Mabuchi N. Dokowe has 6,204 children.
Four of them are her own she is raising with her husband in Lusaka, the capital and largest city in Zambia. The other 6,200 are students in 32 community schools in the southern African nation that she oversees at the director of community schools for vulnerable and marginalized children for the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), Synod of Zambia.
When the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Synod of Zambia was established in 1984, it had four ordained ministers, 16 congregations and two presbyteries with fewer than 10,000 members.
When the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Synod of Zambia was established in 1984, it had four ordained ministers, 16 congregations and two presbyteries with fewer than 10,000 members.
One day, while taking a break from studying in the Duke Divinity School library, I got into a conversation that would change the course of my family’s life. As I talked with a stranger, I learned that he was the only person in the world with a PhD in New Testament (my field also) who could speak the language of the country where he was training Christians for ministry. This really struck me.
In Zambia, most people are farmers, regardless of whether they have another profession — and this includes pastors. For the majority, the thought of zinja, or hunger season, is never far away. Many people in Zambia are smallholder, or subsistence, farmers who grow the staple crop, maize (corn), with which the mainstay of the Zambian diet, nshima, is prepared.
The Community Health Evangelism initiative helps African communities take ownership and control over the projects and programs that affect them — with impressive results.
One day, while taking a break from studying in the Duke Divinity School library, I got into a conversation that would change the course of my family’s life. As I talked with a stranger, I learned he was the only person in the world with a PhD in New Testament (my field also) who could speak the language of the country where he was training Christians for ministry. This really struck me.
At Chasefu Theological College in Zambia, future pastors learn to tend the soil as well as nurture Christian faith.
“Chasefu’s introducing sustainable agriculture courses that will help seminary students better care for their families when they become pastors,” says Charles Johnson, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission co-worker who teaches the agriculture classes. He added that they will also be able to teach communities techniques to boost crop yields and reduce hunger.
