July Newsletter 2023 – Comegowithus

July 2023 Newsletter

Newsletter Maintenance:

Each photo has a caption under it. You may have to hover your mouse over the photo to see the caption. It is even worse on a phone. Sorry about that – we will correct it as soon as we can find a solution. It is a WordPress issue if anybody has any ideas???

CHURCH OF LIFE

1st Anniversary…BITTERSWEET!

First, the SWEET part.

Opening Day 2022

April 2023

Church of Life after the first full year.

Full House July 2023

Steve Jenkins of Shadow Mountain Church preaching on the anniversary. He was on hand at the very first service last year.

Celebrating the first anniversary of the Church of Life – recognizing all current members.

Recognizing Isaac for his faithfulness as a founding member and a recipient of one of the first acts of service from C.O. L. to its members – Isaac is getting a new prosthetic leg – compliments of the membership.

Church Of Life Women.

Renovation Church leading Praise & Worship at COL.

Celebrating 1st Anniversary with a meal.

Church Of Life Praise Team

Steve getting a plate of great food.

Pastor Ronny Byrd with Pastor Gift and Karen. Ronny got to preach at the Church of Life – a long-held dream to preach at the church plant he and the Palmetto Shores church were so instrumental in helping to plant.

Now, for the bitter part…

In spite of our best efforts, the CGWU Church of Life has hit a snag. It seems that a certain “unscrupulous” Zambian person has hatched a plan to extort $1/4 million from CGWU. Using the broken “title deed” system and his connections within the higher levels of government, he was able to produce an official title deed to our church property. The process in Zambia for land given by the chief is to rely on a letter from that chief assuring the recipient that the property is the Chief’s to give and it has not been given before. The common advice is that a letter from the Chief is as good as gold. We chose to begin construction on the strength of that letter. MY BAD!

We have now discovered that is NOT always the case. As we were awaiting our official title deed to be processed – a process that takes a very long time in Zambia – a “presumably” fake title deed was presented to a judge and we were summoned to respond.

The bottom line:

After mediation, the holder of the “deed in question” offered to destroy the document for $250,000 – saying in court that he knew we were rich and he was going to get his share.

FYI: IT IS NOT A RACIST THING! In Africa, the color of your skin is a perceived indicator of your wealth. White skin means great wealth…to some.

The Chief was angry and offered the man a double-sized portion of land in exchange – He refused.

We refused to pay the man $250,000 and were told we had to vacate the premises by August 19, 2023. We have done that.

Then, the chief offered to give us the same “double-sized” portion of land as a token of his apology to us. We accepted.

We are now waiting until we have a CLEAR TITLE to the new land in our name to proceed.

During the month of July, we vacated the premises.

Church of Life after the first full year.

Well, time to start tearing it down…

Piece by piece!

Only a shadow remains of what was.

In the meantime, the Church Of Life goes on.

Clinging to the scripture in Genesis 20:50, As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..

we are already seeing some of the “good” beginning to emerge.

Please help us pray for God’s provident direction to continue to guide us through this season of difficuty.

…in other news…

3 mission teams visited us in July:

Renovation Church – St. Joseph, Mo.

Shadow Mountain Church – San Diego, CA.

North Conway Baptist Church – Conway SC

July was a powerful month of activities. Construction projects, The Good News Club, the Church of Life excitement, and The youth sports ministry began to shine. We had women’s conferences a pastor’s conference, bush trips, prison ministry, building new church buildings, etc.

Pastors Conference 2023

65 local pastors attended a 3-day conference. The main topic was to learn how to use their new gifts – leather-bound hard backed David Jeremiah Study Bibles.

The pastors all enjoyed the conference.

The youth from Shadow Mountain High School were on hand to help hand out the Study Bibles.

Dinner was provided.

Learning the unique features of the David Jeremiah Study Bible.

One-on-one sessions were offered during break-out sessions.

Women’s Conference 2023

About 100 women attended the 3-day conference held in the Church Of Life building.

Special singing

Special lessons

Surprise food bundles were given out.

AMAZING! Each morning around 5:30 we started hearing singing. It was not a dream. It was the women from the church marching to our base house singing and praising the Lord. And each morning we were treated to a concert by these dear saints.

It took a lot to feed them all.

…and more singing.

Karen and Glenda from ZIMKO.

Construction – The New Base

Our new Base house.

Mike getting prepared to do something.

The cabinets the guys from San Diego built.

Getting the youth involved in making screens (to keep the “Mozies” (mosquitos) out.

A teachable moment.

IDK???

It helps to have a medic around for those splinters…

Don (Captain Jack – of all trades) page doing his thang!

That crew?!?!?!

Planning cabinets.

Mike Googling how its done.

Louie doing his vital plumbing thang…

The Teams

Going on a helicopter ride.

San Diego Team – What a crowd!

Coming back from the helicopter ride.

Going Micro Flighting.

Team meeting

Takin’ a ride in the new cruiser.

Culture night.

Anticipating Nshima.

What??

Full of hot air…

Come on, boys…crunch that maize!

Dressed the part.

Donna giving a Bible.

Donna & Harry in the kitchen.

Ladies Prison Ministry day.

Pals for life. Brighton and Intern Scott Resler.

SIinging around the camp fire.

Worshiping.

There is always a birthday boy or girl in every crowd.

Getting their money exchange ready.

Zambian women carry 40 pounds of water on their heads to and from the water source every day and night. Can you do it?

Posing instead of pounding…

She got the shot!

Giving the Mupani Caterpillar a try.

Sweetness.

Youth campsite.

San Diego arrives in style.

Don’s wife Dawn took one for the team on the journey to Zambia…but she survived!

…and I helped.

Renovation team at the new base house.

Football in July

Please, pray for this new ministry. It is taking off and only God knows where it will go.

We try to put on a class event so that they are compelled to join in.

Then we share the Gospel.

Bringing in our team youth to help is vital.

Preaching a compelling message.

Salvation is just that simple, guys…

…and they respond.

We are seeing big numbers of new converts through Sports Ministry.

Youth Projects

Hauling the rubbish…

Hauling the youth…

???

Loading water for future soccer tournaments.

Bringing in supplies for food packs.

Loading the rice bundles.

All done!

The Good News Club Store

Little shoppers.

Cute dolls.

Tada!

Thanks, Lakewood Campground!

I think this will do nicely!

Hi, Roma!

CLICK the button to:

Love,

Ken & Karen Buckner