july 2005

 

 

Luke 8:1, “And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God : and the twelve were with him, ”

 

The month of July saw the fulfillment of an evangelism trip that we had been planning for a long time.  Four men from our local church in Chingola and me traveled almost 1,000 kilometers into the Northern Province of Zambia.  It is “the bush!”  Perhaps you remember this is the general area where I went to Bemba language school.  This province is the “Catholic province” of Zambia .  It is difficult to describe what a blessing it was to go village-to-village and house-to-house with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

We spent five or six hours each day going soul winning for five days in a row.  If you have never tried that, then you don’t know how exhausting it is.  Then you add to that the fact you are trying to think and preach in a different language for all those hours each day.  But like Vince Lombari said, “There is no satisfaction like a man lying exhausted on the field of battle…victorious!”  Amen!  We felt victorious on this trip, but there are still thousands who are lost in the very place we went!  

 

The Lord blessed the five of us with 97 souls in five days .  We took the odd number of men because I always go soul winning alone to improve my language skills.  I don’t like having someone there to interpret if I get stuck.  If one is to learn more, then he must figure out how to communicate without “cheating” with an interpreter.  It helped my Bemba tremendously.

 

Personally, I led 19 souls to the Lord on the trip, and that is the most I have seen saved in such a short time since I was doing soul winning booths at the Arkansas State Fair in 1991.  The other four brothers were responsible for winning the other 78 folks.  It was great, but it was a mess of work.  We never had a large crowd of 10-12 people listening and getting saved all at once.  It was always one-on-one or 3-4 people listening to the plan of salvation each time.

 

One of the big blessings to my soul was to preach to Lazarus Musonda and his wife.  Lazarus is 77 years old and a life-long Catholic, like so many people in the Northern Province .  After a brief explanation of “the simplicity of salvation” by grace through faith, I asked this couple, “Are you saved or not?”  They said, “No, we’re not saved.”  From there, I spent about half an hour going through what it means to be saved, and asking them questions.  Their eyes were really opened and it was obvious the Lord was dealing with them.  What a blessing to see this old guy and his wife receive Jesus Christ so late in life.  Amen!  That is why you sent us here, amen?  If you would like digital pictures of the trip,  (View Pictures) email us at dobbins@zamtel.zm .

 

The first two days of the trip I preached to scores of people, but I did not see one person saved.  It did not trouble me a lot because I knew that I was dealing with people the right way, slowly and carefully.  Then finally, it seemed that we started meeting people whom God was dealing with about their soul.  There is nothing like walking through the African “bush” and happening on some people, sitting down and preaching the Gospel, seeing them understand, and receive salvation through Jesus Christ.  What a Saviour!

 

Pray for the converts and the literature that went out to find “good ground.”  And pray that we might be able to make more trips up there and eventually send a brother up there to start a work.  It is a needy, needy area and a real place for prospective missionaries to ask the LORD about.  Thank you for praying and giving to help us reach these eternal souls with the Gospel.