a New Meaning to Home School

This week I have been priveleged to be going to see the different projects that Visionledd has been overseeing in Zambia. Our travels brought us to Mukukulu, where we held a massive party for the students of a community school. A community school that started with some humble beginnings.

Theresa, a teacher at a local government school noticed all the kids around her neighbourhood unable to go to school because they had no money for school fees. It broke her heart and she decided to do something about it. Unable to quit her job she began teaching the kids in her home after school and on weekends. The kids would sit on the floor and learn.

The week Richard Brown (visionledd director) came to visit, the students were huddled on the floor of the house. It was during the rains and the floor was basically a big mud puddle, but it was the only place the kids had for school. Now I am happy to say thanks to some Canadians there is a brand new community school for kids that wouldn't be able to go otherwise.

The day we came, we were able to hand out school uniforms, and through a huge party for the 3 room school that has 350 kids (do the math). It was hot and cramped, but it was a happy day- especially for Theresa.

Training leaders to Eat- our new motto

Don is a pastor from Montreal who has recently decended on zambia and our college here in Kitwe to begin a practical leadership school in Zambia. Leadership, mentorship, management are things that we learn to get better at. No one is born a Winston Churchill, or an Abraham Lincoln, these men had years of training, years of hard knocks prior to the iconic nature we now immortalize them in.

Zambia is in the generation of hard knocks. They are growing up into leadership of churches, communities and countries having been stripped of role models because of years of colonialism, followed by the devastation of HIV where many parents simply disappeared leaving kids to grow on their own.

Todays leaders have never had mentors. Many of the countries early leaders had to learn on their own and don't have the skill to pass it on. Over a nice meal at the local lake and his wife's amazing....AMAZING lemon tarts made with fresh lemon zest, we talked about what he was thinking. Although his focus and invitation is to work with pastors he feels it isn't theological training they need, but mentorship and good management training. Pastors need to pass on their skills, share their resources. Having heard my interests in being in Zambia he says, 'Rob I think that you are here at a very good time to help us see TTC become a training centre for all of Zambia.' That made me feel good, but here is why. Don sees that a primary thrust has to be helping churches start businesses, build skills into their churches will transform communities the very thing we think needs to happen.

I'm bottom line excited because I see a whole bunch of things coming together. It is nice to know that we aren't the only one thinking that these things are important. And feeling in many ways we may be in the right place at the right time. In February we begin building a skill training centre where we will begin training pastors and community leaders in this area, giving them business skills. I am beginning a class called the 'biblical basics of business' to help get students started on their own income generating schemes.

Thinking about Barry Ilunga (see today's other post) and his 2000 hectares needing development. I am overwhelmed with the potential that is sitting out there to be pounced on. So here is a plug. If you have skills to offer and want to come. Trades (electrical, plumbing, concrete, wood work, masonary) and want to come to do some training we would pull people together here and let you loose on them. Or if you are interested in investing in our not yet created business development projects and want to start with some seed money. It would be a tremendous gift.

Lean into the things in front of you and there you will find God's Kingdom.


cheers

Eating in the Dark

As we wander the maze of unfinished buildings Kate and I remember pouring the floor of the house of the Ilunga's. Then it was only a foundation in the middle of a field. We had brought our youth group from Guelph to come help the 10 child family, build their first home. The Ilunga's are church planters of amazing caliber. Without a car, they would pile their kids on backs of trucks to head out into the bush of Zambia and beyond telling people about Jesus. A lot has happened in the 10 years we have been away. There is not just one building at their home, but many. Barry shows me the frame of a new project which is to be a missions training center. We tour another nice finished house that is housing a woman from the UK who has come to help in the clinic the Ilunga's have started in the north that services 15,000 people.

If you haven't gotten the underlying picture yet, money is no barrier to this amazing family. When money comes in it is spent, building the things that God has put in front of them to do. As we talk around the outdoor fire as our cassava leaves are being cooked I marvel that for a couple that never has cash a lot has been built including their own house. We talk about the projects he has on the go I ask well how are you supporting yourselves?

Barry tells me how they have been given 2000 hectares of land and all they need is an investor. The land is virgin forest on the edge of a river. Barry is planning on building an executive lodge to cater to a nearby mine. He tells me how the mine has agreed to buy food locally if it can be produced. All we need is some start up capital he says. If we can start out then we can build another school and a clinic. 'I want to start by putting in 20,000 pineapples,' Barry says, 'I have 200 already.' Two hundred pineapples is no where near 20,000 but for him it is a start.

When we came to Zambia I had a feeling that what we were here to do was to help people like Barry build sustainable businesses that would help put money back into the rural poor and neglected communities of Zambia. For some time I have been saying to Kate, 'All I need is some land.' Here Barry is sitting on 2000 hectares of prime agricultural and leisure land.

We left Barry and his wife Frida in the dark after a great dinner- no power to pay the hydro bills I guess. As we drove home in the setting sun, I was wondering how I could help. What potential could be tapped to create jobs for Zambia's rural poor? Little did I know that the very next day another piece of the puzzle would be put in place when I meet with a new guy in town Don Mann and he tells me why he is in Zambia.

old life in a dead tree

I met Aidan Mwewe today. I've seen him before biking around the college on his bicycle with a chainsaw strapped to the back of his bike. I went to see his work cutting down one of our large Jacaranda trees that had died. When I found him he was 30 ft in the air chopping a branch from one of the upper limbs. What surprised me wasn't that he was not tied in and merely clinging to the tree with his legs, but it was that Aidan is on the verge of his 64th birthday. I said to him in absolute shock, 'you're how old?'

Aidan has been cutting trees since 1974 when he bought his first chain saw. 'I know these machines very well,' he said, 'I can fix them very well, keep them sharp, and I know how to make them cut the wood fine.' Aidan I would guess has no retirement plan and when I asked why he still cut trees, he simply said, 'it is what I do.' It made me think of how many 60+ year olds who would be willing to climb a tree to cut it down. It also made me think of retirement and that I didn't want to be climbing trees when I was 60. Cutting trees I told him, 'was for young men.'

A maggot Tale

I should be prepping for my History of Christianity II course, but when pull a maggot from your leg.....you should take a minute to tell everyone. So here is how it goes. For a few days now I have had two growing pussy like boils on my thigh and lower leg. Cameron had a similar boil on his leg which made me think, it could be from a biting insect which is prevalent right now. Simply mosquito bites gone bad. I had tried to pop it, but to no avail and instead decided to treat it like a boil. My sister in law even called from Costa Rica to give a home remedy for boils. Take hot water every 10 minutes, apply compress. Apply anti-bacterial soap. Keep clean the advice reads.

Today loosing patience with the monumental size it was growing too, and the pain that occurred when the muscles were flexed I decided to take matters into my own hands-literally. At this point the diameter of each is about the size of a quarter, and there is a large white center. I would call it puss, but I know better now. Regarding the pain I knew that I would have to squeeze the boil hard if I were to release the pressure.

Taking both hands and using a tremendous effort with both thumbs I worked the boil. It was several painful attempts before I began to see progress and the boil begin to release liquidy ooze. Encouraged by this and somewhat happy that the self inflicted pain made my leg feel better, I pressed on so to speak. All of a sudden in one big go a large pussy-like center came from the wound. A little squeeze fully released this whitish, and somewhat pointy object.

What shocked me was the small mound lying on top of the quarter sized boil was itself-wriggling, much like a worm looking for it's hole. Under close examination it was a maggot looking for its hole. Surprised and disgusted I realized this too is what was growing on Cammie's back which at this point was causing him great discomfort. I ran to the living room pinned him to the couch and squeezed....Again- a nice white maggot erupted from the boil.

Now I have a background in entomology (the study of insects) and have for years been aware of the presence of parasitic larvae in Africa. Every laundry we leave clothes out to dry an extra 24 hours to prevent such infections. It is one of the ways in which our life here is nuanced by our location. Whether this insect living in my thigh is one from our laundry or from some other source the important thing is....it is out! But, it is now time for investigation. I invite all my curious and now disgusted readers to suggest both the insect and the mode of infection.

I usually tell people, if you are going on a missions trip, take me along because I will for sure be an attraction to whatever parasite is there. One more reason I should stay out of Brazil. Our neighbor Chris has just walked in, with a large boil on his face. We are preparing a boil party. Gotta run.
In closing I would like to say sorry to Niki, who for sure isn't going to visit us now. Happy hunting for our little white wriggling parasite, let me know what you come up with.

Community Farming

From life in zambia

Trans Africa Theological College, where we are staying, has about 3 hectares under agriculture production as a demonstration farm. We currently have a grant from CIDA to do this. My challenge is to help out in every way possible to get the farm to be profitable in the next 3 years. That is why I am here, but the farm itself is really a side story. Since beginning the demonstrations last year we have trained 150 community people. These community leaders are learning conservation agriculture techniques. Every week they come to see how we do it, in exchange we are giving them their own land that they can farm.


Outside our college and between us and the nearest compound Racecourse, there are plots where these people are practicing what they learn. The place is mind blowing with its potential. The place is transformed. Imagine your neighbours coming to your house to learn something and then you all going into business together. This is what this is like. The amazing thing is it is going to change the way agriculture is done in this region. Racecourse is a shack town. Very few houses have water or sewage, the kids play in the garbage dump. One of our workers left work early because his roof blew off the other day. He is lucky most have bags covering holes in their houses. The land we give them to farm is going to provide extra money for these people. The things they learn are going to produce more food for their families. This is what our agriculture project is doing in the short term.


This year the goal for the program is to begin setting up community farms on the traditional land in front of the college, starting a seed bank to provide quality seed for the people who need it. We will also be investigating starting a co-op to buy back the harvest this year to see if we can get a better price if we farm together. Our community classes will also train another 200 people.

Hick town

From life in zambia

To say we are in a hicktown would be relatively well defining. The grocery store is usually a place where one can buy the things that you may need for say baking. However our store carries some produce when it comes in. They carry it….but only when it is in. Case in point, brown sugar we can get, but only 1 week a month. The good thing is that if one shops around at the other lesser known stores, that cater to the muzungu (aka whites), we can usually, with a little driving get everything we need. The danger of driving is of course driving.

Potholes and speed bumps here are known as the silent police. They keep drivers honest. There are other hazards of course like the taxi buses that stop randomly to let passengers on and off. Of course the biggest obstacles on the roads are the broken down transports that block roads sometimes for days at a time. The major highway in town here had a lane closed for 6 days before it was towed.

Being part of a hicktown isn’t all that bad. It is kinda fun to see the kinds of things one can pick up in random ways. I had a guy last week approach my car to sell me stuff and he pulls out a brand new iphone selling for- $150. Solutions have to be creative here. When you have only rocks to scratch together to make money people here get very creative, and very simple in their approach to business. In this sense business is booming in Kitwe. From leather belts, to street grub and even the occasional iphone people will sell and fix almost anything for very little. The opportunity for us as westerners isn’t just to pump badly needed money into the economy simply by buying groceries, and knockoff watches from street vendors, but also in the very simple expertise we bring to business.

One of the great privileges of teaching at the college to the students and the community leaders is the opportunity to encourage people to branch out, try new things, test niche markets, sell their produce at higher market prices. All of the basics of small business that in very life changing ways make a difference. This week I showed someone how to double their profits. By teaching good agriculture practices farmers this year will be making 5 x the profits from last year. Change comes slowly but the good thing about being in a hick town is you can see it changing.

A photo journal of life in Zambia

We thought the best way to show you what life was like was in pictures. Here is some photos of what life is like.

BE A ZAMBIAN HERO- PLANT A TREE

The rate of deforestation in this country is ALARMING! We see evidence of land burning and trees being cut everywhere. The question I heard a missionary raise lately was, ‘I wonder if anyone is planting trees to replace them?’ The question stuck in my head. The likelihood of a trees being planted somewhere in my experience seems absolutely remote. It has been the hardest thing to try to teach people to value trees- why? Well because in a culture that doesn’t expect to reach old age they have never seen the value of a tree grow. Never appreciated the shade a planted tree has brought. In a culture where everything is about surviving today, a tree that will produce fruit 6 years or shade in 10 years is just too low on the priority scale to notice. I came up with this slogan and I want to make it into a t-shirt, ‘be a hero plant a tree.’
I don’t just want to plant a tree though. I want to plant 1000 trees. 1000 trees in the next 2 years. This year’s goal is 500, next year I want to have started a nursery to plant the rest. You can see the pictures of the farm where we are developing. I notice 1 thing……where are all the trees? When I see people wilting in the hot sun I think, ‘where are the trees?’ When I see a malnourished baby with a distended belly just outside our gates in a country that has trees that can produce fruit 365 days of the year, ‘where are the trees?’ I want to pack every available space with a tree, for soil conservation, for shade, for water retention, and for fruit! A tree costs $3. Help me plant some trees, buy the whole orchard and I will name it after you. The nursery that we begin this year will become a seedling bank and enable us to get trees to vulnerable families.

100 orange trees
100 banana trees (300 more next year)
100 papaya trees (which will produce fruit this year)
50 mango trees
30 avocado trees
50 guava trees
70 ornamental trees (maybe some grapes if I can find them)


Donate Today: click here and designate for John and Ruth Kerr c.o. community development project.

October Update from Rob and Kate

October UPDATE from Rob and Kate
________________________________________
Greetings, from the supplier of your household plumbing: Kitwe, Zambia. It is great to know that we have contributed here to such a basic and essential thing in your house…..your copper pipes. Kitwe’s only claim to fame is its massive production of copper. The mines have been booming here since copper prices have hit an all time high. Unfortunately for the local Zambian this hasn’t trickled down into jobs for the average worker. Unemployment is high, and poverty is everywhere. Having said this I am amazed at how different life here is, 10 years after our first visit. The shops have food and clothes, supplies are coming in all the time, small business is everywhere. It is a good season for Zambia and for us.
We are feeling more settled in Zambia as we near our first month anniversary. We jumped right in with teaching classes, preparing the farms for the rains (which came today YaHH!!). What has complicated things is Cameron getting malaria, which has taken 2 rounds of medicine to cure and Simeon spreading Impetigo to all of us, who incidentally are benefiting from topical antibiotics. It takes a lot of energy battling stuff like this so far from home. As for work, there is no shortage of things to do. Training in just basic things is so badly needed here. I can’t tell you the number of pipes held together with rubber bands. Picking your battles and being at ease with the fact that everything will be just a drop in the bucket, makes life bearable and sleep possible. As we begin to figure out what it is we really need to do here, there are a few holes we feel really need to be addressed and we need your help to do it. There are 3 projects we would like to begin as soon as possible, which is when the funds come in.

The TTC playground: Operation get the kids off the water tower.
I feel so Canadian realizing that my first pet project is a playground. In North America we have privatized play. Many people I know don’t even go to public parks, but have the play grounds in their own backyard. This makes play safer, convenient and very different from here. In Zambia every toy is precious, especially for us because we didn’t bring any. Toys are shared and fought over. There often aren’t many to go around. You can imagine when every extra is going into paying for education our family students there isn’t a lot of toys at home. What’s more is that most kids are just left to make play for themselves. It isn’t normal to play with kids, to make an effort to notice them. Our kids are making do with what they find, which unfortunately is a leaky water tower and our farm equipment- the tractor is a favorite.
On our grounds there are several families that are studying here, at present that accounts for 20 kids. This has provided an instant play group if not a constant one. Imagine 20 kids in a small area sharing a few toys-crazy! Or 20 kids with no unsupervised safe place to play….no backyard, except an equipment yard- Dangerous! The number of kids swells at conference time and our training classes. We would love to make some simple structures, a swing, a monkey bar, a slide. This is about more than just play space it is also to help the families here imagine and model play with their kids. It is an opportunity for them to turn towards their kids and focus on them. Our goal is to look for recycled materials, and creative things that can be reproduced in the slums that surround us.
Playgrounds are places to earn your stripes as a kid-they are places to imagine and dream. It is on playgrounds that adulthood is formed. We in a very, very small way want to help model this here. If you would like to help we are trying to raise $2000 to build a sweet structure that will also employ some people. Better yet come and help build it. Hopefully this is the first of a number of structures we can build here and in the surrounding neighbourhoods.
BE A ZAMBIAN HERO- PLANT A TREE
The rate of deforestation in this country is ALARMING! We see evidence of land burning and trees being cut everywhere. The question I heard a missionary raise lately was, ‘I wonder if anyone is planting trees to replace them?’ The question stuck in my head. The likelihood of a trees being planted somewhere in my experience seems absolutely remote. It has been the hardest thing to try to teach people to value trees- why? Well because in a culture that doesn’t expect to reach old age they have never seen the value of a tree grow. Never appreciated the shade a planted tree has brought. In a culture where everything is about surviving today, a tree that will produce fruit 6 years or shade in 10 years is just too low on the priority scale to notice. I came up with this slogan and I want to make it into a t-shirt, ‘be a hero plant a tree.’
I don’t just want to plant a tree though. I want to plant 1000 trees. 1000 trees in the next 2 years. This year’s goal is 500, next year I want to have started a nursery to plant the rest. You can see the pictures of the farm where we are developing. I notice 1 thing……where are all the trees? When I see people wilting in the hot sun I think, ‘where are the trees?’ When I see a malnourished baby with a distended belly just outside our gates in a country that has trees that can produce fruit 365 days of the year, ‘where are the trees?’ I want to pack every available space with a tree, for soil conservation, for shade, for water retention, and for fruit! A tree costs $3. Help me plant some trees, buy the whole orchard and I will name it after you. The nursery that we begin this year will become a seedling bank and enable us to get trees to vulnerable families.
100 orange trees
100 banana trees (300 more next year)
100 papaya trees (which will produce fruit this year)
50 mango trees
30 avocado trees
50 guava trees
70 ornamental trees (maybe some grapes if I can find them)

Come and be a part of our SKILLS TRAINING
We have a building currently under construction that will house what will be a new shop for trade development. When someone says to you here, ‘I know how to fix that-car, a bike, a leaky tap’-BEWARE! We know as Canadians duct tape can fix anything, but should it? By early next year we hope to have begun training in a variety of simple trades each of the 200 bible college students. We hope that all of them graduate knowing how to exegete scripture and work with their hands. Everywhere around us though is opportunity to pass along help. I asked a group of adults, ‘can you tell me what compost is?’ NO ONE could. The wealth of knowledge we have as Canadians is unbelievable. You could be a help in many, many ways…..so come!
Just to encourage you more. We could use:

• plumbers
• carpenters
• farmers
• concrete guys, tillers
• nurses/ doctors/ nutritionists
• food service people
• friendly people
• pastors

What could this look like: We can accommodate people coming on short term teams-anytime. Guests would stay with us on the college campus and get a feel for living in semi rural Africa. Depending on your skill and what you would like to do we can customize an amazing, life changing trip for you, or your team.
Spend time here training the future church leaders of Zambia at the college. Bring your skills to the people in greatest need by training community and business leaders from the poorest neighborhoods of Kitwe. Go off in your downtime and visit rural churches, or head out to the lake to fish, and when you are totally spent- head down to the Zambezi River and visit Victoria Falls, or head to see some animals on a safari.
If you want to think about coming, let’s start talking and planning. Send us an email.

Keep up with our travels on our blog: www.withkidsintow.blogspot.com

PLEASE NOTE: If you would like to contribute to us or the projects we want to get started:
We have streamlined our donations to Loads of Love. Loads of Love is the Canadian Charity that is directly involved with this project in Kitwe and will transfer funds directly to us.

www.loadsoflove.ca
please designate all donations to: Kitwe Zambia Community Development Project.

Late Late and more Late

This is the theme of our trip from Madrid to Zambia. We nearly missed every flight and every connection. The flight from Madrid to Heathrow was actually forced to sit on the runway till we could haul 3 kids from one end of the airport to the other.....Never fly IBERIA. However, 3 flights, 3 trains, a bus and a car ride and 24hrs later......Ndola airport.

Fortunately we had a bit of reprieve in the Kerr pool. They took us in for the weekend. Now some more humble dwelling at the Transafrica Theological College.

We had an awesome time in Spain biking the hilliest country in Europe. We could not believe how challenging and rewarding it could be....I don't want to give it away, because we will be blogging about it shortly.

After Europe Zambia is a bit of a culture shock. In our first 2 days we were faced with the death of 2 people via Malaria. It is hot....we are dirty, the shower doesn't work, the kids are sleeping in a tent because there are no mosquito nets, but we have already begun building, networking and kate is teaching English. There is a huge crunch to get some plants in the ground here too because there are 3 weeks till it rains.

More to come soon.

R

Next on Tap- Zambia

We want people to know that we are planning on landing in Zambia after we spend 10 days in Spain. We are going to help consult on some agriculture projects and to really get a grasp on how we can help sustainable agriculture projects for NGO's. Its cool because we are returning to build a farm project we started in 2002. It will be a training centre for people from across Zambia, literally impacting 1000's of people.

There is a serious need and crisis in SubSaharan Africa. There is constantly the threat of food shortages and yet Africa produces 1/15 what we do in the west on the same amount of land. It seems to make sense that people feed themselves. But how do organizations responsible for 1000's of orphans feed their own? How do villages who care for orphans and widows grow enough to feed everyone? These are the questions we want to dig into for organizations like:

VisionLedd and Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, and others if we get a chance.

Where we are at this point is needing about $14,000 to support us on this leg of the journey. This will get us there, give us the startup we need. We really feel like this will come as we start doing the stuff. If you can help we would appreciate it. PAOC has offered to allow us to fundraise and offer tax receipts through them. What it could look like is a monthly donation, or a lump sum. Whatever. Basically we need 20 people to give $100/month, or 14 to give us $1000. Trick is we have a short timeline to raise it or we will have to come home. If you know of someone who likes giving to Africa pass along the note.

In any case, we believe it is the right place for us to be going, but have no way of making it happen. So, if you pray....pray. We will let you know how it turns out. We are so thankful for all the ways stuff has already come together. The gifts we have received that have gotten us out the door and 1/2 way there.

house concerts, strollers, garage sales, gifts....the list goes on.