioned at the outset, the other two are Botswana and Zimbabwe, which we crossed during the trip to reach other countries. While transiting Zimbabwe, we delivered 300 kilos of food to a pastor for his congregation. The economy there is in bad disrepair, so they have difficulty purchasing food. The last time we came through, none of the petrol stations were selling fuel. To refuel their cars, people had to visit neighbouring countries or buy from others who had. This time some stations did have fuel in the pumps, so that was a bright spot. Another bright spot for Zimbabwe was the claim that in February inflation had been reduced to 602.5% annually, down from the 622% rate calculated in January. By the end of 2004, federal authorities say they hope to have it down to 300%. Rather amusing to us were the latest bank notes. The new 10,000 Zimbabwean dollar bills have an expiry date. The ones we handled listed their printing date as 15 September, 2003, and their expiry date as 30 June, 2004.

Summit In Durban
Once inside South Africa, we wrapped up our trip with a five-day Summit in Tongaat, near Durban. A Summit is a worldview course for Christian youths. This Summit was organized by some of the youth at Jivannadi Mission, so our only responsibility was doing most of the lectures. Almost all of the 37 participants were of Indian ethnicity, since Durban has hundreds of thousands of such people. This was the last stop on our mission trek, and it was just before Easter. From there we returned to Cape Town, although I first took a little diversion at KwaSizaBantu Mission for personal matters.

Today, The Door Is Open
So ends the tale of our little trek. The Lord went before us and cleared all obstacles, for our passages were easy. It was a pleasure and a privilege to visit and assist Christian churches in so many different places. We hope and pray that the Bibles, books and tapes we delivered, as well as the messages we presented, will prove to be of lasting value for the upbuilding of the Lord's Church in Africa.
Today, sub-Saharan Africa is an open door. The people are very friendly and love to chat with strangers, and many recognize Christianity as true religion. Yet there are few who have been thoroughly instructed in sound doctrine, so there is a great need for more instruction to help the African churches mature. Tomorrow, the door may be closed, if the Muslims succeed in gaining the upper hand on the continent. (If anyone thinks that allegation unfair, they would do well to a make few inquiries into how severely non-Muslims are treated in many of the world's Islamic societies). "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest," Matthew 9:38.

In Christ,
Lawren M. Guldemond
Frontline Fellowship
May 2004