An Update on the Zambia Cattle Fundraiser from Victor Kubik

Needed: $14000

Received: $14155

My wife Beverly along with Church counsel Larry Darden and I visited Zambia from January 26 - February 7th. My main purpose as senior pastor has been first and foremost to see to the spiritual and physical welfare of our more than 300 brethren scattered in a country slightly larger than the state of Texas.

Lusaka Ladies after services on the Sabbath

We have two pastors in Zambia. Wilson Nkhoma, along with his wife Dorothy, live in the capital, Lusaka. He oversees churches in Lusaka, Mapoko, Nalubanda North, Kasumpa and our newest group in Isoka whose roots go back to the Worldwide Church of God. Derrick Pringle and his wife Cherry live in Kitwe and he is pastor of Mufulira in the Copper Belt and Mufumbwe in the west, near Angola. While in Zambia we visited with brethren in three of these areas, holding two Sabbath services and two Bible Studies.  

We attended services in Lusaka on January 28th. The week before, Wilson Nkhoma and Derrick Pringle held a Kingdom of God seminar at a very attractive hall on the University of Zambia campus. Twenty new people attended. Then when we came a week later, ten of these returned. Members in the congregation commented about how pleased they were able to see the church preach the gospel to the world for the first time in a long time here in Zambia.

We also have the opportunity to place Beyond Today on Zambian cable television. Our pastor, Wilson Nkhoma, had formerly worked for Zambian broadcasting. The secular cable station that can be seen throughout Zambia is looking for good content. We edited a number of current BT programs with local Zambia contact information for viewers to respond to.

During the week we traveled north to Kitwe and stayed at the home of Derrick and Cherry Pringle. On Tuesday afternoon we held a Bible Study in the Mufulira area where about 30 people came. We traveled on the Church bus, which was most enjoyable. No members except the Pringles own a vehicle in that area so the bus we purchased for our Copperbelt brethren under the Good Works program last year performs a great service to bring people together for congregational meetings. We met at the home of one of the members and held a meeting complete with songs and special music.  

Out to Mufulira on our own church bus!

From the north we flew back to the capital city and from there pastor Wilson Nkhoma drove us to the Mumbwa area. On Friday we held a Bible Study with the Mumbwa Town brethren and then on the Sabbath we drove into the bush to Mapoko for Sabbath services with the people there.

The Mapoko Congregation

One important item of business was to distribute the money that was collected during the Gatlinburg Feast of Tabernacles special fundraiser by the Myers brothers. More than $14,000 was raised to help the Zambian brethren. As has been reported earlier, some of the United Church of God families in the remote Mumbwa area had their oxen taken away. This was done at a most critical time just before planting which occurs about Feast of Tabernacles time. Plowing then had to be done using heifers who have nowhere near the strength of the oxen and the yields of our members' fields will be smaller as a result.

One of the oxen taken from a member walked back over five miles by itself to its owner. It was again taken and again it returned on its own, but, again, it was retaken. After the third time the animal yet again returned. We interviewed all of our members who had their oxen taken to get the full story about what happened. Each of the oxen taken had been branded and given names by our members and had been in their sole possession, care and control for four or more years. Three oxen have yet to be returned. 

What the United Church of God Good Works money will be used for is as follows:

Amounts over $14,000 will be covered by LifeNets International.