Ten women, 20 hockey bags, 250 umbrellas: a special visit to Zambia

It was a first for Women’s Ministries at Central Heights MB Church of Abbotsford, B.C. – an all-women mission trip. We were ten women from many walks of life, in our mid-20s to mid-50s, who headed off to Zambia to help at an orphanage. The children at the orphanage, or “home” as those in charge prefer it be called, are all infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

We knew something of what would greet us. We had been warned that we might just need a day to cry over what we would see. We had been given the statistics, the huge percentage of Zambians who are affected by poverty and this devastating illness.

In retrospect, I don’t think anything could have prepared us for the poverty and hopelessness we observed on our first visit to the “compounds,” the slums of crumbling clay huts that have arisen as people moved out of surrounding villages into Ndola, Zambia’s second largest city, to work in the copper mines. They were promised a better way of life, but the mines closed, leaving thousands of men without work.

We saw barefoot children with their little containers trying to get water from a central faucet pouring into a muddy puddle with no drainage to speak of. Sometimes they scooped water right out of the puddle and drank it on the spot. We saw children’s stomachs terribly distended with worms, a condition that is potentially fatal. It was impossible to guess the age of the children because they were so tiny from malnourishment. For the same reason curly black hair often turns coppery or falls out.

The huts generally consisted of one room with a curtain to fashion a makeshift bedroom. A twin-sized mattress might be on the floor with a few blankets for covering. This is where a mother and four or five children might sleep. These homes are usually windowless, close together, and without electricity. Cooking is done outside over a charcoal fire, of homemade charcoal.

In many families, the father has died of AIDS and the mother is HIV positive. When the father died, relatives took what meager possessions there might have been and turned the mother and children out with nothing. Poverty, desperation and hopelessness can make people cruel.

A few blocks away from the compounds I have described, in another part of Ndola on a tree-lined street, is a large white house. In front is a sweeping, well-kept lawn and in back are clotheslines, a playground and a vegetable garden. White concrete walls surround the property.

Inside the gate, children are playing. They are well-fed and well-loved by widows from the “compounds” who are thrilled to have good-paying jobs. The children attend school, have shoes and a few changes of clothing. Some who came to the home HIV positive from their mothers’ antibodies have now turned negative and have a bright future. Those who are still positive and don’t have long to live are held and comforted by staff or volunteers. The children’s mothers who are still alive come to visit frequently, much comforted that their children have a permanent future in such a place.

If people who are dying come to the gate and their child has no place to go, they are not refused. John and Susan Chalkias, the visionary and compassionate founders of the home, are currently looking at new property to house the children who have become negative, leaving more room in the original home for the HIV positive, and creating a permanent home with a bright future for the others. The gospel is shared with those who come, through the Jesus film or conversation. Many receive Him, the Giver of lasting hope.

During the weeks we were there, we got to know a variety of women who have connections to the home, each with her different personality. It was a joy to be involved in their lives, even if briefly. We had each been told to fill two 70-pound hockey bags with clothing, food and medication. And we’d been told to bring, of all things, 250 umbrellas! The women received these umbrellas, which will protect them both from the sun and the torrential rains, with great gratitude and joy, directed not to us, but to their heavenly Father who had provided for their needs in this way.

The biblical mandates to “visit the orphans and widows in their distress” and to “go and preach the gospel to every creature” drive John and Susan Chalkias, and Bill and Susan Bartleman, our friends from Central Heights Church (who are deeply involved with this ministry and inspired us to go on this very special trip). They have done far more than wring their hands over the needs of Zambia. Instead, they are shining a bright light into a “hopeless” situation. It was a wonderful experience for us to contribute to the glow, if even for a short time.

Ruth Thoutenhoofd is pastor of women’s ministries at Central Heights MB Church, Abbotsford, B.C.