Hannah Moore

So, here begins another year in Ndola and hopefully a year of less sporadic blogging. Since landing a week ago my time has been a wonderfully pleasant blur of catching up with friends and colleagues and planning our year with School Mission, which incidentally is shaping up to be possibly the best year ever.

I’ve had a few quiet moments to sit and reflect on the journey that God has taken me on and look forward to what He has in store for me in the future. I have never known great wealth or high status in my life but I can agree wholeheartedly with the great John Piper when he says that ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him’. As I look back on where God has brought me up until now I can say with complete confidence that there is no better place to be than at the centre of God’s will for your life. I know that I am in a very privileged position to say that what I do for a job brings me complete and utter satisfaction and it’s my hope that I don’t waste that privilege but that through it, God will be glorified in my life.

I’ve been challenged so much by reading about the ministry of Jesus… “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1 v 14). He become incarnate, put on flesh, took on the form of man and came to dwell among us. And wherever Jesus, God in flesh, went he brought change and transformation. It couldn’t be any other way: where Jesus is….things change. Capwa!

Our vision at School Mission is transformation. It is our desire that as we take the power and principles of Jesus into schools, the Word becoming flesh as it dwells inside of us, that we will see transformation. And the double double joy is that if Jesus is dwelling in me, then I will also be changed and transformed, more and more into his likeness as well. Ace.

We have decided here in Ndola to take a different approach this year in that we will concentrate only on 2 or 3 schools. Over the next week or so we will spend time meeting with the head teachers of these schools and allow them to share with us their burden for their school. We will then be able to come along the staff in helping to deal with the individual problems that the school is facing: whether it be vandalism, drugs, teenage pregnancies, abuse or all of the above.

And where Jesus enters, things will change…..

I’ve been meaning to write a post to try and sum up the past 10 months in Zambia. Without a doubt, it’s been the best 10 months of my life. It’s not always been easy but God has always been faithful.

I thought there was no better day than today to talk about the things I’m thankful for, as today is the day that my American friends celebrate thanksgiving. For sure, my heart is full to bursting with thankfulness.

Instead of writing though, I’ve stolen my friend Kristin’s idea instead and have posted a video of all the things that I have to be thankful for. Enjoy!

Untitled from Hannah Moore on Vimeo.

This evening I spent some time with one of the student nurses that I’ve met through School Mission. She’s pretty much one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. We had dinner together and shared about all the great stuff that God is doing. It was good and refreshing.

After dinner we went back to her place to visit one of her aunties who is very sick and very close to death. She has open sores and her whole body is swollen which makes the skin itch. It was somehow the most beautiful thing to watch. My friend carefully and lovingly lifted her head to give her some much needed water and scratched her itching back while I looked on. Then she lent over and gently, quietly prayed over her dying auntie.

A beautiful act in the midst of death.

Just over dinner we had been talking about 24/7 prayer and how, inevitably, when people are in constant intercession…..something has to change. God has to move.

I can’t wait for the day when Ndola has an army of young people who are day and night offering prayers to God on behalf of this city and this nation, followed up with courageous acts of mercy. I can’t wait to see hundreds of Funga’s across this city who care for the sick and the dying and believe God to see the miraculous happen. I can’t wait for the evidence of God to be so real and so tangible that people can’t help but bow down in his presence.

I’m definitely a water lover. Whether it’s a river, lake or just a pool, I love to swim and splash around. These days it’s getting warm so I swim most days to cool down.

But there are days when the clouds appear and the wind picks up and it’s a bit harder to take the plunge. On those days I can find plenty of other things to do to keep me out of the pool. And when I do get outside, I stand on the edge and brace myself. It’s an effort to jump.

But once I’m in, it feels great……..refreshing.

I’ve felt really distant from God lately. My lack of discipline to spend time in his presence has left me feeling…….dry.

I read Psalm 42 today:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my souls pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”

My soul has been panting for God and yet instead of diving straight in, I’ve been hanging around the edge, occasionally dipping my toes in….missing out on the wonderful refreshing that comes from being immersed in Him. The Psalm goes on to say:

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me”

However reluctant I am to jump into the pool, I never regret it when I’m in and the water flows over me and my body is refreshed. How crazy that I find 100 other things to do when I could be diving into the water that refreshes my soul.

Jump.

Just to let you know that School Mission now has a brand spanking new website!

Check it out here and have a look around and see what great work School Mission is doing in Zambia. Feel free to email us at School Mission if you have any comments.

You can also follow us on twitter or like us on facebook.

And keep an eye on this blog, I’ve made a promise to write once a week and I can already feel my creative juices flowing again. And if that fails, Laurie will be in Canada and won’t be able to hassle me so well from there.

I am being reminded on a fairly regular basis (thanks Laurie) that I haven’t written a single word on this blog for a very long time. I laugh it off and say that I’ll get round to it soon, but the reality is that it’s really bothering me, this underlying feeling of guilt. It’s really got nothing to do with actually blogging, but simply a complete and utter lack of any creativity lately. It’s not just that I haven’t blogged. I haven’t written a single word in my journal, haven’t taken a photograph that I love, haven’t looked at a sunset and marvelled in awe and wonder at the outrageously creative God of the universe.

This is now my 16 Month of living in Zambia and so my first excuse was that, sadly, life here has become normal. A terrifying thought. The kids walking miles to school with wrecked shoes. Normal. The generosity and hospitality shown by people who have nothing. Normal. The injustice that used to make me weep and cry out to God. Normal.

Then there’s the excuse of a frustrating season in School Mission. The pupils are sitting their exams now which means that instead of being in school, it seems that we are spending our weeks working on websites and editing spreadsheets. It’s all good and necessary and will ultimately set School Mission on a much firmer foundation but I guess it just makes me frustrated. I miss being in school. I miss the excitement of seeing young people grow more and more in love with Jesus, I miss the goosebump feeling of hearing a group of pupils singing to their saviour, I miss the sight of young people crying out to God on behalf of their nation. I miss the laughter and the banter. You don’t get that by staring at a computer screen.

But those aren’t good excuses. Whether I’m in Africa or in the UK, whether I see injustice daily or hourly, whether I’m in school or out of school I do not want to live a mundane, normal kind of life. I want a life marked by creativity and beauty, adventure and excitement. Because I follow a God who is, and who loves, creativity and beauty, adventure and excitement.

When we lived in Manchester a few years ago, Tim and I met a girl named Jules. We saw this great bundle of curly hair and fun and decided that we wanted to be her best friends forever. That’s pretty much how cool we were. I downloaded her album this week apart from having and incredible voice, her lyrics get to the bottom of this frustration I’m in right now.

“The more I get to know, the more there is to learn. I will follow you everywhere you turn. Chasing the divine and adventure I have yet to risk my life in. I will tell the truth, I’m not all I could be but I have the proof I’m a new and different me.

You are something else, you’re powerful, you’re heavenly:

Change my world with beauty.”

That’s a feeling I get so often. I am not all I can be. There’s a constant desire and yearning for more. More of Him so that I can become more of me.

So thanks Laurie, for the kick up the bum that I needed. I think a few hikes up prayer mountain may be on the cards this week.

(Check out the mass of curly hair and fun: Jules Rendell)

Over the last few weeks I’ve been teaching the beatitudes in school. The fifth beatitude that Jesus mentions is this:

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy’.

Mercy, for me, is one of those words that I thought I understood but would have failed to adequately describe. On doing a little research I found that the word mercy means more than I expected. It’s more than just forgiveness where punishment is deserved. To be merciful is also to be so affected by the sufferings or afflictions of others that you are motivated by compassion to do something to help. Taken like that, we can see mercy as an active word not a passive emotion.

Firstly, this helped me understand the mercy of God a little more. God saw me in my sufferings and afflictions and he was active, he did something, in order to pull me out of my affliction.

Secondly, it made me realise the importance of mercy in my own life. It’s not enough to feel compassion but as a Christian I am called to go a step further and do something to help a person out of suffering, be that spiritual or physical.

Today a volunteer told me about one of the young people that I’ve been teaching. The volunteer went to his home and found that he stays alone and has no mattress or sheets, just a few bits of cardboard on the floor. It’s probably good to mention here that we are now in winter and currently I am sleeping with a duvet, thick socks and a jumper on at night. The volunteer had a spare mattress and blankets but was asking if I could use my car to transport them to the home. Mercy.

So, I’ll help move the mattresses and I’ve just been to buy a nice thick sweater for him to wear.

Merciful? To an extent.

But really, am I living a life that is marked by mercy?

Is a good deed here or a bit of cash there enough? As Christians are we marked by mercy? Or does the world know us for who we hate rather than who we love?

The majority of time that I spend with young people is spent within school and somehow that shelters me from the reality of their lives. When I see young people in school I see bright, intelligent enthusiastic characters mostly dressed in ridiculously smart uniforms. It’s only when I dropped a girl at her home last week that I saw the reality of her home life, a small 2 roomed house with no running water. It amazes me how incredible these young people are. But mostly, I’m sheltered from the harsher side.

Last night my housemate Kristi had an experience of the hideous reality of life in Zambia. She was called out late in the evening to attend to one of her young people (Kristi works in a youth and community centre in one of the local compounds). A teenage girl that they care for had been smashed around the head with a bottle by her drunken uncle. She had to escape from the uncle and walk for half an hour with a bleeding head to find one of the community workers. Kristi was then called to take them to the hospital.

Zambia has some fairly ridiculous bureaucracy, but sometimes it’s more frustrating than others. Before anybody can be admitted to the hospital they must go and get a letter of admittance from the clinic (the young daughter of a friend of mine died last year because of this system). If that wasn’t bad enough, they first had to go a file a police report.  So this young girl is taken to the police station (to pay for a report) and then to the clinic (to pay for another report) before she could even be attended to at the hospital. In neither of those places was the girl given any comfort or attention, not even the clinic took the time to wash her bleeding, gaping wound. When finally they reached the hospital the doctor jabbed the girl with needles and stuck his finger into the wound before spending an hour shaving her head and stitching her up. Again, no care was given to a young girl who was frightened and probably in shock after being viciously attacked. Kristi had to practically beg the doctor to give the girl some pain relief before leaving. To top it all off, the doctor explained that he couldn’t sign the police report so they would have to go back in the morning (if he is the one who signs it, he’s the one that will be called to court, assuming the police are even bothered enough to do anything).

How can this make you feel any less than incredibly angry? How can people be treated like this? Why does nobody care? How can this country ever change?

We have presidential elections coming up this year and, sorry to be cynical, I can’t see anything changing as a result. We have two equally old and corrupt men making ridiculous promises that they have no intention of keeping. Men who seemed more concerned with their own comfort than the state of the nation they are leading.

We don’t have a TV so I’ve not really kept up with much of the news going on in North Africa. However, from the small amount of articles I’ve read, I can only see what is happening up there as a good thing. It seems that young people, fed up with the status quo of old, corrupt, tyrant leaders, are taking matters into their own hands. While I can’t agree with the violent protests, it fills me with hope that young people are willing to challenge the system and see change happen.

I’ve said it time and time again, but the reason I love working with young people in Zambia is that they are the hope for this nation. My prayer is not that they become violent protestors who topple governments but they become passionate believers who shake the nation with their cries to God and acts of justice and mercy. Only then can things change.

Many of you who receive my newsletters, read this blog or get the occasional email from me will have already picked up on my biggest annoyance in Zambia, and the one thing that has shocked me most since arriving here last January:

Religion.

The danger of a country such as Zambia being called a ‘Christian Nation’ is that people easily pick up the ‘Christian’ name tag without ever really encountering the message of Jesus. Add to that the ridiculous acts that people are encouraged to put on in church to appear more holy (I’ve heard it referred to as charismatic gymnastics!) and you have a lot of religion without much Jesus. Alternative gospels are preached to congregations of people living in poverty, gospels which proclaim that by simply saying the right things and praying the right prayers, Jesus will make them rich and happy. Or the louder you shout your prayers, the more likely God is to answer them.

Religion.

This term I’ve chosen to teach from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in my high school discipleship classes. Personally, it’s been challenging and inspiring as I prepare for the classes each week. What I love about Jesus is that he turned everything around; completely upside down. He taught us to live by principles that were, and still are, completely opposite to the world’s system. As I told the young people this week, Jesus would have probably gotten kicked out of most churches in Zambia today – nobody wants to be told that that spiritual poverty, meekness and humility are what God is really after. But God is more concerned with our character than our status.

As much as I get frustrated with the church here, I continually believe that the next generation can change things. My hope and my prayer is that young people can shatter these religious mindsets and become transformed, passionate followers of Jesus who aren’t afraid to live by upside-down-Kingdom-principles despite what the culture tells them. It was so awesome this week to see a group of young people crying out to God that he would give them a hunger and thirst after righteousness and holiness. Not for riches or power or greatness but a hunger and thirst for more of Him. That’s flipping awesome.

Once again, apologies for not getting round to updating this blog as regularly as I should be.

Zambian Schools break up for the whole month of April which is great for them but more than a little frustrating for me! I took advantage of the break by running a leadership training course for some of the young leaders within one of the local schools. I love these guys for their passion, enthusiasm and energy so it was great to help empower them to become better leaders: both for now and the future. At School Mission we are excited about the possibility of offering an intern scheme for some of these young leaders for one year after they graduate from high school. More on that to come.

The rest of the time I have been trying to organise a new volunteer training scheme for our new School Mission volunteers. We are eager to see SMFCI expand as an organisation and one of the key ways of doing this will be equipping volunteers to work alongside us all over Zambia. This new scheme will hopefully be launched at our AGM in May.

Thanks to all who have given financially to help Theresa with her project at the farm. Things are moving fast and it’s a joy to see her excitement as things progress. The land has now been demarcated, crops have been planted and now the rains have stopped the bricks can be made.

We have just enjoyed a wonderful break over Easter. We travelled up to the North East of Zambia for a few days of camping and rest. Those of you who know me well know that I am not a happy camper but we had a great time and I even think I might be a camping convert. Maybe.

A friend of mine from keele university days has just returned from 2 weeks of midwifery practice in Malawi.  She says what of all us here feel at some point or another:

“So often I want to bottle this feeling, take it home and show it to the sceptics and the complainers. We are so blessed there, so lucky, so sure we deserve even more. How I wish I could bring even a little bit of both worlds together.”

Being in Africa makes me love and appreciate so much of our western culture and yet there are precious things here that we’ve lost at home. If only there was some middle ground. If only God could bridge the gap of our divide.

You can read more about her time at smilesinstead.wordpress.com

Hope you’ve all had a wonderful Easter.