Living alongside Lake Tanganyika in Zambia is beautiful, but also remote. Travelling by boat is the only practical way to get about. The lake also provides the main way of living: fishing. The string of villages makes up a community of around 1.5 million people, who are largely illiterate, and worship the spirits and their ancestors. Many witch doctors live in the villages, whom the villagers consult to ask the spirits to give them success in fishing and other daily needs.
For the past 14 years, many Zambians who believe in the powerful transformation of trusting Jesus instead of witch doctors, have been making their homes in the villages. They fish alongside the villagers and show the people another way to live and farm God’s way. The OM workers also support women through self-help groups, who are otherwise vulnerable to high levels of prostitution, domestic abuse, early marriages, and polygamy in the lakeside communities. “Jesus is so powerful in comparison with witchcraft,” said team leader Charles Chansa. People like him gently show the villagers an alternative to their deeply engrained practices.
Team members and a few local people travel to other villages to tell them of God’s power and goodness but need reliable transport to do so. Many other new believers in Jesus also want to choose to tell their neighbours about Him - but lack the funds to travel. As some villages are a six-hour boat trip away, funding is needed to enable village visits, training for new believers, and area training meetings.
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