A couple Saturdays ago, I had the opportunity to visit a feeding program that is run by Jubilee Centre, where David is the Director of Media. We drove about 45 minutes to a neighborhood outside of Kitwe, where we visited children, helped with the feeding, and David was there to document everything. Jubilee Centre has a network of over 90 churches throughout Zambia. Through partnerships in the USA and UK, Jubilee Centre supports the churches in leading community schools, feeding programs, providing bore holes - clean water, child sponsorship, youth advocacy, youth groups, and more!
Some of these young, young children were eating huge platefuls of Nshima (cornmeal staple food) with carpenta (small fish) and cooked pumpkin leaves. I couldn't believe how much one small child could put away, but then David explained to me the context a little more.
For some of the kids, every Saturday is the only time they get fed a whole meal, all week. During the week at home, they may only receive small portions of food and/or miss meals. These kids came hungry and left filled.
Before the feeding program, the kids were singing beautiful worship songs and reciting Bible verses. As I walked in to the sanctuary, the children were singing "Takwaba Uwabanga Yesu" ... "There's no one like Jesus" This song has great significance to me!
My freshman year at North Park in Chicago, we learned this song in Chapel and used to sing it, along with another Bemba song. When I first met David and he explained that he is from Zambia and specifically Ndola, I was able to relate with him by singing 2 songs from his specific tribe! It is so crazy, the 2nd largest continent in the world, with over 50 different countries, and innumerable tribes and languages, and my university went on a mission trip in his exact small town of Ndola!! Even if they went somewhere else in Zambia, the language would have been different. It is such a small world.
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