The Presence of Asian Indians in Africa

This post is from the second half of our 40/40 training where we were in the rural city of Petauke, camping out in tents and using squatty potties.

Written May 4, 2013

Petauke, Zambia

40/40 Training

Our DFA (daily field assignment) today was to interview the local Zambians in the villages about medicine and health.  Selvin and I found it really interesting comparing their responses to the Zambians in the city of Lusaka.  Our best conversation today was with some women we shucked corn with-or I did :) I was trying to keep up with them so I got a blister of my left thumb, ha ha!  

We had a pretty brief conversation with them and they answered all of our questions.  Then they asked Abusa Giverson (a local Baptist pastor who was our helper the whole time we were in Petauke) if they could ask us a question.  We said sure-anything!  One of the women wanted to know where Selvin was from and if it was ok in his culture to marry a white woman.  (This question definitely surprised us!) 

Selvin was able to share his testimony with the ladies and how Jesus had transformed his life and shown him that He loves all people, regardless of race or nationality.  We asked the women what they thought about the Indians in town (there are tons of Asian Indians throughout a lot of Africa who are primarily Hindu or Muslim).  The Zambian ladies expressed how stingy they were and how they mistreated Zambians-a few of them knew from experience because their husbands worked for them.  (Asian Indians who live in Africa usually make up the wealthier class of society and are most often business owners.)  Selvin apologized for his people group and shared that the only thing that would change their hearts was the Gospel.  Then he encouraged them to pray this would happen and challenged them to be bold in sharing the Good News with them.  It was amazing to me because as Selvin shared this, the ladies acted as if this was a whole new truth to them because they had never met an Indian who was a Christian before.  God I pray You would continue to convict them to share Your truth with everyone.  We ended by praying with the ladies.

This is Abusa Giverson!  He rides his bike to the 5 church plants from the mother church where he pastors-sometimes traveling up to 50 km.  He was such an inspiration to us of faithfulness as a pastor doing whatever it takes to build up the kingdom of God.  Please pray for him and his family!