Feature
Never Did I dream
Pat Humphrey
01/01/2011
As I think back, I’m amazed that I almost passed up the opportunity to travel with my fellow Southwestern Union coworkers and a ShareHim team to Southern Africa just over a year ago. I almost let fear and the fact that I was “too busy” deter me from going. While I’ve written about
many ASI ministries and their activities over the years, never did I dream I’d someday launch one of my own.
In 2009, I joined the 40-member team traveling to Zambia and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa to conduct a series of ShareHim meetings. Maranatha Volunteers International, Quiet Hour Ministries and ASI also participated in the event. The diverse group included church administrators, pastors and lay people of various ages, ethnic backgrounds and vocations. All worked joyfully together, leading to approximately 1,700 baptisms. Many lives were changed as this wonderful group of new members was welcomed into the Adventist Church—all because church members, leaders and church entities
joined with lay organizations to make it happen.
I’ve always strongly believed in the statement Ellen White makes on page 352 of Gospel Workers that the work will not be finished until church leaders and lay workers unite their efforts and work together. Until this trip, however, I’d never actually seen this principle in action. It had
a tremendous impact on me. Ultimately, it led me to work with local church members and leaders in Livingstone, Zambia, to establish a new medical missionary training school. But I’m getting ahead of my story.
While preaching the ShareHim series at one of the churches in Livingstone, I became acquainted with the head elder and learned that he was interested in starting a health ministry. Our conversations led to the idea of establishing a training school. Upon returning home, I began working to set up a nonprofit organization and quickly initiated the fundraising process. I’d never done anything like it before.
One year later, I returned to Zambia with 17-yearold Chelsea Bond—the daughter of a Southwestern Union coworker—as my traveling companion. We were both a bit nervous about traveling “alone” without a team. The purpose of the trip was to meet with project leaders, arrange for the drilling of a well on the property donated for the school, and officially launch Lushomo Health Education Centre.
By the time I returned to the United States, I received the good news that the well had been drilled and that our first group of students would begin their training on September 21, 2010. In October, Chelsea and I shared our experiences with Shelley Quinn on an episode of 3ABN Today that aired November 20. The ASI Southwestern Union chapter even selected Lushomo to receive special project funds this year.
By the end of the year, our first group of 16 graduates will have completed their training in health evangelism and will eagerly start taking the gospel of health and salvation to their local communities in Southern
Africa. In retrospect, it seems like a happy dream. But the real joy will come when one day we can look back and realize that, because God blessed our united efforts, many people who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to know Him will be part of His kingdom.
