Here are Hudson and I working on the next proposal for Hudaga.  Now that the pre-school is going well, he has a few more things to get the farm going better including moving the poultry unit over to the farm from his house.  Then it is on to phase 3 of his project - start building the school on the farm for grade 1 through 4 for orphans and vulnerable kids.  This next step will take more prayer and more support from Africa Hope Mission, but God-willing, he hopes to have his first class of 20 first graders in school by January 2018!

Not sure where Hudson gets all the energy, but since my last visit he himself have adopted two kids.  Here is Terrence who we met last year - he was living with his vulnerable mother at the hospital because her mother was ill.  Now he is helping at the farm with Agatha and Hudson.  He is being supported in school and was number 8 out of 100 kids in testing for second grade!  Hudson also adopted a girl named Blessing who is 6 years old and living at their house. 

They had a good year for pigs and here are the new kids in town!  2 sows gave birth to 11 piglets!  He will raise them up, keep 3 sows for further breeding, hope to buy a male for getting different genes in his breed.  They have 3 sow now, ate the lone male and sold another female.  One of the 3 sows had babies that did not survive so they will also sell her.  If things keep going well, they hope to build another 4 stalls.  Besides all the bacon these guys provide, the poop has been an excellent fertilizer for the fields, saving costs there, and also used to mature the fish ponds. 

Here they are grinding the Kassava, which will be dried out, milled, then can be used as feed for the pigs or to make nshima, their staple food.  It takes 3 years for Kassava plants to mature - they do have a few fields where they mix Kassava plants with maize or nut production to save room.

We spent the day exploring Hudson's farm.  There was a good rainy season so crops did well.  Here his farm hand is holding Monkey Nuts - which are very marketable in Samfya.  They hope to make about $1000 for this crop.  They also raised Maize - half for consumption, half for sale, hoping to make about $400, along with pumpkin, sunflower, peanuts, Kassava, and some pineapple and sugar cane.  This month they will spend harvesting all their crops.

Hudaga PreSchool

Here is Hudson's son, Jeremiah, in front of Hudaga PreSchool.  They got the toilets fixed so were able to re-open the school in January and just finished their first term.  They are on a 2 week break, starting the second term early in May.  They have a class of 15, 12 of who are orphans, 3 paying clients.  This phase of the project is up and running, now on to Phase 3 - the school on the farm.

Samuchinwe Massage Group

Today I was able to meet up with Gabriel, Irene, and Davies who have been trained over the years by physical and massage therapist and have started a small business, Samuchinwe Massage and Physiotherapy Group.  They are seeing about 40 patients a quarter, usually at their home.  Through kind donations from Africa Hope Mission, we were able to professionalize their look a little more!  I met a client of theirs earlier in the day who had back of the head and neck pain.  He had never had a massage in his entire life and at first thought Gabriel was going to "Pop my head off!"   But after he was done the pain was gone and he said he felt "angelic."  They also described a patient we saw in the fall for their practical exam, Jeremiah, who had a severe stroke when we saw them in the fall.  Though they tried to encourage him to go seek further medical attention, the family never did and he sadly passed away recently.  So goes life in Zambia....sad.

Hi all,
Back in Samfya to check on the projects Africa Hope Mission is working with.  Just arrived yesterday.  The above picture is a house I am building to house teams, Mark is on the right.  It has awesome views of Lake Bangweulu.  It will have 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and a big great room.  It is moving fast!
Things are continuing to progress in Zambia in general.  The town of Samfya has a new grocery store with more in it.  There are many more cars, new things happening all the time.  The rural area though continue to struggle.

After a two day journey driving from Samfya to Lusaka, the capital, to begin our trek back home, we met up with Shadrick at one of the new malls in Lusaka.  Shadrick Puta is a young man from Samfya with the dream of being a clinical officer (like a physician's assistant in the states) to help the people in the rural village.  He was one of the kids supported through high school from his church, the Assembly of God, from SCCP and is forever thankful for the opportunity.  Though both of his parents are alive, they are both elderly, father 70, mother 65, and he is the youngest of 9.  4 of his siblings past away, likely of HIV, and that is why he was designated as vulnerable by his Church for this support.  He did well in high school and always liked science.  He knew from God that he was to learn how to help his people with healthcare, but had little ways to figure out how.  He was accepted into school for clinical officer but had no money to go.  He spent 3 years living with his brother selling CDs on the street to try to save up to go to school for healthcare, praying that this will get him through it.  He only had enough savings for the first semester, out of total of 6 semesters over 3 years.  He was able to spend his 6 week clinical time though in Samfya working along side Dr. Lushiku, the doctor we had worked with over the years at Samya Hospital.  Through his church and Dr. Lushiku, he connected with Carmen who thought of our Africa Hope Mission scholarship program.  With references from Dr. Lushiku and his pastor, along with verbal recommendations from leaders from SCCP we  agreed to support him for the rest of his schooling.  God has put it on his heart to work back in the rural areas of Samfya and he is dedicated to learning as much as he can.  So far he is doing very well in school, getting As and Bs at Kafue Institute, living there on his own at this private school about a 12 hour drive from his home in Samfya, where his parents are very proud.

This is Hudson's Church he helped to found a few years back.  They call him "Papa Hudson" here.  It is what they call "Open Brethren."  Open to singing and clapping and not so many rules like the women all need to wear head covering.  We met in Hudaga's new pre-school.  There is a call for much celebration in this community, God is good...all the time!

All in all, Samfya has come a long way from when we first starting coming.  The town has brand new paved roads with curbs and drainage ditches.  Economy is growing, more shops appear all the time.  There is are new town markets.  Most churches in town are doing well and SCCP has pretty much put itself out of business for the town and is now working out in more rural villages with partner churches.  The new hospital is up and running, even the old run down stage 2 clinic is looking a little better and is mainly for out patient care.  Trainees for health are coming through the hospital regularly, more higher paid employees are here too.  More cars are on the road, HIV stigma has been relieved in most areas, there is another brand new gas station.  There even is a brand new very big luxurious lodge almost completed on the shores of the lake up the road.  Ten years has made a huge difference here, it is hard to recognize the old Samfya.  Challenges remain but God has been good so far.  Now the needs are more in the rural villages, which are not so far away!

Charles of Kaishe demonstrated his model farming techniques to us.  Here he is in front of his compost heap - taking green and dried grass mixing with water and animal manure, turning regularly until he gets a nice mulch.  With this infertile land, they have discovered if they dig 6 inch holes about 2 feet apart in their field, filling each with this compost it will lead to better crops.  It takes more work for the first two years but once established, re-using the same holes over time, work and yield greatly improves and is much better for the environment than what they presently do which is to burn the fields about this time of year right before seeding time which needs to occur before mid November when rainy season begins. 

Carmen and I got to sit down with some local Church leaders at their farm in Kaishe.  These leaders are attending the Extension Discipleship training program from the Samfya Bible College.  They appear to be growing in faith with this program, are encouraged that it can help build some Church responsibility to both lead others to faith in Christ and to help support their community.  Charles is here in red strips helping us communicate with Frances and Emmanuel.  They identified care of widows and orphans along with little knowledge of the gospels as two major challenges in their community. 

This is Wathabu Simfukwe on the left with Cephas on the right.  Wathabu is the new principal of the Samfya Bible College who helped create their new extension program with the hope of training and empowering the rural churches on discipleship, worship, and community work.  It is with their hope and vision that we are trying to improve the outlook of Kaishe.  With Bright Hope World and Africa Hope Mission, 30 church leaders and members from 6 churches in Kaishe are undertaking a 2 year discipleship extension training program from the Bible College in the hope of being able to work together on better community efforts to improve this village.

Monday October 17 we spent the day out in Kaishe village, a very poor community of about 5000 about 100km from the center of Samfya.  This community has been struggling a long time and we are trying to figure out how to help.  We did visit a pre-school today and above is a picture of the students with the teacher.  This seems to be the only thing running in the Kaishe Orphan Association at present because of lack of funding.  In the past they had done job training skills for orphans and were working on a farm project.

Cephas (pronounced Ki fas), the tall one in black, is surrounded by his family in his village home of Kaishe.  He is one of the few motivated young men who is trying to improve himself so he can come back and help this very poor community.  He is the eldest of 7 kids but his home includes many others, his aunts' and uncles' families who remain in this same community are considered within his family.  In fact when we meet him he introduced us to 3 mothers and 3 fathers!  He did identify his biological mother, here in the yellow shirt near the middle, but her sisters were also his mother.  His father's brothers are also considered his father, and many times the eldest of these brothers has more influence over the kids in the village than their own father, which has its pluses and minuses.  He was motivated by the leaders in his Brethren Christian Church to improve himself and he spent a year after graduating from his local high school in the Samfya Bible College and then was able to get support for his first year at the Theological University in Ndola.  This is a three year program but he could not get support for his remaining years until he got connected to Africa Hope Mission.  With recommendations from his church and the Bible College, Africa Hope MIssion is sponsoring his remaining time at the university, with the goal of having him come back and work with the Bible College in rural villages like Kaishe.  Hopefully he will be a valuable asset to help this community come out of extreme poverty, with God's blessing.

Today we spent the day working with the Samuchinwe massage and physical therapy group to empower them to be better at their work.  We have worked with Gabriel and Ireen for the last 7 years with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and massage therapist from the states to teach them in helping with all the aches and pains of living in Zambia.  Here they are working in a patient's home who had a stroke.  They are doing very well with how they apply their trade, just need some encouragement in getting their business going, working with the local government healthcare especially with the ability to go out to patients' homes. 

Hudaga pre-school is almost 100% finished, a few little glitches though but we were able to work through them with Hudson.  He has to build 3 proper toilets instead of the pit toilets he currently has and needs to get a city water line with a water tank.  This should all be ready for next term which starts in January.  We focused the rest of the time on helping him develop a plan to get the income generating programs going for the next phase, which will be grade 1 through 4 which will be out on his farm 10km away.  Hudson has been quite enthusiastic on these programs.  He has an incubator where he will be able to take freshly laid chicken eggs and either sell the 1 day old chicks to others to raise which will save him on feed, or raise them himself for meat.  Either way should work, especially since he has the only incubator in the whole province.  Also on the farm, his fish ponds are going though he continually is learning how to make them bigger, realizing he will need to build more ponds to seperate the sizes of fish.  His best program seems to be the piggery, where he has raised 6 pigs up so far, selling 2 of them at about 80 kgs in weight.  He has quite a system in place to shovel out the pig poop into channels under the door and down into a pit where he will use this for fertilizer and his fish ponds.  He is also growing the maize, soy, and sunflower seed along with sugar cane used to make the pig slop.  He is looking to raise ducks, fruit and greens, all to generate income and also to feed the orphans. Here we have a face only a mother pig could love!

We had a nice visit with Ida and Royd, who we saw last year and who graduated from Hudson's pre-school when it started out in the living room of his home 3 years ago.  They are now some of the best students in 3rd grade at the local government school.  The hut behind them is where they live with their aunt and 3 other kids.  It has to be wall to wall people on the floor at night and looks like the roof is about ready to cave in.  Rainy season will be starting soon....  Look how big their smiles are though!

And here is Ester and Lisa, two orphans who are sisters and go to Hudaga.  Ester is 6 and Lisa is 5.  They were both really good and saying their ABCs.  They also love to sing, and sang for us a song called "I am the Blessing of God" in Bemba.  Ester loves things that are red, Lisa is a purple girl.  They have fun at school playing ball and singing with the other kids.  Their smiles were infectious as soon as they got over their shyness.
Hudson has been doing this a long time and has a knack for picking out the most vulnerable orphans in town to help.  The ability to bring them into his school and feed them truly is a blessing.