A village transformed

During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the OM team in Zambia decided to show the matches on a big screen in the community where their office was located. That simple decision had a massive impact, leading to the formation of a thriving church and a growing school community. 

Oscar (Zambia), OM’s team leader in Zambia, recalled, “We saw the community around our office and we thought this is the best target group where we want to set up sports groups. Then, when this World Cup came, we thought this is a good way of getting the attention of these young people so that after the football, we could talk to them. We didn't think about a school. We didn't think about a church. The only thing we went there for was to set up football academies.” The OM team had worked with Sportslink to train sports coaches in 2010, and wanted to plant small academies in every community. 

The big screen was set up for the duration of the tournament and attracted people of all ages, including many young people. The OM team used the half-time break during the matches to call people in smaller groups to pray and share some Bible verses, then when the match restarted, they gathered around the big screen again. 

"We discovered that people didn't go away at the end of the matches,” Oscar said. “They started coming to play football, and then other people said: ‘We want to be coming to pray with you and have Bible studies’. That's how we saw that this was an opportunity for us. 

“The first thing we did was to start meeting under a tree, so people would come under a tree, listen to the preaching, and then they would go. 

“Now, there was this young lady who came from Germany. She had a budget for her stay in Zambia, but by the time she was going back to Germany, she remained with a lot of money that she didn't use. Then she said: ‘I want to donate this money so that we can build a simple structure for people to be worshipping in.’"

The team used the money to buy some poles and canvas and created a tent around some trees. “Over time, the numbers started growing bigger and bigger, and so we said, ‘Oh, why can't we build a church?’” Oscar said. “And so people started contributing money. People came for outreaches. That's how the church was built. That was the first building that we had there.” 

The OM team noticed that there were many children playing football around the church during the day when they should have been in school. 

Oscar said, “We started asking ‘why are these kids playing football instead of going to school?’ And then the parents said ‘we stopped sending them to school because the school is across the Great North Road, which is a very busy road, so they have to cross over to the other side.’ 

“Parents would keep their kids instead of sending them to school to protect them from accidents. And so we saw another need, another calling, for us to build a school.” 

Friends of OM from the USA trained the first 15 teachers, and the school opened in 2015 to children aged from nursery through to 12 or 13. The Zambian government trained 10 additional teachers at their colleges, and provided a head teacher and a deputy head.  

Children who attend the school now receive a good primary education and are provided with breakfast and lunch, as many do not have much to eat at home. 

A safe place  

The church has continued to grow and now has 200 people regularly attending from the community. The tent has been replaced with a building with an iron sheeting roof and flushable toilets on the same site as the school. 

In recent years, the school has become a target for thieves, who were looking for computers and other valuable equipment. In response, the OM team decided to build a wall around the building to make it more secure. 

The team was delighted by the response to this decision. Oscar said, “We had a friend who visited from Germany who said, ‘I've got money to give you guys to do the wall.' He donated about €15,000. 

“Even when we were building the fence, a lot of the work was just the parents’ commitment. They came to dig the foundations, they gave us five bricklayers who came to work for free, and women were coming every morning to draw water and then some stayed to help us to give the mortar to the bricklayers. 

"The community was very much involved and they are very happy to have their kids in a safer environment.” 

Now that the wall is complete, the school has started keeping chickens and pigs, and working a vegetable garden. Some of the produce is used to feed the children, while the surplus is sold to the community to generate income. There are also plans to construct a play park for the children, promoting learning through play. 

Plans for the future 

The next project will be to add a secondary school to the site. “The parents say after Grade 7, they don't want to take their kids to other schools,” Oscar said. “We are praying for more funding to build a secondary school infrastructure that can go up to Grade 12 so that we keep all the kids from nursery to Grade 12. They just leave that school when they go to college or university.” 

The school has recently been given grant-aided status, meaning the government provides financial support for teachers' salaries and potentially other operational costs, while OM remains responsible for other expenses. Oscar said the next step will be to apply to have the OM teachers put on the government payroll.  

“The missionary teachers, they say, regardless of what we get, we are committed to helping these children. So we appreciate that. But we are also praying that we should be able to give them more this way,” Oscar explained. “Then you will reduce that cost that goes to the teachers that can now go into infrastructure development.” 

The school administrators are also hoping to ask supporters to ‘adopt’ a pupil, giving a regular amount to help fund a child’s schooling. For more information about this programme, contact OM in Zambia at .

Local people often say, ‘Nothing good comes from Makwati,’ but God has a purpose and a plan for the children of Makwati. 

Thank God the children who come to the school. Pray that what they learn about the Bible and discipleship at school will spread in their homes.

Pray for sustainable finances to continue feeding pupils two meals a day. Ideally, the project is looking for longer-term financial commitments to ensure stability. 

Pray for the new head teacher who is ready to take up her role, but the administration process is taking longer than expected. Please pray that she will be able to start in her role as soon as possible.