Staff Blog

The people of Musokotwane are particular about who they let into their chiefdom, especially when it comes to western missionaries. The royal family takes their responsibility for their people seriously and are very protective of them. All visitors to the area are asked if they have the permission from the royal palace to be in their villages, and if you haven’t gone through the proper channels, they escort you to the palace so that you can sit down with a man like Evans Musokotwane in order to be educated in the ways of his people. Most often he will smile at them and thank them for their interest, and then politely point them in the direction of another chiefdom that they are welcome to work in.

For the past couple of years we have been able to build a wonderful relationship with Evans in which we have been able to share our heart and what we have to offer the people of Musokotwane. We have been allowed to bring in short term evangelistic teams and pastor conferences and he likes what he has heard. Due to the relationship and the message that we preach, Overland Missions has been given exclusive access to the entire chiefdom. Evans has asked us to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all four corners of Musokotwane and has been in the process of spreading the news of his acceptance of Overland Missions. He has personally been traveling throughout the chiefdom and meeting with the leaders and headmen of all of the villages to explain who we are and what we bring. On July 15th Pastor Jeff and I were invited to go along with Evans on one of these said trips.

We left from our missions base at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at the royal palace at 8:30 a.m., then drove an additional three hours to the village of Sinendende. When we arrived we were greeted by several headmen who broke into huge smiles and laughter as I greeted them in their own language. They had us sit down in seats of honor among the leaders as we waited for other people from the village to arrive. There were close to 60 people in total when the meeting began. The senior headman, Francis Nyemba, greeted everyone and proceeded to open the floor for us to speak.

Evans himself translated for us as we shared with the people about the different branches within Overland Missions. We explained that we weren’t coming in to cause division, that we weren’t coming to take anything from them, but that we want to come and encourage, strengthen and build up the people. We were then able to share the Gospel, that God loves them and desires a relationship with them and gave an opportunity for people to give their lives to Jesus. 30 people stood to their feet and came forward to pray to receive salvation. After they prayed to receive Jesus the people asked us to baptize them and we arranged to return on the 20th to do so. The senior headman then stood up and told us that they would spread the news that we were returning and that many more people would come than had come that day.

We left Sinendende full of excitement and thankfulness for the way that God has continually granted us favor and open doors with the people that we come into contact with. Almost every time we go out into the villages I am reminded of the words of Jesus that proclaim that, “The harvest is plentiful.” Time and time again I have seen the hunger that the Zambian people have for the word of God and so I’ll close with Matthew 9:38 - “Ask the Lord of the Harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.”

The Headmen and leaders from the area around Sinendende with Pastor Jeff.

The response to the salvation alter call.