Open-Air Meetings

This past week, the youth from the plot we live on have been handing out invitations to the local people to Friday and Saturday's open-air meetings at which the Jesus Film was shown in 2 parts. There was a childrens' program both nights, and here are two shots from Saturday night with the kids.

After that, the rest of the program began. A trailer made especially for crusade type meetings was set up with speakers and a screen on which to show the movie. There was a small musical group who came to lead in some songs, some of the youth shared their testimonies, and the movie was shown on the screen with about 250-300 people watching each night (rough estimate). After the film, Michael Pflaum, Liebenzell Area Director, spoke with a translator since most of the local people only speak a bit of English. After speaking, he invited those who wanted to trust Jesus as their Savior forward, and one of the shots below is the group of about 30 who came forward on the first night.
Follow-up will be attempted with these people, and those who are serious about their decision will be given real personal attention and discipleship as much as possible. Because this is such a religious society, it seemed very popular to go forward after the message and even to pray loudly along with the preacher, so it will be necessary to find the people who made decisions and talk to them further. Nonetheless, it was great for so many people (this was held right next to a bar area on a weekend right after end-of-month pay when it is common to blow lots of money on alcohol) to be exposed to the Gospel and be given an opportunity to respond.

(There is one clip of the film being shown with some people's heads in front , not a great quality photo but gives you an idea of how it looked)

Please pray for fruit to come from this event and that many of those who made decisions to follow Jesus would follow through and get plugged in to a local church.

Apologies for our lack of activity on the blog in the past month or two…we have been busy, but we have also moved to a new house which does not have an internet connection as of yet, so we are only using internet at the school during the daytime working hours. Anyway, most of you know we have moved to a new location and beautiful house about 5-6 minutes drive from the school. Jason has changed roles a bit and is now working as the ‘construction manager’ on the building site (basically working to plan one new buildings on campus which will house the new kitchen, dining hall, and indoor gym.) Here is a shot of Jason in his ‘office’ which is a transformed shipping container that he shares with the three other supervisors.

In the beginning of July, we had Sports Day. The primary and secondary students participated in a variety of track athletics, and here are a few shots from the day. Jason ran in what will probably be his last 4x100 m relay race and paid for it by feeling quite sick after his sprint…our team was disqualified since the final handoff didn’t happen within the zone. J

We said goodbye to the group of German volunteers who had been here in Zambia about 11 months and were working in all areas of the school. We also said goodbye to our good friends Dave and Tine who have headed back to reunite with family in Germany and Canada before heading to further mission work in Spain.

Finally, Kelly’s mom came to visit from the 28^th of July until the 9^th of August. We showed her around the school and the local area and then traveled to Livingstone to show her Victoria Falls and to take a safari through Chobe National Park in Botswana. Here are a few shots of the Falls and the wildlife we saw on the boat trip and game drive through Chobe.

We now have a five-week gap before the children return for the third and final term of this school year. Jason will continue to work on the building side of the things and Kelly will prepare her class and lessons for the last term and help in the school office a bit over the break. We are enjoying the break so far but will be ready for the kids to come back and to begin the coming term, which will be our last here in Zambia.

Pushing Through Term 2

Hi friends,

We are now in the middle of Term 2...half-term break is coming in a week and a half, and we are a bit tired, especially since the two guys who help Jason in the dorm left for 10 days on a trip to help another Liebenzell missionary put a roof on their house, leaving Jason alone in the dorm with the 25 boys. We are surviving but really needing dorm parents to come quickly who will stay long-term and really establish relationships with the boys that don't end after one year or two years since that's the way it has gone in the past for them, and it's difficult for normal children to respect their own parents, let alone kids who have new 'parents' every year...you can imagine.

Anyway, we are still enjoying ourselves and are learning and growing every day....sorry it has been many weeks since we've posted, so we'll try to recap with a few pictures and let you know what's been happening:

Some of the workers have been planting grass outside Kelly's classroom...might not sound so interesting if you are thinking in terms of grass seed...but these guys are planting blades by hand...it's difficult to see but is not typical grass, I think more like crab grass that we try to avoid at home, but it is better for dry season when there is little rain, and it grows quickly...one of the workers is in the background doing this hand-planting, and if you look closely, you can see the little sprouts they are inserting one by one neatly into the soil.


It has gotten colder in the evenings and is quite cold at night now, so we have begun to collect and store firewood...this is Mwansa and Musonda getting a ride to go collect the wood...they are good helpers and are always full of energy around the dorm :-)


Below is a shot from the Agriculture and Commerce Show we went to in the fairgrounds in Kitwe. The whole primary school went, and Kelly and I each chaperoned a group...two of Kelly's students won prizes for their artwork, and below is the kids from the school sitting with children of other schools hearing the winners announced from the art show, which was just one part of the fair, along with acrobats, plants, poisonous snake exhibit, etc. They had a nice time and don't get away from school often, so the kids enjoyed it.


Here is a shot of our front porch after stacking our own firewood on it. We have a little open fireplace in the flat which doesn't send too much smoke into the living room

We hope you are all well at home, and we will try to keep this updated a bit better (we've said that before). Blessings to you...

Term 1 ended on a great note. Many of the secondary students traveled 6 hours to Lusaka for a weekend sports tournament, which they qualified for in March. The girls came in 2nd place in volleyball for the secondary schools in Zambia. The boys came back with a huge trophy (as seen below) for placing first in soccer. They were so excited and now our little school has got a name in sports.


A few weeks ago, there was a ground breaking for a new building project on campus. The money for the new building was donated from Germany, so we are grateful to get this project started (only wish that dorm parents would come so Jason could help with it). The building will be the site for a new cafeteria and indoor gymnasium. You can see the founders below, Michael Pflaum and Phil Grove, breaking the ground.

Our term also ended great for another reason. Jason's parents arrived 2 days before the end of term for an 11 day visit. It was great to have them here to meet some of the staff and students before everyone left for term break.

We made a 2 day trip (total of 14 hours driving) to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls and take a one-day safari trip. Since we are at the end of rainy season, the falls were very full of water. The mist was so strong that you could hardly see them, but it really was a neat experience. Here are Jason's parents preparing to get wet with the falls to the right.

Since we're in Zambia, the safety precautions are not quite the same. At some places there is no limit to how close you can get to the water. As you can see in the picture below, we are standing at the top of the falls and right behind us is where the water falls over the edge (as seen in the mist). The current is quite strong here, so we went to the bank to touch the water further up-stream where it was more calm.

We spent one full day on a day safari trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana. The day started with a bus trip and ferry across the border to Botswana, on to a nice 3 hour boat ride down the Chobe River. On the boat ride, we spotted many types on birds and antelope and African buffalo on land and even one elephant, but mostly we saw tons of hippos in the water and even a few on land (as seen below).


After the boat ride, the trip included a nice buffet lunch under a big thatched roof deck. Immediately following lunch we took a safari truck drive for 2 hours through the park. We saw tons of elephants and even many little baby elephants. There were some giraffes, water buffalo, and antelope too. It was a fantastic trip.

Amongst the excitement of family visiting, we did find time to relax. We spent one afternoon at a 5 star hotel (No, this is not where we stayed :-) enjoying a nice view of the river and a light lunch. The hotel has zebras roaming around the property and we happened to find some on a walk.

Well, we hope this post finds you all enjoying the spring weather back home. Things are going to start to cool down for us very soon and we'll need to get good practice making fires in the fireplace. Please pray as we prepare for term 2 and the students arrive back in 1 week.

Time is going quickly. We are just about finished with term 1 with just a week and half left. Grades 10-12 will be going on an outdoor nature trip this next week, so it should be a bit peaceful around the dorm. Jason's parents will be flying just one week from now and arriving here on Tuesday morning, April 15th. We are getting very excited for their visit and will be sure to post some pictures.

Jason and Dave took the grades 8 and 9 on a team building trip for the day. They spent the day doing group activities and relaxing by the Kafue River. Here is a picture of the students on one of their missions.

We always like to add some pictures of nature in Zambia. If you look closely this is a leaf bug. It's an incredible creature that has wings just like a leaf.



Our dear twins have found a new hiding spot. As Jason has tried to get them ready for bed, they suddenly went missing until he found them hiding in their drawers.



Even though we keep very busy, we try to take time to rest on the days when we're off duty. There is a nice hotel in town that we visited with our friends, Dave and Tine (pictured above). If you pay for some food or a soda you can use the swimming pool. We think we'll be visiting this place more often as it feels like a 'real' get-away and it's only 15 minutes from school.

Greetings! Sorry we haven't written on here in awhile. We actually haven't taken too many photos in the last few weeks, so here are some good shots to show you what life is like for us right now. As you can see in the picture below....we're always busy with kids all around us. Everyday these little boys are hanging out on our porch, knocking on the door or watching through the windows to see what Mr. and Mrs. Zimpfer are up to. Just after Jason took this picture they decided to climb a little farther up the window and sit on the sill watching me wash dishes and make bread dough. They literally sat there for about 30 minutes. It is a joy to have such fun little ones around us all the time, but it does wear us both out.


The rains are still going strong here. It rains everyday but is usually just in a big burst. The rains have brought beautiful greens all around and nice bright colored flowers. Here is a picture of Tine and I standing in front of some grass. The grass is very high if it's not maintained because things grow very fast around here.

Jason didn't teach design and technology last half-term, but has started teaching this half-term, so here is a picture of the secondary kids who are in the process of designing and building some bridges for their bridge competition at the end of the term.

In just a few short weeks, we'll be looking forward to a nice 2 week visit with Jason's parents. They'll be coming at the end of the term to meet the kids and then we'll get the chance to do some traveling to Victoria Falls and a national park with them.

We love and miss you all and hope things are well at home. Feel free to get in touch with us via email anytime (jkzimpfer@gmail.com)

Hello Friends!

We are now full swing in the year's first term with some new kids in the classroom and in the dorm. We had a wonderful break and were able to see Victoria Falls, and it was beautiful and majestic even if it was rainy through the whole trip. At almost 2 km (more than a mile) wide and 100 meters high, they aren't the widest or tallest in the world but form the biggest falling curtain of water in the world and are a spectacular sight to see.

We even got to walk quite close to the country's only remaining white rhino, and he was HUGE! We got some nice video and pictures with the escort of armed wildlife officials who protect him 24 hours a day in the national park from poaching, which is why there is only one left in the country.


We have some new children in the dorm in Grade 1 who are learning how things work and even two who are not too familiar with plumbing and electricity and don't speak much English. It is an adventure every day, and we are having fun. Look forward to some new pictures hopefully coming soon of the new students. Have a great week!