Reflections from the Zambezi

Maputo City Normally we feel comfortable visiting people and places that are familiar to us. This makes us feel at home and easily interact with people in those places. However, there are times when we must visit places which are not very familiar with us. Such was my experience when duty called me to travel to Mozambique to attend a UNESCO Sub Regional Seminar. The Seminar had participants from Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Germany and USA. The Seminar was held in Maputo the capital city from 15th to 17th July 2009. Mozambique is a former colony of Portugal hence the official language is Portuguese. “Bem Vindo” in Portuguese means welcome in English. These are the words that greeted us at the International airport in Maputo where we landed at 20 00 after a 1 hour flight from Johannesburg. Earlier we travelled from Lusaka to Johannesburg in the morning for 2 hours and had an 8 hour stopover in Johannesburg. We spent time with my wor...

Graham Ingram (on the left) was the third pastor of Lusaka Baptist Church from 1969 to 1976. He played a leading role in seeing the church change from primarily serving the white community and expatriates to an indigenous church with a major outreach to students. Graham Ingram was born near Sheffield in the north of England. His family was not Christian. He became a Christian in 1955 when was eighteen years of age and doing compulsory military service. A few months before he had been strongly influenced by two young men who were preaching in the street. Through their words the Holy Spirit convicted him of sin. Six months later after meeting some more Christians, and seeing Christ in them, he knelt by his barrack room bed - in front of 20 other soldiers – and surrendered to Christ. Ingram was educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Retford, Nottinghamshire; the City of Sheffield Teacher Training College and Spurgeon's College in London. From early on in his Chr...