We have ended our first Pastor's conference in Ndola, Zambia.

Our worship as we ended was just like Heaven - and exhausting. We danced and sang and loved Jesus together - I sang and watched them dance.

I am so thrilled with how God brought learning and how these leaders can’t wait to get back to their churches to lead them to think, love, serve, and live like Jesus! I have come to so love these leaders. They live in huts, live on pennies, do more funerals than weekend services, have more orphans in their churches than children with families, and don't know where the ministry resources will come from but they KNOW God has called them and that He will bring success and victory. They KNOW God will use their churches to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, hunger, disease, poverty, crime, death, and hatred. They just KNOW it and they live like it!

Pastor Joyce is one of my friends. She is an HIV/AIDS widow who was discouraged when I met her and ready to give up. Four years later, she is energized and rejoicing. She attended an HIV/AIDS victim counseling session because of a grant. At the training, the government official that runs the clinic in her community saw her and asked her if she would be a counselor at the government-run clinic. She now counsels those who test positive for HIV/AIDS and is free to share her faith and volunteer people from her church to continue to serve the person. How cool is that?

I also had lunch with the little boy Cathy, our kids, and I sponsor. His name is Evaristo and he is a handsome young man. He was shy, but when the hamburger was placed in front of him at the restaurant his wide eyes reflected the same delight as any young man faced with a good lunch. Cathy sent a package of Hot Wheel cars for him and his eyes lit up as he and I talked about making roads and playing with them.

Ridge Pointers sponsor 61 children here in Zambia. The $25 dollars a month provides food, clothes, and school fees for them. Every penny gets to the child and the family from their church that has taken them in as their own. Every penny is getting the child an education and providing health and hope. In the future, 61 families will have parents telling their kids about the church in West Michigan that cared enough to give. Those 61 kids will change the next generation.

I love you all - I am proud of you. Through Jesus, you are making a difference in sub-Saharan Africa. You are actively bringing hope. That makes me want to dance!

More soon - Jim