Chirundu
The ministry team arrived in Chirundu after a three-day drive that took us through Botswana. Our home for the week was a converted chicken run on the bank of the Zambezi but we would never have known its true identity if our host, Sister Rose, hadn’t told us. By night we would lie under the netting and listen to the music of the hippos, baboons and hyena.
Because of its border location with Zimbabwe, set along the beautiful Zambezi River, Chirundu is strategic for industrial growth and tourism. The churches are rushing to keep up with the rapid growth and changing cultural climate. Unfortunately, there were few Bible-preaching churches in the area at the time of our arrival. In addition to the traditional animistic religions of the area there is a strong cultic presence. We passed five Kingdom Halls in the 45-minute drive between Kafue and Chirundu.
The local pastors’ fellowship erected the platform in the heart of the market district where hundreds of truck drivers and transients congregate for the night before traveling onward. One couple, passing through on their way to Burundi, heard the music and came from curiosity. Both of them received Christ that evening. Many people came on foot across the river bridge from Zimbabwe to hear the Gospel or to be prayed for. In a town of 5000 people, more than 1200 gathered to hear the Word of God and hundreds more listened from the cabs of their trucks or from nearby homes.
One evening a young man was brought to the meeting. He told me that he was a Roman Catholic but he had gone to a witchdoctor seeking a cure for a problem with his eyes. The witchdoctor gave him something and told him to wash his face in it for three days. Immediately afterward his left arm and hand drew up and was paralyzed. After counseling with him he renounced the witchdoctor, repented of his sins, and we prayed with him to be saved. Then we prayed for his healing. Through the name of Jesus he was set free and his arm was restored.
Lusaka
We were greeted in Lusaka by the coldest winter weather anyone had seen in the last ten years. The chilling wind made it difficult to preach but God was faithful as hundreds of people came out in spite of the weather.
Lusaka is the hub of the country. It is the most culturally, racially and religiously diverse city in Zambia. As a city with hundreds of churches, we expected to pass by Lusaka and travel straight to the Copperbelt, but Pastor Matanda was eager to have us come, so the team performed the near impossible task of organizing an event in less than two weeks. When we arrived we found a corner of the district where the people had no established local church and were starving for the Gospel.
Concurrent with the evening outreach, the host church ran a vacation Bible school during the afternoon. Sixty children would show up to sing songs about Jesus and learn about his Word. At each service I would set aside a time to call the children forward for ministry. Each night God gave me a special word of encouragement just for the kids. Then I would wade into the crowd to bless each one.
Chililabombwe
Chililabombwe is situated 9 miles south of the Democratic Republic of Congo border. With a decrease in copper usage worldwide, this single-industry town has suffered greatly from unemployment.
One of the pastors’ fellowships organized for us to hold an open-air outreach at one of the local soccer fields and a leadership conference in the high school. I was given a prophetic word shortly after arriving, though, that our primary work was to be toward the pastors. In Chililabombwe there is a great deal of striving and division among the churches. I was told that three fourths of the pastors did not want the outreach meetings to be held only because they were opposed to the one fourth that did. Ten years prior there was strong unity among the churches but church splits and ambitious men have destroyed that.
The first night I got seven words into the message and the power went out. I thought that a fuse had blown or someone had tripped over the cord so I continued to preach in the light of the full moon. When the evening was over I was told that the transformer blew and half the city went black. It would be two days before a new transformer was shipped from Ndola. Until it was repaired we had to run extension cords more than a kilometer to the nearest power source. Still it proved again that it is the Spirit who draws men to the Cross. The people stood there in the dark as I preached without a sound system and the choir sang without accompaniment as hundreds gave their lives to Christ.
Chingola
Pastor Kabulaya was hesitant to allow us to come. They had just finished a week-long meeting with Ladonna Osborn and he was concerned that another series of meeting so soon might be too exhausting. It was the pastor’s wife who convinced him that it was God’s desire for us to come.
We met each night in the converted movie house that is now Faith Gospel Church. Pastor Kabulaya has nicknamed his church “The Miracle Centre” and we saw this to be true as each night hundreds were healed of various diseases and infirmities. For months afterward I received reports of the confirmed healings.
A young girl was brought in legally blind. With her glasses she was only able to make out rough shapes. Her eyesight was completely restored.
A man was healed of an ulcer and God healed a woman who, for some unexplained reason, was unable to take any solid food. Even soft porridge was too much for her system. Afterward, she was able to eat normally.
One of the most powerful meetings, in my opinion, was an evening where we ministered God’s peace. As the Spirit moved in that service it was apparent that a deep work was being done. Several women have reported being set free from various fears and spiritual oppressions.
This was the most ambitious ministry trip we had taken up to that point. We worked with pastors we had never met before in places we had never been. Our goals were to minister to the lost and bound; to edify and exhort the leadership; and to evaluate future ministry needs and opportunities. We accomplished all of these goals through open-air outreaches, revival meetings, radio ministry and leadership conferences.
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Arthur Kent Cason 