Scatterlings of Africa: June in Eastern Province: Part One, Chipata

Before May even ended, we raced off on another set of training adventures. We were in Eastern Province from about 29 May to 19 June. We drove 14+ hours from Kitwe to Chipata (one hour from the Malawian border) all in one day. The TEEZ Director, Rev. Kangwa Mabuluki, drove us all, picking up a visitor along the way in Lusaka: Josephine, from the U.K.-based organization Feed the Minds. Rev. Banda joined us the following day, and we helped to conduct a Tamar Campaign workshop, which focuses on the issue of gender-based violence, training participants in the method of contextual Bible study to address local issues. The group of 23 participants contained primarily women, from the CCAP, RCZ, UCZ and Anglican Church, from the towns/villages of Chipata, Petauke, Katete, Lundazi, Musulo, Misolo & Mambwe.

Participants work to create their own contextual bible studies which speak to self-identified issues of gender-based violence in their contexts.

Tamar Campaign participants work in groups.

One of the groups working outside

Josephine,
from Feed the Minds, one of the funders for TEEZ's work with Tamar Campaign,
was there to visit

Lunch being served in the entryway to the church building

St. Paul's Anglican Church, where we met for the Tamar Campaign. It was very well organized by Father Dennis Milanzi, the Training Coordinator for Diocese of Eastern Zambia.

Several of the women gather beforehand in a meeting hut outside the church building

Molly leads the group in sharing their contextual bible studies

Participants in the Tamar Campaign Workshop

The long road to Chipata was very hilly--very different than any part of Zambia we'd visited previously.

We had a couple days to rest before our next program. Rev. Banda took us to visit the Kangere Chieftaness, a small village run by a chief, and a young pastor, George Mafuleka, who is working there and whom had been supervised in seminary field-ed by Rev. Banda. His wife, Joyce, is a nursing student but was home for a couple days, helping with some meetings of the Women's Guild. We had a great time visiting with them and playing with their tiny little kitten.

George, Joyce & tiny kitten

George & Joyce Mafuleka outside their manse home

Huge corn fields just harvested, a small part for the pastor, the rest for the congregation's use

The pastor's share of corn--to be milled into mealie meal (corn meal)

Chicken house on stilts (behind), also notice the pumpkin growing on the grass fence

inside the RCZ church at Kangere Chieftaness

On Saturday, Ryan and I ran an all-day youth drama workshop, trying out some of our ideas for the new curriculum we'd been asked to create for TEEZ. We had done so previously in March, with youth in Kitwe, (link) but the Director thought it would be good to try it also in a more rural part of the country. We had a HUGE turnout. We had planned for between 15-25 youth, and at one point during the day there were over 45. We had to adjust how we did things, which meant not everyone got to participate in each exercise, which isn't ideal, but worked okay. It was a really fun day, and helped us refine our techniques and lessons a good deal.

The workshop was organized by Chipata UCZ Pastor Teddy Sakupapa, who was also a good friend of previous Fellows, Carmen and Bob. We had a chance to visit with him earlier during the week on one of our days off. We really enjoyed talking theology with him. At his invitation, Ryan preached on the Ascension and I led prayers in Sunday worship (the day after our workshop).