It Holds Your Stomach

“Like new born babies, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord in good.”   (1 Peter 2:2-3)

In 1953 WELS missionaries started working in Lusaka, Zambia.  A few years after their arrival, they had established several congregations in the Lusaka area as well as a mission station in the town of Mwembeshi.   As people joined the new church body, they wanted to share the Gospel message with their friends and families who lived in other parts of Zambia.

A civil servant working for the colonial government wanted to bring his new-found church back to his home village.  He invited Missionaries to go and visit his home village of Kawanda. This village is located in the Northwest Province of Zambia, about 1500 km (900 miles) northwest of the capital, Lusaka. Can you imagine what the roads in Central Africa were like half a century ago? In spite of the hardships of traveling such a great distance, in 1964 the LCCA established a preaching station at Kawanda village in the Northwest Province of Zambia near Kabompo (see map).  

A young man named Boaz Samalesu joined this new preaching station.  He had a taste of the pure Gospel. He saw that it “was good” and shared that message with others.  The preaching station grew to become a parish union of 5 congregations that were served by the same pastor.

The Northwest Province is not only far away from Lusaka in distance. The people who live there are very different culturally from the Tonga and Chewa speaking tribes that live near Lusaka and in the eastern part of Zambia. One conspicuous difference is their diet. In the Northwest Province farmers grow cassava as their staple food.

In Central Africa, every day people eat thick, sticky porridge called shima. Shima looks like mashed potatoes and is eaten along with various “relishes” (side dishes) of vegetables and/or meat. Most Zambians make shima from maize (corn) flour, but in the Northwest Province they use cassava flour. There is a saying about the shima made from cassava flour: “It holds your stomach.”   Cassava flour has large amounts of fiber and the shima that is made with it is much thicker in consistency than shima made with maize flour. Because your stomach takes more time to digest cassava shima it makes you feel fuller for longer time periods, thus the saying, “it holds your stomach.”

In January 2018 I met Boaz Samalesu during a visit to his home village in Manyinga, where the LCCA has recently established a new preaching station. Boaz had been waiting many years for this moment. He used to have to travel by foot and by bicycle over 30km (18 miles) to go to church in another village, but now his beloved Lutheran Church has come to his home village. Boaz never let go of the hope that someday this would happen, because the Gospel message filled his heart.  Like the cassava porridge that “holds your stomach”, Boaz held on to his hope for over 54 years.

The parish union that Boaz’s congregation belongs to is served by Zambian pastor Hastings Lubaba.  When Pastor Lubaba met Boaz and heard his story, he made the effort to visit his village. Pastor Lubaba has gathered a group and begun teaching confirmation classes.  They are holding weekly worship services in a temporary shelter and have plans for a permanent structure. Boaz tasted that the Lord is good, and now he is sharing this good food with others.  

Missionary Daniel Sargent lives in Zambia

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Go to this link to learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts  https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa