"You have said, 'Seek my face.'  My heart says to you,
'Your face, Lord, do I seek.'  Hide not your face from me.
... Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path..."
"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you."
PS. 27:8-9, 11; 32:8

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Zambia in the name of Jesus, our Wonderful Counselor.  Let me apologize in advance for the length of this update, though when you read it, I'm confident you will not regret the time spent.  Many of you have read update after update full of trials and disappointments, and have prayed for the day when I could write an update like this one.  I have more exciting and encouraging news to tell than I have shared in months, maybe since our arrival in Zambia almost 2 years ago.  If you remember my last update, you may be shocked at the difference, and I hope you can discern the hand of Providence.  Now, where shall I begin?

ENOCH OFFICIALLY JOINS THE TEAM

I am thrilled to announce that our friend Enoch has officially been recognized as a HeartCry missionary, and will be joining the Lozi Team full-time beginning March 1.  Those who have visited us this past year have seen Enoch's gifting, and his role as God's gift to us and the perishing Lozi.  In November, we heard that a church dear to us had contacted HeartCry and offered to support Enoch financially.  Just last month, the elders of Trinity Baptist Church here in Livingstone agreed that Enoch should be devoted to the work full-time.  His assistance accelerates our teaching ministry tremendously.

SEEKING THE LORD'S FACE

Shortly after Enoch's addition to the team was official, he, Shannon, and I took a short trip to the bush camp, primarily to be alone with the Lord and seek His will for the Lozi work.  As I alluded to in my last update, we are sensing that God may be drastically changing the course that we were pursuing.  But we need confirmation - from His Spirit within us, from His Word, from His church, and from circumstances.  I feel like we have since received confirmation in 3 1/2 of the 4 areas, and only await a bit more confirmation from the church, which I will explain later.  We spent many hours in prayer and the Word, as well as discussing fresh ideas and possible options for the work.  During our short stay, two significant events occurred, perhaps signaling God's new direction.

First, Shannon and Enoch made a trip to preach in Salamanu village.  This village is an hour's walk south of us, and we visited it a few times 18 months ago with Dominic.  After one visit where we were begged for things like shoes and cement, and another visit that was canceled because most of the village was drunk, we then got busy with building the bush camp and taught in villages closer to camp.  Despite our long absence, Shannon and Enoch were warmly received.  The people quickly gathered and stayed to listen to the gospel even when it started raining (they produced an umbrella for Shannon and Enoch).  Shannon strongly emphasized that we were not coming to bring them "stuff" like shoes and cement, but we came to give them the gospel.  The village took the rebuke well and begged the guys to come back.

Second, their reception at Salamanu was sharply contrasted with my reception at Vincent's village the next day.  When Enoch and I arrived with Vincent, all of the women went on with their chores, completely ignoring us.  5 small children gathered on a mat, facing away from me, and Enoch and Vincent kept chastising the women until 3 of them finally joined us.  Not exactly a warm reception, and this behavior has been duplicated many times in the villages of Ilwendo area.

A "MACEDONIAN CALL"

We returned from that short trip with about 10 days before our last scheduled team from the States arrived.  Like the Catechism Team back in August, this was another children's teaching team, not a building team.  On the team was a young lady from another dear church in Kirksville, Missouri.  She was bringing 30 catechisms that the church purchased with money they had raised.  The rest of the team was a grandmother and grandson from Hannibal, Missouri who were eager to do some children's ministry.  We knew just the village for some children's catechism lessons - Salamanu.

Shortly before the team arrived in Zambia, I received a surprising call.  In my personal devotions, I had just read what I felt was a promise from God, PS. 32:8 "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you."  I shared that promise with my family and a few hours later my phone rang.  It was an unknown number, which I normally don't answer, but I answered this one and a voice said, "Hello Mr. Reece, this is Gift from Imbwae village." . . .

GIFT'S STORY

Now I must back up and tell you the story of Gift, a story I never shared in my updates.  In May-June 2008, a year before our move, Shannon and I made a 3-week trip to Africa with 2 friends, Rod and Terry, and our South African friends, Jan and Henry.  We arrived at Imbwae village late one afternoon and set up camp near the river.  The next morning we were tired from traveling, and anxious to spend some time in personal devotions before teaching in the village.  As I set off to find a quiet spot for some prayer and Bible reading, I heard someone shouting far in the distance.  Just then, a pair of ibis flew over the camp and landed in a dead tree nearby.  I walked toward them, trying to capture their obnoxious call on video.  As I videoed the birds, I heard the shouting coming closer.  Somehow I knew 2 things - there was something strange about the shouting, and it was coming toward our camp.

Soon a man appeared, coming across the field toward our camp.  Inwardly irritated, I moved to intercept him, so at least the others could enjoy their quiet-time with the Lord.  Rod saw what was happening and came out to join me.  The man introduced himself as Gift, and as he talked it was obvious something was wrong.  He was happy and excited one moment, then confused and downcast the next moment.  He said he was sick with demons, and asked us to pray for him.  I knew he was telling the truth, but I wasn't ready to deal with demons so early in the morning, and besides, I had only been a bystander in one other deliverance.  I didn't know what to do.  To my shame, I prayed a nice Baptist prayer for the man and invited him to our Bible-study in the village, then tried to salvage what was left of my quiet-time.

Gift brought his wife to the morning Bible-study, where he proceeded to regularly interrupt us with his "insights."  He did not return to the afternoon Bible-study, and again, to my shame, I was relieved.  That night, Jan showed the Jesus Film and Rod preached a gospel message.  Gift was there.  He approached Rod and pleaded with him, "Please, pray for me.  I have demons."  Rod came to me, Shannon, and Jan as we were loading film equipment in the back of the truck.  "What are we going to do?" he asked.  Shannon said, "Jesus is our only hope."  Then Jan said, "Yes!  Let's go!"  None of us had ever led in a deliverance.  We took Gift aside, and he knelt in the sand as we gathered around to pray for him.  After some prayer, Gift said that he had 5 demons and began to name them.  Before he could finish, Jan stepped forward with great boldness and said, "In the name of Jesus, we command you to leave."  (He later told us, "I wasn't there to meet them, just to make them leave!")  I asked Gift if he wanted those spirits anymore, and he cried "No, I want Jesus!  I want Jesus!"  We prayed with him and counseled him for a bit longer.  It was all so quiet, so "easy" - I wondered if anything really happened, or if the demons were just playing with us.

The next morning at sunrise, Gift and his brother were at our camp, both of them grinning from ear to ear.  Gift was completely normal - none of the confusion from the day before.  He sat down at our campfire to eat breakfast with us and told us the whole story.  When he was born, the "ancestor spirits" chose him to be the next witchdoctor.  But as a boy in school, Gift excelled as the brightest student.  He rejected his "calling" as a witchdoctor, and went off to the big city of Lusaka and soon landed a good government job with the Immigration Department.  But the Lozi know that to reject the "calling" of the ancestors is certain death.  After a couple of years in Immigration, the demons began to drive Gift crazy.  He was fired from his job and the family brought him back to the village.  For the next 14 years, Gift sank into deeper and deeper madness.  In the 5 years prior to his deliverance, Gift was totally irrational.  The night before our arrival, Gift had been running through the village naked, and his family often had to tie him up.  In those 5 years, he barely slept more than an hour each night, and hardly ever ate an entire meal.

On the night of our arrival, Gift says that God told him in a dream that some white missionaries had come to help him.  He set out in the middle of the night to find us, and when I met him the next morning, he had been searching for us for hours.  He said that he did not know where to find us, but when he heard the ibis calling (the ones I was videoing) God told him to follow the birds.  They led him straight to our camp.  I cringed as Gift told us that after my prayer and our morning Bible-study he felt much better, but when he went home "the demons beat me again."  He was not at our afternoon study because the demons were tormenting him.  But, after we prayed for him that night, he knew the demons were gone.  He went home and asked his shocked wife for a full bowl of food, ate it, then laid down and slept 8 hours for the first time in 5 years.  After telling us his story, Gift sang a song about how Jesus forgave Matthew, the tax collector who cheated others, and Peter, who denied him, and now Jesus had forgiven him (he calls it his "repentance song").  We saw joy, peace, confession of sin, and deep gratitude for grace.  But still I was skeptical, and so I said nothing in my update.

THE "MACEDONIAN CALL" (CONTINUED)

After our arrival in Zambia, we saw Gift's brother, Kenneth, on our first Kuta trip.  It was exactly a year since our visit to Gift's village, and Kenneth said he was still doing fine.  Now, almost 3 years later, Gift phoned me to tell us that he is doing great, his family is great, and he asked if we could come visit him and bring him some literature.  When I asked what literature he wanted, he said anything that would strengthen him.  I explained that we couldn't come to his village across the river until April or May, but that we would be at our camp in a few days and would bring him some literature if he could cross the river.  He immediately promised to come see us.

I was filled with joy and hesitation as we met Gift at the ferry and took him back to our camp.  Had God truly delivered and transformed him?  The things we heard for the next two hours went far beyond our wildest hopes and dreams.  He had walked 3 hours from his home to the ferry and would have walked another hour to our camp just to see us.  He had heard that we were in Zambia, and even that we had passed near his village to pick up Chief Imbwae on our first Kuta trip.  He waited and waited, hoping we would come see him.  Finally he asked himself, "Do you want to be like the 9 lepers who did not return to thank Jesus for healing them?"  That's when he contacted Dom and asked for my phone number.

When we pulled out a Lozi Bible and a stack of small books (Spurgeon "All of Grace", Piper "50 Reasons" and "Seeing & Savoring" , Jim Eliff "Wasted Faith," "Going Under," "Pursuing God", and Paul Washer "One True God") Gift was shocked.  "Are these free?" he asked.  Then he said with a huge smile, "THIS is a real treasure!  If someone gives you money, it can disappear, but the teaching in these books will last forever."  We discovered that he had only hoped to receive some more study outlines, not books.  From his little book-bag, he carefully pulled out the notes from our Bible-study lessons that we had given him 3 years ago, the morning after his deliverance.  I had completely forgotten about that, but he had preserved them all this time in a plastic sleeve, and demonstrated in our conversation that he had read them many times.

We asked if the demons bothered him any more after that night 3 years ago.  He said no, then added, "I'm no longer afraid of demons.  I think they are starting to be afraid of me."  He joked that the devil was not happy with him and had tried hard to discourage him.

Would you believe that within 2 years of his deliverance, Gift was the most successful farmer in his area?  His family never knows hunger now, and he actually produces enough surplus to sell maize to the government food program.  Government agriculture officials actually came to his farm last year because it was such an outstanding example of conservation farming.  Out of the entire Sesheke district, Gift was chosen this year to go to Malawi and Zimbabwe for further training in conservation farming.  Then farmers in the district will come to him or he will go to them to train them.  Everyone in his family and village are amazed.  No one escapes the "ancestors'" punishment.  Gift should be dead.  No one has ever recovered from 14 years of madness to become such an incredibly successful farmer.  Some are even asking what higher purpose might be in store for Gift.  I did not sense any pride in Gift for his farming accomplishments, only a deep sense of wonder that God would bless him so much.

I asked Gift if he thought maybe he was supposed to teach more than just farming.  He knew exactly what I meant, and said, "It's not easy for me to walk up to someone and 'preach' the gospel.  Maybe they will think I am sick again.  I see that I must learn now.  I am in school, but maybe I will graduate soon."  Shannon and I almost fell out of our chairs in shock at some of the things he said.  He has a beautiful grasp of God's sovereignty in his life.  He sees now why God allowed the demons to drive him mad, and why he lost his good Immigration job and came back to the village, because, "I could've gained the whole world and lost my soul."

Gift asked us profound questions, expressing theological concepts that we could not believe were coming from a Lozi man in the village.  "If Christ took our wrath on the cross (his exact words!), then why does the Bible still speak of a judgment to come?"  "If Christ abolished the Law on the cross (again, his exact words!), then why do some 'churches' still follow the Old Testament food regulations?"  Gift is clearly highly intelligent, and has been contemplating deep things.  Can you imagine the consequences of placing in his hands a book like Spurgeon's "All of Grace"?

The question of food laws came because he has been meeting with the Seventh Day Adventists.  He told us that he used to be New Apostle, but the 'preachers' are busy drinking beer and going to the witchdoctor.  Only 2 "churches" in his area forbid such behavior - S.D.A. and Jehovah's Witnesses.  It broke my heart to hear that Gift has 3 options for "church" - a false religion that condones drunkenness and witchcraft, or 2 false religions that at least forbid these activities.

If God allows, Gift will soon have a fourth option.  His village is at least 3 hours from our camp and 4 hours from Livingstone, but we would be absolute fools not to disciple this man.  Now here's what really hurts.  We could have been answering his questions for 2 years, but our time and effort was consumed with establishing our bush camp.  Yeah, I know, God's providence . . .  But it really causes one to wonder - does God really want the next 2 years consumed with building our homes in the bush?  Should Gift, Mweemba, and others on the east side of the river wait 2 more years before we can seriously attempt planting churches in their villages?  I'm having a hard time seeing that as His will.

SALAMANU REQUESTS A CHURCH

Our meeting with Gift was not the only exciting development on this trip to the bush.  We spent 3 1/2 days doing a shortened, intense run through the Lozi children's catechism in Salamanu - morning and afternoon sessions each day.  By the third day, we counted almost 70 children and perhaps 20 men and women attending.  Of course the children loved it, and the village could not get enough of Enoch's original Lozi songs.  But what surprised us most were the men.  Although it was a program primarily for children, and often taught by women, the men in Salamanu defied their culture and came to every session.  They even brought notebooks and pens and took notes!  One young man brought out a stereo, powered by solar panel & battery, and recorded Enoch's songs and some of the lessons!

After one session, while we were still working with the kids, the men of the village called Enoch and Vincent over.  They said to Enoch, "Please, you must try to start a church in our village.  Don't worry that you must go back to Livingstone and cannot always be here.  If you will teach us, we will continue meeting."  Remember that promise from God - "I will teach you in the way you should go"?

We could not help contrasting Salamanu with Ilwendo.  During the catechism lessons in Ilwendo in August, almost none of the men came (except our workers).  Some in Ilwendo have asked us when we will build a church building, but none have asked us to come teach them (except Vincent and Robert).  There is an interest, almost a pleading, in Salamanu that we have never seen in Ilwendo.

I know this has been a very long update, so please don't miss that all of this - the call and meeting with Gift, the plea for starting a church in Salamanu, and the sharp contrast with Ilwendo - all of this came in 1 month, in 2 short trips to the bush (1 of them specifically to seek God's face about His will for the work).  And it all comes after 18 months of God resisting our building efforts and 8 months of discouragement and uncertainty, questioning if God even wanted us here.

CLARIFYING THE VISION

I think God's will for the future of the Lozi work is quickly coming into sharper focus, but we still seek the counsel and confirmation of fellow Christians whom we respect.  (If you sense the Spirit's prompting, I hope you feel free to speak to us.)  Next week Pastor Conrad Mbewe comes down from Lusaka to visit us.  He wants to go to the bush with us and see the work firsthand.  He is a man of big dreams and practical wisdom, and we are excited at how he may help us see the bigger picture.

Six days after Brother Conrad's visit, both Reece families fly back to the U.S. to meet with our brothers at HeartCry.  We trust that they can help sift through our observations and those of Brother Conrad and the elders of Trinity Baptist, and we can return to Zambia with a clear vision to pursue in all the strength that God supplies.

VISITING THE STATES

Of course, many of you are aware that meeting with HeartCry is not the only purpose for our trip home.  My son, Michael, will be getting married to the daughter-in-law of my dreams on March 12 in Greenville, South Carolina.  To all of our dear friends who are not in Virginia; Greenville, S.C.; Hannibal, MO; and Litchfield, IL, I'm sorry if we will not see you on this trip.  It is not an extended furlough trip where we can visit all the churches who partner with us.  This trip is devoted to the wedding, family, and HeartCry.

Please pray for us during these exciting times: for clear insight into God's will; for faith and courage to follow His vision; for safety as we travel; for the pain of seeing family, tasting the comfort of home, and leaving again; for Michael and Bette Jean as they begin life together; and for the Lozi perishing in darkness, especially the next generation of children.  Thank-you.

Hoping in Christ,

Sean