(Above) Students at The Salvation Army’s Chikankata Secondary School in Zambia receive a high-quality education along with empowering life skills such as gardening and farming

I first came to The Salvation Army through a friend and was welcomed to New Westminster Citadel, B.C., with open arms. From there, I attended Camp Sunrise in Gibsons, B.C., where I heard about God in a real and comprehensible way and gave my life to Christ.

Since then, I have participated in the Living Sacrifice discipleship program, been a counsellor at Camp Sunrise, worked at the Army’s emergency shelter in Chilliwack, B.C., and volunteered in several other ministry units. When I was introduced to the international development department’s youth ambassador program, I saw an amazing opportunity to make change in an even larger capacity.

As part of this program, I have been given the opportunity to learn about the Zambia Territory, which is part of the focus for this year’s Partners in Mission campaign.

Many communities in Zambia struggle with limited access to health care, school supplies, clean water and sustainable food sources. These are the areas where The Salvation Army has stepped into service in the Zambia Territory over the past 65 years. The Zambia Territory has a diverse array of ministries that serve to meet human needs, including clinics, hospitals, schools, retirement homes, farms and hygiene outreach programs.

At The Salvation Army’s Chikankata Secondary School, students are not only provided a safe and healthy learning environment but are also taught empowering life skills such as gardening and farming. This is to ensure students have the skills to live a sustainable and independent life after they graduate.

The Zambia Territory also participates in agricultural development, farming crops of food and selling it to locals to fund other Salvation Army programs within the territory. The Salvation Army’s Ndola Farm has been operating for 38 years, producing vegetables, poultry, pigs and more, to fund other ministries and give Zambians the opportunity to grow their own food. With an extremely low employment rate, community members have also been able to find work on the Ndola Farm.

In Zambia, more than 50 percent of the population are minors, partially due to the inaccessibility of safe health care, with many children left orphaned by the HIV-AIDS crisis. Unfortunately, there are too few adults to care for the young or the elderly, leaving both groups to fend for themselves. The Salvation Army established the Mitanda Home for the Aged in 1948 to meet this need to care for the elderly. The home not only provides the elderly with food, shelter and care but also with spiritual guidance, since many of them have not come from Christian backgrounds and may be learning about Christ for the first time.

The Salvation Army is also involved in primary health care in Zambia, partially due to the need to actively combat the continued HIV-AIDS crisis, with new and rising cases in children, youth and young adults. Creating a youth-positive educational space for young people to learn how to protect themselves from HIV-AIDS has been a large part of The Salvation Army’s hospital ministry, along with helping them teach others in their communities.

I was drawn to Zambia when I learned that the Army’s ministries are based in the community and exhibit the true spirit of the Army’s value of service. Learning more about this territory has changed my point of view on the ways that the Army is meeting human needs throughout different territories, as well as broadened my ideas of what ministry can look like within my own community.

Focusing on the Zambia Territory and its ministry has reminded me of why I chose to follow Christ seven years ago, and why I chose to join the international development department’s youth ambassador program this year. Meeting the needs of others unconditionally, as Christ himself told us to do, is what makes me so glad to be part of The Salvation Army, and I could not be more excited for what this program has in store for me this year.

For more information about the international development department’s youth ambassador program, visit salvationist.ca/youthambassador.

Olivia Nowak-Macdonald is looking forward to attending Cascade Community Church in Abbotsford, B.C., once the pandemic is over.

Photo: Courtesy of The Salvation Army Zambia Tty

This story is from: