Hello all,
The Northern Province of Zambia has thus far, for Overland Missions, been mostly unreached, but not for a lack of desire to be there. It had just not been the time yet. But things have changed, in the natural course of expansion of the team, and now it is time! “But what made it time?” I hear you ask. The Tonga, Tokolea, Lozi, Checewea, and various other tribes of Zambia, all have a representation of Overland in a small or a large way in their areas. But the Bemba people of the Northern Province do not. What they do have, however, is a large Muslim presence. Northern Province is considered to be a darker area of Zambia with the strongest representation of Islam in the whole country. With these considerations in mind, Overland thought it is time to make the jump and begin preparations for launching a base there. We know our God and what He does, so we are highly expectant to hear great things as Overland moves there and continues the work of the gospel in Zambia’s Northern Province! But what does this have to do with us?
In August/September, we went on a long road trip up to the Northern Province of Zambia to recon the region for the placement of a potential new base location! Very exciting, people! As Chief Chaplaincy is the only touch Overland has really had up in Northern Province in the past, we of course needed their help for this task. We were able to bring along our friend Pastor Moses, who’s in the Chief Chaplaincy dept., to assist in our endeavor as he used to be a pastor up there and has spent a lot of time in that part of the country in general.
So, we packed up our vehicles and set off from Livingstone and drove three days and 1,535 kilometers up to Mpulungu, a town along the southern side of Lake Tanganyika, near the borders of Tanzania and DR Congo. We really went from the bottom of Zambia straight up to the top. When we arrived, we met with the chief of Mpulungu to share our heart for the Northern Province and the Bembe people. He was overjoyed at the potential idea that we’d be based there and sent us to scout out some potential land locations to plant a base. We repeated this process with the chiefs in Mbala and Kasama as well. The trip was a lot of logistics but full of great fun. These are some of the things that have to happen before Overland can establish somewhere. It's such a joy and adventure to serve the team in this way.
After our trip, we had a couple of days to recharge on base and then revival week went off with a bang! If you don't know, revival week is a time where people from our teams around the world all come to get filled up with the Word and to worship the Lord together. I highly recommend this, but if you want to check out some of the sessions, they're on the youtube channel! You can click here for that. We have two revival weeks on Rapid-14 base per year and we stream every session on youtube.
Some other news within our team is with Overland Missions Music! I am a bit late to announce this, as it was released at the beginning of September, but OMM released a deluxe version of the song Behold the Lamb. It's available on all platforms whether it's Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube. Click on the image below for listening links:
For all of my Bradenton/Gulf Coast friends and family awaiting the impact of the hurricane-- I am thanking the Lord for His protection and provision for you all. You will make it through and the Lord will take care of you. This is the kind of God that He is. All of His promises are yes and amen and that's the end of the story. He's trustworthy and true. Don't forget to love on a neighbor and a stranger. It goes a longer way than you think. I love you all so much! Please keep us updated if you have ANY prayer requests.
With so much love,
Ethan & Victoria
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