Free magazines to the Flying Angels school in Zambia

Christina Novotny

Every year Flying Angels School in the Ngombe Compound in Lusaka, Zambia ends the school year with a large Christmas party. This school has been in operation for ten years and educates more than 600 underprivileged children - two-thirds of them being orphans living with their close relatives, a very common occurrence in Zambia. Our volunteers have been contributing towards the building of this school since its very beginning, and now it has expanded into not only a sizable school from pre-school age to end of grade 12, but it also functions as an orphanage for 20 children and a medical clinic that caters to the local community.

This year’s Christmas party was the ideal occasion to share God’s word with these children in the form of the Activated Ministries sponsored children’s Activated magazines on the topic of prayer. These beautiful magazines also served as a nice Christmas present for each of these children.

The event started with various performances from each of the different grades in the form of singing, dances and dramas. Then it was our turn to contribute to the entertainment. The plan was to project a children’s “Treasure Attic” Christmas episode to the wall of the auditorium, but to our dismay we realized too late that there was too much light in the hall. The projection was too weak and we were headed for a great big embarrassment.

As always, God is in control, and this time He knew of our need before we even were aware of it. Help was already on the way, as you’ll see:

Whenever we travel to Zambia we meet interesting people and during our last flight from Johannesburg to Zambia we recognized somebody we had travelled with on a previous trip a couple of years earlier. Ras is a well known Zambian musician and we had a good long chat a couple of years ago. We told Ras and his friend Rex of our plan to join the Christmas party at the school. To our surprise, Ras suggested that he and his friend entertain the children for 30 minutes. I was very much taken by surprise and welcomed them, but I considered this offer as just a friendly display of Zambian hospitality – I didn’t actually expect it to happen.

But in our moment of embarrassment in front of the children, our two musician friends suddenly arrived at the school, keeping to their promise. A few minutes later they got the children into high gear, singing and dancing along with their African tunes – these dear friends saved the day for us! The older children and teenagers recognized the musicians and felt very honored to have these famous national musicians entertain them. Thank you so much, Ras & Rex!

While they set up their equipment it was the perfect opportunity for the distribution of the Kids Activated Magazines. The children dearly treasured these presents, clasping them tightly to their chests. Others started to leaf through them right away and read them in a single sitting.

During the morning performances, some women were preparing a Christmas meal of mais porridge with beef and relish (fried cabbage and carrots) on the open wood fire, which was served to all the children and teachers after the activities were over.

Interestingly enough, we learned that both of our famous guest performers are each fathers of five children and some of their children are adopted or ”inherited” from their deceased relatives. We gladly offered them gifts for their children, one copy of the kids’ Activated magazine for each child, which they gratefully received.

It was a memorable experience for all and only God knows how far the message has spread through the distribution of these magazines. Thank you, Activated Ministries, for making it possible.