Saturday June 25

I'm writing this after what was one of the craziest days in my life.
In many ways it probably was one of the most busiest days in Linda
Compound. Light of Hope held its first ever open house. While I'm sure
God used this day for immense amount of ways (more about that later)
it was probably one of the greatest logistical nightmares of all time.
The open house consisted of an intense popcorn eating contest, a
dancing competition, quiz competitions, as well as nutrition and
health demonstrations.

We started off from town at around 8:00 so we could get to Linda by
9:30 to help facilitate the open house. What we found was over 200 to
300 people gathered around LOH prepared for the open house. Outside
Modreta and Warren, two of the soccer players traded off on the mega
phone pumping up the crowd. It was unreal. In our time at Linda, aside
from maybe the growth monitoring during child health week, there was
never anything like it.

The first 100 individuals were promised an undisclosed prize. We
decided that this prize would be either a bible for 5 to 6 months
rental from the LOH bible library that Lord willing we will be
starting this week, or one free article of clothing.

After a brief demonstration on the morning a leaf (a special leaf that
is known to cure over 100 diseases in the continents of Africa, Asia
and South America combined), the Aqua Clara Water Filter and the ISSB,
we proceeded to the local community schools for the clothing sales as
well as other programs. The prize winners soon became restless
however, which led to some mass confusion. I found myself the one who
was supposed to collect the slips and mark down what each individual
desired. The single filed line turned into a mob of people all
shouting and shoving to get to me in the center so I could write their
# down. I suppose when something is free, people will do anything to
get at it.

Clothing from the sales also went missing, as some caregivers who were
selling became incredibly overhwhelemd with too many customers. Bianca
and I did our best to work with the staff to calm the crowds down, but
to very little avail.

By around 13:00, the lord gave me the opportunity to preach to a crowd
of about 70 to 80 individuals. With much of the crowd being of the
younger age. I gave a very short message, the Lord however pried at me
share the message of salvation. While nearly 90% of the crowd raised
their hand stating they had accepted Christ, I wasn't so sure how
genuine it was as many children simply were looking around to see who
else would raise their hands.

However it was happened next that blew me a way. After the prayer, a 6
year old girl came up to me asking me to pray for her headache. After
I prayed for her she became lively again, seeing this happen, many of
the children rushed over asking to be prayed for. Soon, children
weren't just asking to be healed for their sicknesses, adults and
children alike asked for things in their lives, sins that they
struggled with, evil desires. Many of them understood their struggle
with sin.

This conversation with the young boys was truly incredible. Many of them truly understood they were sinners, but many of them also understood that it was only by the grace of God that they could stop sinning and spend eternity with them. While the days events were tough to say the least, those 15 minutes in that quiet classroom as the dancing competition went on outside made it all worth it. I'm willing to get mobbed by another 300 Zambians in the hot sun just to lead one more of those genuine young children to Christ. Their true humbleness really put Matthew 18:4 in a whole new light.