Christmas Day in Zambia and Finding Hudson

Christmas Day – The Lord’s Day – Sunday 16^th January

My day started with final Christmas gift preparations and then off to church. The children acted out the Christmas story. Pretty special. There was singing by the children and the dorm mothers. The singing is amazing and worshiping the Lord with them despite the language difference was a wonderful experience. Pastor John brought the message along with Maureen doing the translating. The message was about knowing who we are, being stewards of God and being united. This is what makes us a people of power, belonging to God.

We found the 2 boys we sponsor – Marron and Patrick – Marron stayed very close to Phil and like a lot of other kids wanted to use the camera to take lots and lots of photos. Baby Esnart that Alana sponsors was also there, but she is a bit wary of us white people.

We cant put any photos of the Grace kids up on the internet. It is a policy of Seeds of Hope to give the kids some privacy. We will have lots of photos we can show you when we get home.

We then moved into the rec hall where there were performances including one by the little Buseko kids – years 0 to 5, teenage boys doing a dance performance, dorm mothers singing and a special performance of “We are beautiful by some of the school kids. Gifts were then given out to all of the staff and the children. This is quite a considerable exercise with about 140 or more gifts to be presented. The children all received back packs for school and two gifts each. For most, this may be the only toy they will receive all year and for some this was their first Christmas. Although birthday presents are given but this may be a small gift.

And then it was time for Christmas lunch. There was turkey and chicken, mashed potato, stuffing and coleslaw. The cafeteria had been decorated and approximately 180 people sat down for lunch. During lunch, Phil got talking with some American missionaries who had been invited. It turns out that they think they know where Hudson Litana lives and are happy to take us to the community to see if we can find him. So they drove us about 20 km down the road to Fiwale Hill, asked some ladies in Bemba (the local language) and we found him sitting on a chair in his back yard…...I will let Phil finish the story of our meeting with him…..

Marcie and Bill and their son Aiden work with street boys and do HIV education from a Christian point of view in schools and churches and now do HIV training with the police force in 5 provinces. They are very much at home in Zambia and had no trouble getting us to Hudson’s house.

When we arrived we were warmly greeted by Gertrude his wife who then took us over to where   Hudson was sitting. He is still suffering from a very serious car accident that he had more than 2 years ago. He has a walking frame because both his legs were broken.  He had received our letter and was actually going into Ndola the next day to get someone to write a reply, but now we were there. He is still as sharp as a tack and told us what has happened to him over the last 10 or so years.

There were stories of his time as chief on his tribe, the trouble when another man sort to over throw him. He had some amazing stories of God’s protection – from men coming to kill him in his house ( and not being able to find his house) – waking one morning when sleeping on the ground on a hunting trip to find 2 elephant foot prints right beside him, where the elephant had walked over him in the night- being bitten by a snake on the way to church – and many more.

He is still as we remember a great man of God and his heart is still for people to come to Jesus. He was excited about a new ministry that is starting and on the 27^th lots of pastors are coming to his place to pray then go up onto the nearby prayer hill to fast and pray for 3 days. He talks like he will be going home to heaven soon. His survival from the car crash is a miracle but he thinks his time is getting to an end. When he was in hospital after the accident his family did not believe he would live –( he was in hospital for 2 years) so they broke into his house and took all his possessions. It appears this is a Zambian thing – nothing is left for the wife. We are going to go back and sort out some glass for his windows and see what else we can do for them.