Newfrontiers in Zambia

by Neil Rabey & Gary Welsh

Various members of the Newfrontiers family have been involved with the nation of Zambia for over twenty years now, but the path has been hard and success has been slower than we wished for.

Having taken on the apostolic baton for this nation from Simon Pettit in 2005, Gary Welsh has laboured to develop relationships that will take the gospel further into this amazing nation.

Church planting in Livingstone amidst great poverty with all the related issues has thrown up many challenges. However, this year the church has been helped to purchase a piece of land and a simple structure will be erected over the coming months. We are in the early stages of planting in Lusaka and are currently gathering a group of about 15.  In September Chris and Elizabeth Wilks from Bexleyheath will be relocating for a year to help with the church plant.

2011 has been a year of significant progress. In March we gathered approximately 30 church leaders from all the churches we are currently working with in Zambia plus a number of other church leaders ‘looking in’ to Newfrontiers and its values.

In May, funding was secured for a substantial chicken farming project to be started; “the best news in 10 years” commented one of the Zambian apostolic team members. The size of the project and the income it will potentially generate promises to take the churches beyond dependency on outside donors to being able to fund their own apostolic initiatives.

In August, the first “Together on a Mission” conference in Zambia took place at Kitwe in the Copperbelt. This was a significant milestone as it was the culmination of many long years of relationship building and drawing together of people from around the world. Leaders of churches in the UK (Bolton and East Grinstead) joined with those coming from South Africa to serve the churches represented there, which now total around 30.

There are many other churches “looking in” at what we are doing in Zambia and the seeds that were sown many years ago are being nurtured and over the next few years we are expecting growth in the churches as well as the emergence of an indigenous apostolic leadership.

The prophetic word to “change the expression of Christianity throughout the world” can have many contextual applications but none more so than in Zambia where for those already involved in this part of the world it is becoming a reality.  Visit www.hcchurch.org.za to find out more.