Participant Blogs

She extends her hands to be kissed when she trusts you Every morning of the last two weeks I spent in Ethiopia, a happy and exciting alarm woke me up. It was the scream of  joy and jubilation from baby Nawi. She went ahhhh!! I am sure she meant “yeah! I am still alive… !” She is so beautiful like no other. She is my most adorable child in Addis Ababa. Everyday I longed to hold her in my arms and let her know that she is loved and cherished so much she will never know. I looked at her...

Renowned for its spices, beautiful tropical beaches and corals, Zanzibar is also famous for its notorious slave trade. What the slave traders used to determine which slave to sell at the highest price if they survived the harsh conditions The Island boasts of its 90% edible vegetation and a rapid growth in tourism. While that is so, we bemoan the less than one per cent Christian population. Even though slave trade was abolished hundreds of years ago, spiritual slavery and bondage is rampant. Traditional churches are vegetated and most clergy seem enervated. It's difficult to carry out work of our...

Missiles flying high in the sky and exploding a little distance ahead of us. Twenty-two years and a month ago today, something seriously went wrong at the military barracks in one of my hometowns in Zambia. It was on the Africa Freedom Day holiday of 25 th May 1988 when,as a seven-year old boy I ran unfathomable miles. Garbage City in Cairo I remember vividly the commotion every direction I looked. People were confused and scampered as the thick pitch-black smoke advanced towards us. My whole family, except for our first born sister, were at home waiting in that moment...

“Jesus asked him a third time, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' Peter felt sad because Jesus had asked him a third time, 'Do you love me?' So Peter said to him, 'Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.' Jesus told him, 'Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17 GW) It felt the same way when I was in West Africa just a little while ago. The Lord speaks in so many ways to us we should just know His voice and pay attention to listen carefully. I mean, if I was in Peter's place, I would...

The stories of my friends from East Africa have been soul-gripping and heart-wrenching. From Ethiopia through Kenya and Tanzania to Rwanda and forget not Uganda, I have been listening to my new friends tell tales of redemption and of hope for tomorrow. The good thing is that I have had time and opportunities to speak life-giving words into lives of many young people and the old alike. Classroom discussions, chats and lectures have had a profound touch in both my life and those that I have come in contact with in the past few months of my trip around East...

  "As Short as I could get it It was a while ago that I was standing in church and we sang the words “no matter what the cost, I’ll go…” and the words struck me. It is sang so easily, but is it easily met? No matter what it will cost us… will we go where He directs us? Words so easily spoken, “Lord, I am willing for anything… use me”, but what we don’t always understand is that God will take you seriously, even if you did not mean it seriously.  '   God took that to the...

I cried out loud deep inside my soul "Lord, take me out of Egypt!" as if I had been wandering in the desert like the children of Israel that Moses led. As I was sitting by the window on that plane when we were just about to touch Tunis, I felt, maybe, the same way that Moses did when he was shown the land of milk and honey and was told that he will not reach. Right before departure from Cairo Airport, check-in officials told me that I needed to be in possession of a Visa for Tunisia which I...

Ethiopia is calling!   After the good mid-year holiday we traveled back to Addis Ababa where we were to meet up with the guys who are running the most amusing rescue operation preventing infanticide.   It was in two days time that we were to travel down to Jinka, a place where an evil ancient practice called Mingi is still in effect. This is a belief that any child who is born either with defects or a peculiarity will bring an omen to the community or village. Therefore, the only way out is to kill the mingi as to prevent...

I am on an Island called Zanzibar which is about 2 hours from mainland Tanzania by ferry. It's beautiful beaches and people are like stories only told in semi-fiction books, if there is such a thing as semi-fiction. Truth be told that the world we are living in is full of half-truths. After sitting in sessions on Islam and meeting believers of islamic backgrounds, I am more than sure the god of the Qu'ran and the God of the Bible are not the same at all. How in the past I thought we served the same God is sheer ignorance...