Shannon and Enoch had gone to visit Salamanu village just the week before. This village is an hour's walk south of us, and we visited it a few times eighteen months ago with Dominic. After a few visits we stopped going temporarily because the people kept asking for "stuff" and didn't seem interested in bible teaching and the gospel. We had to cancel our last visit because most of the village was drunk. We had decided to wait a while before going back. Then we got busy with building the bush camp and teaching in the villages closer to camp. Thankfully, despite our long absence, Shannon and Enoch were warmly received. The people quickly gathered and stayed to listen to the gospel even when it started raining (they produced an umbrella for Shannon and Enoch). Shannon strongly emphasized that we were not coming to bring them "stuff" like shoes and cement, but that we came first and foremost to give them the gospel. The village took the rebuke well and begged the guys to come back.
We spent three - and - a - half days doing a short, intense version of the catechism teaching from back in August. There were morning and afternoon sessions each day. By the third day, we counted almost 70 children and perhaps 20 men and women attending. Of course the children loved it, and the village could not get enough of Enoch's original Lozi songs. But what surprised us most were the men. Although it was a program primarily for children, and often taught by women, the men in Salamanu defied their cultural norms and came to every session. They even brought notebooks and pens and took notes! One young man brought out a stereo, powered by solar panel and battery, and recorded Enoch's songs and some of the lessons!
After one session, while we were still working with the kids, the men of the village called Enoch and Vincent over. They said to Enoch, "Please, you must try to start a church in our village. Don't worry that you must go back to Livingstone and cannot always be here. If you will teach us, we will continue meeting." Remember that promise from God - "I will teach you in the way you should go"?
We could not help contrasting Salamanu with Ilwendo. During the catechism lessons in Ilwendo in August, almost none of the men came (except our workers). Some in Ilwendo have asked us when we will build a church building, but none have asked us to come teach them (except Vincent and Robert). There is an interest, almost a pleading, in Salamanu that we have never seen in Ilwendo.
After eighteen months of struggle and very little progress (even God resisting our building efforts) and, more specifically, eight months of discouragement and uncertainty, (questioning if God even wanted us here), it is such a joy to actually see fruit. In fact, there is enough happening right now that, in some ways, I regret leaving the work here in order to visit the states. Wow. I marvel at the grace of God.
