Zambia

Africa Oasis Director Suzanne Hurst with Zambia General Superintendent Pastor Lipenga.

Recently Africa Oasis sponsored a Community Health and Evangelism training (CHE) for our AGWM-Africa missionaries. The workshop took place in the Zambia and was the first time that CHE training had been offered on the continent, to our missionaries. We had 15 spots available and all were filled. We were honored to have the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in the Zambia, Pastor Lipenga Banda, attend one day. Pastor Lipenga participated in one of the first CHE trainings in the Zambia many years ago. He enthusiastically endorsed CHE and said he was attending so he could brush up on his CHE knowledge.

Missionary Heather Marten taught us about the moringa plant. Moringa is an amazing plant whose leaves contain impressive amounts of protein, amino acids and vitamins. A great resource in areas with high levels of malnutrition.

CHE is a faith-based community health program that focuses on local involvement finding local solutions to local issues. In our AGWM-Africa context, that means working through the local church. The CHE philosophy is a great match to the Africa Oasis motto of “Local Lasts Longer.” Participants discussed key concepts related to holistic health, community engagement/ownership, and how to involve the community in identifying priority problems while using local resources for problem-solving. These principles are our core values that will be evident in any Africa Oasis project. By the end of the week there was growing excitement as participants began to plan how to implement these concepts in their respective areas.

Africa Oasis is committed to providing quality and applicable training for AGWM-Africa missionaries and our African partners.