Act Five is off to Zambia!

They are off!

*Don’t miss the video from Jamie down below!

As I write this, the Act Five team – 12 students, two team leaders and one photographer – is mid-flight, on their way to Lundazi, Zambia.

These next four weeks, Act Five will serve and live alongside the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), a partner of EduDeo Ministries.  They will spend a significant amount of time with Hoya Primary & Secondary Schools (an hour outside of Lundazi), where they will assist and participate in classrooms and other activities, help in the building of a new science lab, and form relationships with local students.  Beyond this, they will have opportunities to sing in local choirs, shop in local markets, visit health clinics or development offices, and experience a Zambian Safari.

Thank you to all who have supported our students for this trip – financially and beyond.  Together, they raised 100% of their funds, and they left this morning from Pearson Airport excited, some a bit anxious, humble and ready.  For those of us with Act Five who remain in Hamilton, we are filled with joy from having participated in all that God has begun in these 12 to this point.

Please continue to support this team through prayer these next 4 weeks.

Pray for health and safety.  Pray that the communities in Zambia with whom our team intersects might be encouraged and blessed.  And pray that our students might be open to how God wants to shape them in new ways this month – through the beauty of a new land, through new relationships, through new experiences of God and His Church.

***

I want to take a moment to pause and recognize where God has been moving up to this point of Act Five.

We are grateful to be partnering with EduDeo Ministries in this trip to Zambia and for all that CCAP will be facilitating for Act Five this next month.  What adds to this is the richness of having a month such as the one ahead integrated within the whole of this year – a year that is already leading to such meaningful transformation in our students.

Allow me to offer a glimpse of the past two weeks, all while we have prepared for Zambia…

Students completed projects that connected them to this city – research of local archives, paintings and sketches out of conversations in downtown Hamilton, a case study in loneliness, the construction of a pizza oven, and a short film put to the Welcome of John Terpstra (see below).  

Several continue to process the stories they received on the Six Nations reserve.  “Blake Haven” (the Act Five home) was filled with 80+ people as the students organized a concert with local musicians.  Students have joined in morning prayer, evening worship services, a Hamilton Ti-cats game, coffee at 541, continued meals together, and a day learning about the Enneagram.  As a staff, we walked our students through a process of discernment and our own “Placement Fair” where students left excited by the placement opportunities awaiting them in January where they will participate in the “healing of this place,” as John Terpstra has challenged us to do.

Gareth Inkster performing at “Blake Haven” for the Act Five coffeehouse.

It is out of this context that we send our students to Zambia for a month.

I am confident in how God has been shaping our students and the life of Act Five these past two months.  I trust that God will continue His work in Zambia. And I am excited that we will welcome them back home to help them translate their time in Zambia.

Again, thank you to those who continue to support Act Five, in the many ways this may look.

May God’s Kingdom come – in Hamilton, in Zambia, and in the places you each find yourselves.

With grace,

Jon Berends