Mission Accomplished

Dear Friends and Family,

God has been at work in many incredible ways since I last updated you. We have safely returned from our missions trip to Zambia in which we saw God’s hand incredibly at work. But first I must update you with what all has happen since then.

The Great Commission Course

The GCC was very fast paced and was full of lectures, practicals, outreaches, and hikes. It was an incredible three weeks of learning and putting our learning into practice as we went out daily and evangelized people in streets and door to door. God provided the opportunity for us to protest outside of an abortion clinic, to evangelize in bus stations, Muslim neighborhoods, outside of a porn shop, and in a rundown neighborhood. It was incredible learning what it means to put our faith into action. This is the very thing I have been longing to do all of my Christian life.

Muslim Evangelism

One of the highlights from the course was going door-to-door in a Muslim neighborhood and sharing the Gospel. At one apartment complex, an elder Muslim man answered the door. We stood there with our sheet of paper and said, “We are doing a survey of people’s religious backgrounds. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?” The grey-haired man graciously invited us into his home, happy to answer our questions. Little did he know that our questions were designed to point him toward his need for a Savior.

Once we found out that he had a Muslim background we asked him, “Would you consider yourself to be a good person?” to which he replied, “yes.” Then we asked, “Have you ever told a lie?” He stumbled a bit answering us, but then he admitted he had, in fact, told a lie. We continued to go through several of the other Ten Commandments with him and he admitted to being guilty in breaking these Laws of God. So we began to ask him, “If you were to die and stand before God would you be guilty, or would you be innocent?” He fumbled around with his answer a bit and appealed to the mercy of allah to save him. We asked, “But how would God be able to forgive you?” He said something about how, by praying and doing good, God would be merciful and would forgive him. We insisted that there needed to be a punishment for our sins and this dialogue went on for a bit. We then shared that it was only through the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf that we could be forgiven for our sins. Although the man did not agree with us, it was amazing simply being able to share the truth of the Gospel with him. 1 Corinthians 1:18 comes to mind when I think of this experience, “For the Word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” We can only hope and pray that God planted a seed in this man’s heart and that he will see his need for the Savior and turn to Him.

           

Mission to Zambia

The Great Commission Course was three weeks of intense learning and putting our faith into action, but the mission outreach was an even deeper application of this learning. Over the course of our mission we had eight flat tires, several mechanical issues, our truck got stuck in the mud and in the water on two occasions, we were short on fuel for our boat, and to make things worse I was very sick during our time of outreach in the field, but God used it all for His glory. There were many obstacles that had to be overcome in order to simply get to Zambia, but by the grace of God we made it there in time. Although, the set-backs were not in our plans we saw the Lord at work in all of it.

We ended up taking a different route than we had originally planned to Zambia, which allowed us to get there and minister much sooner. We stayed for a while in Zambia helping at a remote mission station, which was overseen by a gentle old man Uncle Bob, and his sweet wife Aunt Beth. There we helped out in whatever ways we were needed. Although it didn’t seem like we were that much help, Uncle Bob continued to thank us and tell us how big a blessing it was that we were there to assist them as they were in great need of people to help. I was tremendously encouraged seeing the faith of this older man and I was inspired by the way he continually pointed us toward Christ while we were there. He has been in Zambia on the mission field for the majority of his life serving the Lord. Getting the chance to see the faith and example of this man inspired me greatly as my desire is to serve Christ with my life on the mission field.

River Mission

 The highlight of the trip was spending a week evangelizing local tribes around an unreached area of the Zambezi River. Our team split up and half of us went with interpreters along the road and the other half on a boat along the river so that we were able to reach the most people possible. As our team was going along the road the first day trying to reach our first village to share the Gospel, we got stuck in the mud. It wasn’t long until the locals came and watched us as we struggled. For some reason the Africans, especially in rural areas, are fascinated with white people. They love to watch everything white people do when they show up. It’s as if a bunch of aliens showed up in their neighborhood and the locals are gathering around to watch to see what how the strange life forms are going to behave. Finally after we struggled for four hours to get out of this whole situation we managed to get the truck out of the mud!

It didn’t make sense why we would be delayed for that whole day from preaching the Gospel to these villagers in need of Christ. But I was reminded of what I had read that morning in Galatians 4:13, “You know that it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the Gospel to you at first…” God used Paul’s sickness to reach the Galatians with the Gospel. Even though Paul did not plan on getting sick or having this “ailment” God used that situation for His glory. In the same way, we saw God work through our truck getting stuck in the mud. It was through this that God opened a door for us to be able to show the Jesus film in a nearby village where all these people were from.

There was a young man there, Nyambe, who was very hungry for God. He asked for a Bible and unfortunately all we had was an English Bible, but his face lit up when we gave it to him because he knew some English. When he received the Bible he seemed as ecstatic as if we handed him a large sum of money. It was such a blessing to be able to give him a copy of God’s Word. It made me realize how blessed we are to have God’s Word so readily available to us, while this man was so hungry for the Word and the best we could give this him was a Bible in a language that wasn’t even in his native tongue. 

Loziland for Christ

Over the course of this time of ministry God so graciously used our team to reach hundreds of Lozi and Luvali people in Zambia with the Gospel. The Lord used us broken vessels to bring Christ’s message of reconciliation to these lost and dying people. In 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God.” Paul reminds that God is the One who makes His appeal to people “through us.” And we did in fact see God mightily working in the hearts of many people who were eager and ready to receive the Gospel. Also, we don’t know how many seeds God planted in people’s hearts through sharing the Gospel, but I am confident that God worked in far greater ways than we could possibly understand.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Even though things didn’t always go according to our plan God used it all to work together for good and for His glory. Praise God that He brought many people to the foot of the Cross through this mission. Thank you all again so much for your prayers and support, which God certainly did use to bring about a far more successful mission trip than we could have ever imagined.

“Now to Him Who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21). 

In Christ,

            Hunter