CHARLIE AND SHARONNE WATT are beating us to it! Years ago after my studies at Regent College, my wife Gladys and I dreamt of a vocational centre for Ndola. Now almost ten years later under Charlie and Sharonne, the vision is becoming bricks and mortar. I’m excited about this for several reasons:

First our young people will get a practical skill. Though technologically deficient, Zambians do clamour for the gadgets of modernity, including the car. The need for motor mechanics can’t be stressed enough.

Second, not just mechanics but very good ones are in high demand. The City and Guilds certificate MFAZ will offer means a high competence level. It certainly should earn our grads jobs throughout Southern Africa.

Third, the school will add Christian character to a high tech skill. True, a technical school operating in a solidly biblical matrix is rare. But where can integrity be found other than in radical discipleship? Certainly it’s time to integrate all of life.

I expect our graduates to place love of God above money. Therefore Zambian motorists shall not fear placing cars in the hands of an MFAZ graduate. I expect our mechanics will be so ruled by the fear of God that clients will find neither a single part nor any bill tampered with.

Fourth, MFAZ will contribute towards poverty eradication. Having a special bias to the poor, a number of places will be reserved for the poorest in the community. But if one asked 100 people on the streets of Ndola, “Who is poor here?” I would be surprised if less than 100 hands went up. Poverty has to do less with lack of money and more with incapacity to change one’s own lot. Such powerlessness cripples practically every Zambian. This leads to my next point

Fifth, our school will siphon a few young people from streets and give them something with which to bring bread and butter to the table. The latest census says 60 percent of Zambia’s population is 16 years old or less. Ndola has 300,000 such youth competing for less than 3,000 places in all our tertiary schools in the city put together. And with the death of most factories in the past ten years, thanks to the harsh IMF conditions, joblessness is rife. Even if nobody employs them, a mechanic could set up by himself.

One may ask, what difference will a school of 32 make when 300,000 roam townships?

Well, once a man went into a plain to trap little animals. He stumbled on thousands upon thousands of little fish. Having missed the current as they came up to spawn, they found themselves wriggling in a bare carpet of wet grass. The man started cupping the little fishes in his hands and throwing them into the river. A friend came along. “What do you think you are doing? Will you save all these little fish, ”he queried.

“Whatever happens to the rest I don’t know. But to those that make it into the water, there surely will be a difference.”

I gave a lift to a young man yesterday. He stopped school at grade eight. What will happen to the vast majority of such youth only the Lord knows. For the 16 young men and women who will enrol annually, Mechanics for Africa Training School will offer a ray of hope. They will acquire a trade of high quality, a positive work ethic, the capacity to shape their own life now and, after all is said and done, an eternal destiny.

When Charlie and Sharonne first visited the church I and my Zambian co-trustee, George Bweupe once pastored, little did I imagine that they would catch the dream already accumulating dust on my shelf. But such are the ways of our God. May they now increase.

SOAPBOX COME TO NDOLA!

SOAPBOX, the short-term mission-project organisation, have sent a team to Ndola to help in the construction of the MFA college. As we go to press, the team are in Zambia and we will give a full report in the next newsletter.

As well as helping build the college, the team will educate and feed street children in Ndola.

The team of twelve includes seven from Charlie and Sharonne Watt’s home church, Milford Baptist Church, including Jo Takouni, who is Sharonne’s mother. The other five are from London, Worthing, two from Guildford and one from St John’s Anglican Church in Milford..

“We have a great team with the widest spread of ages ever in a Soapbox trip: 19-75,” said team leader Peter Counter, “and we’re all really excited about the challenge ahead.”

Peter and his wife Sarah (who is an MFA trustee) are no strangers to Soapbox expeditions. Two years ago they led a trip to a building project in Ecuador.

“We have found the experience of hard work, great need and different cultures really stretches the team members” commented Sarah, “but we are confident that God will provide for us and enable us all to grow in faith and in understanding.”

The team will be living in a comfortable house about 15 miles from Ndola, and so will be able to relax at the end of each day. In the evenings, Charlie and Sharonne have arranged for several Zambian friends to come and share their testimonies and experiences with the team

The team will be spending a weekend at a village in the bush, and at the end of the trip will enjoy a two-day break which takes in Victoria Falls.

WE APPLIED for Work Permits at the end of April. Two weeks later we heard that they had been refused by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which seems to be a fairly standard approach to ensure that Zambian people could do our jobs. We went straight on to appeal. We asked some of the local government people to write letters to the Ministry of Home Affairs to affirm the need for a mechanics’ school in Ndola, and for us to set it up. Two weeks later (and only 48 hrs after the submission of our appeal!) our request was granted and we now have our Work Permits.

Meanwhile we were put to the task of getting a certificate from the Ministry of Finance in order for us to be tax ‘exempt’. This means that when we import the MFA vehicle, our container or other goods, we as a charity are not going to pay the import duty and VAT on the goods, but the Ministry of Finance pays the bill for us! Those things don’t happen in a hurry, but Praise the Lord for His faithfulness to the MFA project; we were given the certificate in less then two months. We are now in the process of using the benefits from it, over £14,000 so far!

Reasons to be thankful: twenty and counting!

… and we could say much more! God has been good. Let us praise his name.

PRAYER CORNER

In view of God’s goodness to us, Charlie and Sharonne would like to ask you to pray:

“MY DREAM of becoming a mechanic started way back. In spite of my lack of money, I always kept hope and convinced myself that one day I would be a mechanic. One of my relatives heard that there was a Vocational Training Centre that had just opened. I was advised to apply, but when I found out that they were training in brick laying and carpentry, I turned it down. It was not what I wanted. It was very tempting in the sense that all my fees were going to be paid for by my relative if I enrolled on the course, but I stuck to my dream of becoming a mechanic one day.

“I knew the man who was running the bricklaying centre well. He approached me and asked me why I had not enrolled myself on their course, to fulfil my dream of becoming a mechanic later. After a long conversation with him, he said, “Well Avis you need to do what is best for you.” But before we parted he mentioned that there was a couple coming from England to open a Mechanics’ school, and that they had just bought the plot down the road from where the Brick Laying Centre is.

“All that happened about a year and a half ago. When the Watts arrived in Zambia, I went to visit them. Since then I have been helping them, and now I am looking forward to when my dream of becoming a mechanic comes true.”

FOUNDATIONS FOR PEOPLE

Every Friday, Michael (our site foreman), Charlie or I take half an hour to share the word of God with all of our workers. Since we started we have had five of them asking for Bibles and one of them, James, made the comment that it is good to hear God’s word. We are in the process of building bridges with the local people.

To God this project is all about people. Yes it is exciting to see the school building making good progress: the foundations have been dug, the road is being cleared. But most of all, our prayer is to dig deep foundations of the Word of God in people’s lives.

For us we always have to remember that the MFA Training Centre is all about the people of Ndola. Our prayer is that they—and one day we hope people from all over Africa—will come and let God build strong foundations in their lives and ours.