In late 2012, Kevin Pestke and I started an email dialogue about the issue of illiteracy among the members of Big Tree Baptist Church. He had established this church plant in the village in September of that year. People were coming to Christ and a vibrant community of believers was growing in the Lord. They had bibles printed in their native Chichewa language, but few of the people could actually read the Word. Imagine entering into a relationship with the Creator of the Universe, being able to hold his word in your hands, yet being unable to read a word of his personal love letter. The thought of that broke my heart. At Sisterhood Of Servants we wanted to do something to impact the lives of women who lived in the bush, and starting literacy classes seemed to be the perfect opportunity. God supplied everything that was needed to begin. The first humanitarian grant that S.O.S. ever made was for the members at Big Tree and to help start the literacy school. The first classes started in January 2013 with 18 students age 15-50+. Under Kevin’s leadership, the literacy school flourished. Little by little, adults were learning to read and write. The shackles of illiteracy were being broken, and they were learning to read scripture.
Fast forward to 2016: I finally had the chance to meet Johnson Lungu, our literacy teacher. He was so excited by the prospect of having an actual classroom in which to hold his classes. There are currently 26 students enrolled in 3 separate classes. Johnson has tailored the courses to meet the specific learning styles of the students. One of the courses is a class in English. Atness attends this class. She’s 67 years old and speaks/understands more English than I know Chichewa. One night after supper, she, Doreen, and I were sitting on her porch enjoying the night air and the fellowship of friends that would stop by just to say hello. Somehow we got on the subject of the literacy school. Atness said in perfect English, “I go to Johnson’s class. I’m learning to speak English and short sentences.” I ROARED with praise for her. She is a living example of someone willing to remain teachable through every phase of life.
On Monday evening I met Matthew Mwanza, the actual builder of the school. He and Zachary Tembo, my fellow board member and project manager, have been working through all the details related to the construction. Once the bore hole was installed, efforts to move forward with getting the building materials on site were ramped up. Our school requires 2100 cement blocks to be completed. However, the driver who planned to deliver the blocks could only haul 700 at a time. The first blocks arrived at 8pm Saturday night. Since it was pitch black dark, the blocks would have to be unloaded early Sunday morning before church. All the men from the farming co-op helped with the unloading. Pastor Jere and the guys wanted me to “experience” what it was like to unload and stack 700 cement blocks by hand. Doreen went with me. Oh. My. Word. I think the blocks must have weighed about 25 lbs. each. They were heavy, but I was a trooper. I didn’t unload all 700, but I did carry enough to get a couple of good pictures! 
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Sunday afternoon I was part of a round table meeting with Pastor Jere and fellow board members, Dan Jalowiec and Robert Zulu. We discussed more details about the construction of the school and the most cost effective method for getting the building materials to our job site. The village is about 1 – 1½ hours from town in the middle of nowhere. Our transport costs could easily exceed our budget for the project if we weren’t careful. I learned so much from that brief meeting and was humbled in the process. In order to prep a site for pouring the foundation, one has to have sand, stone, water, and cement. I thought the sand was sold in bags and could just be placed on top of the next load of cement blocks and brought to the village by truck. I was shocked when the men explained to me that we would be borrowing shovels for several workers to use as they dug the sand out of a nearby riverbed, one shovel full at a time! In addition, the stone for our school would be provided by men and women who spend their days breaking large boulder type rocks into small, building grade pebbles. All of the stones would be delivered in wheelbarrows to our job site by these dear people. I had a lump in my throat as I thought about the many sacrificial hours that would be invested in our beautiful school building. Lord willing, someday I’ll get a chance to meet every man and woman that held a shovel, hammer, or chisel to help us on this journey.
Update: Robert Zulu sent me a message a couple of days ago that four truckloads of sand have been delivered to our site and the wheelbarrows of stone have started coming in. Praise the Lord for faithful men and women who have a mind to work. 
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| 700 of the 2100 bricks that we'll use to build our school. |
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| unloading cement blocks from the truck |
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| zambian workers crushing stones for building materials. It's humbling to know this is how the foundation of our school will be prepped. I'm so grateful for every person that's going to be involved with our work. |
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