Hope

It was a rainy Wednesday, the kids were dropped off and happy to play at the Wilson's for the afternoon, and I was lost in my thoughts as my tires jarred over the pock-marked road to Lilaya. There is one road that leads to Lilaya. At the end of the road you can choose to go right, which leads to the Lilaya Lodge where the people with money go.  Or you can choose to go left, into the village of Lilaya, where the people with no money go.  I turn left. 

I don't know what I will experience today.  It's time to do some home visits and meet the women who will be receiving some small business loans.  I've never done this before, and didn't have any inkling I would be doing this while in Zambia.  I remind myself to be listening to the Holy Spirit constantly.  That is the only way I will be successful...did I mention I've never done this before!?

I meet Bishop Yamba and his wife Anna at the school they run for orphans and very needy children. We talk a bit under the tree and start off for the G. Compound.  After a 2-minute walk we come upon mud shanties, held together with what ever they can find.  We walk past mothers with their babies, children running all about, open toilets and garbage pits.  It's muddy from all the rain and it stinks.  I'm glad I wore my sturdy shoes. 

We come to the home of Mrs. Banda, a widow of 5 years.  Her mother is still alive and she cares for several of her young grandchildren.  We are warmly welcomed and invited in.  Mrs. Banda sits on the dirt floor while Bishop, Anna and I sit on a small couch covered with little woven cloths that come out only for guests.  A few years ago some kind person put a corrugated metal roof on here house.  Before that it was covered in plastic and it was perpetually wet and muddy inside her house during rainy season.

There is no electricity or windows so it takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to my dark surroundings. I feel like I'm in a cave.

Onto business.  Mrs. Banda has tried to make a living by going to the market very early in the morning buying tomatoes, greens and cabbage for nshima relish.  She sells them in a small stand next to her house. Mrs. Banda has a solid clientele, but needs more variety in her inventory.

One of the ideas that God gave me earlier in the week was to give a little lesson in money management, His way.  I took 4 envelopes marked 1) God 2) Personal 3) Business 4) Loan.  I demonstrated with real Kwacha what do with the money once she started selling food in her shop and the reasoning behind it.  Bishop went over this a few times in Nyanga until she understood what we were saying.  In this culture, typically when someone gets any sum of money, it's spent almost immediately.  This system was a foreign concept, one that will need to be revisited and hopefully will take hold with time and practice.

After Mrs. Banda received her loan it was time to pray and thank God for our lives and ask God to give her success in the business.

It was such a small thing to give this woman some money to help her business along and help improve her living standard. But it doesn't end there.  This is the start of a relationship that will hopefully end with Mrs. Banda having a deeper interactive relationship with the God that created her. That may be a long way off, but it starts with HOPE.

...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he as given us.  Romans 5: 3-5