Panic In the Market

Sunday morning of 22nd May 2016, I decide to visit my cousins stand at the Pakati flea market at Arcades. It is an icy morning. The market is bustling with all kinds of people, albeit Zambia is hosting the Africa Development Bank annual conference, so yes the city is awash with dignitaries.

As we are seated by the stand we notice many passers by, as is obvious. Of particular interest is one young lady, 22, Chinese, I would say seemingly flippant in her attitude and  an aura of excitement within her . Oh! what catches our attention is the big sun hat she is wearing, large Ipad she is carrying and obviously her naivety. 

We give her a cheery greeting as we try to lure her to look at our wares, but no she has other things on her mind she scurry's off, of course to our disappointment.

Less than an hour later, this young lady comes dashing back at the stand  in a state of shock and panic, worse still she cannot express herself in English, she mumble jumbles something about the Ipad, and at that moment we know she has lost it. How pitiful she looks, she keeps pacing up and down, distraught, we try to calm her down and ask her to recollect where her last stop was. We tell her the direction we had last seen her go with  the Ipad. 

In a spate of  almost two hours she manages to engage all sorts of people she thinks can help her retrieve the Ipad, we all know at this point that the Ipad is a lost cause especially if she had placed it on some stand somewhere in the market whilst looking at the wares on sale.

At the time of my departure the Ipad has not been found, the young lady still frantic. 

It beats me to understand how distracted she was that she could loose her device in such careless fashion ....... remember, she could be a visitor, probably her first time in Zambia too. 

Is there anything that management of the premises can do to avert such similar occurrences? I can imagine the agony and inconvenience she is going through.

But I guess, as shoppers whichever, part of the world we are in , we have a responsibility to be watchful and cautious, we are accountable to ourselves, no one else is, but I suppose this could have been a case of an inexperienced traveler swayed by the trappings before her eyes. 

Girl Child, Hardest Hit.

In Africa, young girls are hardest hit from the squalor of poverty. They bear the brunch of all human troubles from infant hood, more especially if they lose their biological mother at a very tender age.

Leaving them disillusioned, disenfranchised which often leads them to the pits of hell; uneducated, married off young sometimes into polygamous marriages, they are sexually abused, contract HIV, they experience involuntary genital mutilation, inaccessibility to sanitary ware, economically dis empowered, exposure to early child pregnancies making them the perfect candidates for obstetric fistula disease in the absence of proper medical care, all this as if to confirm the prophetic adage, hewers of wood and drawers of water. In short they are condemned to perpetual bondage.

Are we doing enough to banish these practices as Africans, do we just speak when we know there are monetary benefits to be made from advocacy causes for girls?

I know of one or two distinguished fellow country women living in the diaspora, they head foundations which are helping some cause. They tweet about attending workshops and seminars, meeting distinguished persons, attending lavish functions, the list is endless. Without taking anything away from them I applaud them, for it is grace that is upon them, so who am I to condemn them.

But, I have a problem, when I ask them what they are doing to help that girl back home who is in dire need of school fees, access to sanitary wear, a decent school shoe I never get any response, surely something is amiss. Maybe it is a case of not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

We can do better to bring hope.

We cannot eradicate inequality, but we certainly can make a difference. It is a 

fight of conscious.

It takes passion; until you have experienced the face of poverty you will never fight it to the full. You will continuously echo pronouncement without actualizing your policies. Our comfort zones will never deliver.

Not only should we push for policies that benefit the girl child, the women should drive the agenda.

Can we as African women on an individual level begin to think beyond educating our biological children and relatives only? We all can make small sacrifices to better the lives of the girls in need. It takes just one small step.

As for me I am entering a new phase of my life, my two daughters will be completing their undergraduate studies. I have single-handedly educated them. I made sacrifices, denying my own education, it has been hard and a learning experience.

The journey continues, my children understand the life of constant battle to attain education, I have raised them to know that education without humility is miseducation, education with selfishness cannot change the world. We are very resolved on this.

As they proceed in their next course of development, they will continue on this path of thought to help/support a girl child in need how they do this is of their own accord.

God willingly this time next year, I hope to blog my experiences of uplifting a girl child or girls   welfare for the betterment of their livelihood. I can only count on prayers and good will to be used as an instrument of change, it is a passion to be fulfilled soon and very soon for the common good.

The Kingdom 

I grew up as a religious person, went to church as much as I could  maybe three times in a week, recited my prayers,was baptized, sought the counsel of a priest in times of solace and truly enjoyed my alcohol; I was clueless of the real world, all I knew was that there was darkness and light; as long as I did not tread on anyone's toes, then all was well heaven was definitely beckoning.

I casually volunteered to retire at 30!!! Everyone was appalled inclusive of my boss he tried to pump some sense into my colleagues and I, but we were resolved to leave. We left.

Series of events took place thereafter, too numerous too mention and not very pleasant.

Alas, I was jolted to the reality of the real world a rude awakening; because of the series of events, I experienced a transformation of my life, to this day I ask myself what took me so long to find practical faith.This of course led me to Christ and I have always felt that had I known what real faith was all about then, my life would have taken a different trajectory. 

Having been raised in a traditional church, I was introduced to a Pentecostal church in which I stayed for a great length of time it taught me the application of quality faith and intelligence. Note then that Pentecostals were viewed as radicals. 

I later joined another Pentecostal church,with it came a great contrast.

I describe this new found home fiery, a lot of drama within the services and surely a lot to reflect on after the services, there is never a service short of drama and a lot to talk about thereafter. It is another world. The teaching has been very empowering indeed and an eye opener to why we individuals behave in certain ways. In short I have come to realize who I am and what God's purpose is for me. 

But behind all this I feel a sense of chagrin in the collective world of Christianity especially us Pentecostals; despite the teachings of love and truthfulness, we read and see factionalism, envy, jealousy, curse pronouncements, intolerance, threats and unfortunately unfounded accusations towards other brothers and sisters in faith. It's like a number of the Pentecostal movement are focused on acquiring more members, quantity is their consummation rather than espousing a quality faith. 

Few celebrate Ministry entrants, especially those from other countries, they are frowned upon as charlatans. Yet the bible is clear Mark 16:15, NIV"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. How we forget, I can also borrow from scripture Luke 4:24 NKJV "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country", so why not embrace these men and women who come to bless our land instead of  maligning them and their would be followers? Mathew 10:41 is very clear, whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person reward.

The bible is dynamic it can be applied to suit every situation one sees fit, one thing for sure I know it tells us not to judge Romans 2:1-3 NIV  "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things". Also Romans 14:2-6  states that one has faith to eat vegetable and another has faith to eat meat. 

There is no single church that will accommodate everyone in the land, for the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Let us embrace and celebrate all who are committed to genuinely winning souls for Christ, our fight is against one common enemy lucifer and his agents. 

Slander and competition has brought division amongst ourselves, in the process others have become disillusioned and lost their souls to the devil. 

A very dangerous trend is the vilification of people seemingly doing well they are branded as suspects or satanist, who's voices are you listening to, what happened to praying in the closet as opposed to calling for gatherings and meetings to echo what you heard from so and so, have you not heard of how information is distorted from it's initial source?

The church's role is to give hope and and bring peace, my God is not a God of confusion, I have no interest in listening to misinformation, dogma and the misalignment of facts against other brothers and sisters in faith let me be my own judge, don't let me choose between you and them, you might just drive me to them.

In conclusion as one great Man of God uttered recently "if someone is well above you, then they certainly are doing something right, GO! and learn from them".