Stories

This past week in an APC course,Tracy asked the pastors to share their stories of counseling situations. Pastor Mumbi relayed an experience that not only showed him to be a wise counselor, but left the students laughing.

 

Late one night at about ten or eleven, there was a knock at his door from a man in his church. This man was ready to divorce his wife and asked Abusa (pastor) to come. As they made their way through the streets of Kanyama the husband began to explain what had happened to make him want to get out of his marriage. Apparently he and his wife rented a house from his brother and sister-in-law. Shortly after they moved in, the sister-in-law took it upon herself to regularly buy food and come to the rental house to prepare it for them. The situation became intolerable for the husband’s wife and a conflict erupted. A true cat fight ensued, culminating with the wife biting off part of the landlady’s ear. For this the husband wanted to divorce his wife.

 

While still walking to the husband’s house Pastor Mumbi firmly told him that he was not going to divorce his wife and there were two reasons. Number one, biting someone’s ear off is not cause for divorce. Number two, the husband was at fault. The husband was incredulous. His fault? Mumbi said, no, you are the head of the house, and you are responsible for this woman coming into your house and interfering with your wife’s duties.

 

When they got to the rental house the landlady stood there with her ear bleeding but had managed to retain the bitten chunk of ear. Talk of going to the police filled the air. Mumbi said, “There will be no going to the police. You, the sister, who have injured this woman, will take her to the clinic and pay for treatment. This is not a police matter.” And she did.

 

To this day, the couple are faithful members of his church. In fact, a new pulpit for Pastor Mumbi mysteriously appeared one Sunday morning soon after the incident, which was also our first time visiting his church. No one knew where it had come from. But somewhere, there was a grateful couple who are still committed to one another.

 

 

Pastors Advancing through Retreating

From

Class starts today, but I just wanted to share some highlights of last term... Sorry  about the delay in posting...
Thanks for your faithfulness...
Steve







We enjoyed a great day with the pastors at our Ciyanjano day retreat. It was encouraging in so many ways. I had purchased a football for the day from an organization called Alive and Kicking but I didn't have a needle to pump it up. So, since the organization is on the way, we stopped by, got it pumped up and got a tour of the company. Click on the alive and kicking link to see their mission, It is just as impressive to see the people working, many disabled, getting a paycheck, and lunch everday. Really cool.



We then proceeded to Ciyanjano where we had a worship time led by Nathan Ngoma, our Anglican father/pastor in our group. It was great for our pastors to learn a different type of worship. He spoke about Ash Wednesday and the history behind the worship. We sang lots of hymns, which is very unusual for our pastors.



We had some time of sharing and prayer, a great football game where I redeemed myself after getting picked last (last? I never got picked last at the playground:), shutting out the famed Zulu brothers as a goalkeeper. We also had a blast throwing the football around. So funny watching good athletes struggle with throwing and especially catching since all of their athletic experience is with their feet. We also roasted some hotdogs and S'mores over a fire, which felt really nice in 80 degree heat:) We sent Pete off with a cool prayer time, too. He leaves Thursday, but this would be the last time these pastors saw him during this trip. Pete has done another significant job here in Zambia. He is a great question asker, understands the importance of dissecting the culture to minister effectively and is wonderful at building relationships... A huge thanks to Pete and to Oikos Church for letting us borrow your pastor!



We ended with a sweet prayer and worship time. It was a much needed time of rest and fellowship with these hard working pastors.