This year Zambia is experiencing one of the worst floods in many years. The water is flowing fast and furious destroying bridges, pulling down houses, washing away crops in the farms, causing human fatalities and creating challenges of water born diseases. Sadly, most of flood victims are people living in low-income communities and in rural areas where road and communications infrastructures are already poor and limited. Therefore, it is difficult to know the extent of the devastation. And in a nation where a society of minority high-income people is busy accumulating wealth to themselves, it is easy for such group to float along with the flood without noticing victims of the flood.
One of the low-income areas affected by the floods is Mapalo a community outside Ndola city centre where Jubilee Centre is working with 13 churches. According to the local pastors report one hundred houses have fallen and one person died when the house he was sleeping in fell on him. Over three hundred people have been displaced and about 38 families are now living in tents. When our pastor heard about this situation, he mobilized resources from members in our church who raised almost four million Kwacha in two days. The funds have been used to purchase food stuff for 50 families. When the members of the church took the food to Mapalo, they were confronted with the reality of the devastation of the floods that it led them to ask, “What must we do next?”
It would have been easy for our local church to drop the food and float with the floods back to their low density community. But by asking this question our pastor knows that during the time of floods God wants us to swim against the flow that we get to the source of the problem. This is not easy and often people who swim against the floods do so alone. We see examples of this in the Bible. Whenever Israel turned to rampant idolatry and evil and people became complacent God raised up prophets (who were in the minority) who proclaimed God’s message of compassion, righteousness, and judgment.
We praise God for his church in this nation and for the fearless people of God who through their message of salvation is bringing repentance and transformation. We are in the midst of terrible floods. God has his faithful minority, his remnant. He desires courageous men and women who will express His witness and power by going upstream and help flood victim get to the dry land. Their message may include securing land titles for low-income people who live on ‘illegal’ settlements, and empowering them to have a voice on many issues that concern them such as good road infrastructures, proper drainage systems, water and sanitation. When this message is proclaimed and demonstrated in humility and fear of God the rights of the poor, the orphans, the destitute and the oppressed are upheld (Ps. 82:3-5). The church is the hope for the nation. Is your church sharing this hope to the victims of floods?
Lawrence Temfwe
