Zambia 2001
15,759
Before we left for Zambia, the Lord laid a number on my heart. Unknown to me, He laid this same number on the heart of another crusade participant in Crossville, TN. This number was 15,000. After all the services were done, all the visitation completed, we saw 15,759 professions of faith! In spite of Satan's constant attacks and attempts at sabotage, the Lord was lifted up and glorified. The harvest was indeed plentiful, but far from complete. We left Lusaka knowing that remaining were many local church members trained in sharing the Gospel and able to lead people to Christ - and excited about continuing the work after the American team had left. After my first trip to Zambia in 1999, I had an overwhelming feeling that we had left so much undone. When it was time to leave this time I had a sense of completion, that the work would go on even after we left.
I had the privilege of ministering at N'Gombe Baptist Church. This particular church is without a pastor, and I had feared that, without a pastor, there would be little to no member participation. Boy, was I wrong. On the first Sunday morning service, they had 22 people waiting for me to baptize. A Church which normally runs 200 in their morning worship service (in a building which might seat 125 comfortably) had 490 packed in and around the building. We had 52 professions of faith out of this service. Every day I had 20 - 28 people show up for visitation. Monday we had 45 professions of faith during visitation and 3 in the evening service. On Tuesday, we sent out 6 teams and saw 146 professions. Wednesday saw 11 teams go out and 520 total come into the Kingdom! On Thursday, 10 teams went to share and 553 made professions of faith. I have to stop here and share that I had shared with N'Gombe Baptist Church of the 15,000 God laid on my heart for the entire crusade and my desire for our church to at least see a "tithe" of that - of 1500. If you do the math, we had 1319 total at this point, just 181 short of the 1500. We had 25 show up for visitation on Friday morning. They had told us that Eleighsha and I would be taking off at around 1 pm to take a "sight -seeing" trip around town. I was afraid everyone would stop at 1:00 and was prepared to encourage them to stay on track and keep visiting. Imagine my joy when they asked if it was OK for them to stay out and keep visiting! I asked them before we went out, "How many do you believe the Lord will give us today?", hoping to see around 200 to make the 1500. A young woman in the back of the crowd raised her hand and said, "600!" Her faith was greater than mine it seemed. At the end of the day, when we put all the numbers together, there was a total of 635! Add to that the 4 from the evening service and our church total was 1958. God is truly a great God!
THANKS
Again, may I express my thanks and gratitude to all those who helped make this trip possible for Eleighsha and myself. Each of you share in the heavenly reward that awaits in eternity. There will be thousand upon thousands looking you up in Heaven to say "Thank You", because the gift you gave allowed a missionary to lead someone to Jesus, and that person shared with someone else who led another and so on, eventually resulting in them coming to know Christ. You will never know just how many lives were impacted by your gift and sacrifice, this side of Heaven. Through a gift from our church, Cornerstone Baptist, and one very special lady, we were able to give several Bibles to new believers and other saints who have never had one before, as well as three different schools.
I really do not know where the Lord will take me from here. I need to re-evaluate allot of things in my life and ministry at this point. This trip has been a life-changing, eye-opening experience for me. Many things will be affected, not just in the future - but in the here and now as well. Please remain in prayer for me and this ministry as I seek the Face of God and His will.
To all those who went with me to Zambia on the American Team, "THANK YOU" for making this a most memorable trip. We were blessed to have several "young" people along on this crusade who brought with them an excitement which blessed everyone. Also, a special thanks to Dennis Rumbo and Stephen Miles for all the hard work and preparation that went into this crusade before we got there and all the work keeping it together while we were there.
To see pictures of the trip, click on the link below. I'll get as many on as I can as quickly as I can.