Lifeline Ministries Personnel:  some photos - followed by a team update Loxley and Mavis Ford - Field Directors, Harare, Zimbabwe.  Mavis succumbed to cancer September 2018   Addmore and Betty Ncube and family - Mkoba (Gweru) Network leader Harare cottage  completed 2001  - used for guest accommodation and team gatherings >>> Advisory Board member, Jim Bowler, and his wife, Jackie, do regular ministry trips to Zimbabwe - from  Manchester UK AoG.  Jackie also heads up Winning Women Worldwide - a ministry for empowering Christian women that has been influential in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Advisory Board chairman, Brian, and Elizabeth Rensford, Holroyd New Life Church, are also regular visitors to LMSA for ministry - from Sydney, Australia (photo obviously NOT taken in Africa!)  >>> Domingos Caetano, Central Mozambique Lifeline Area Network Leader, Nhamatanda, Sofala, Moz.  Domingos currently oversees a national network of churches, plus at his home, Sparrows' Nest orphanage, currently caring for 61 children.  He is also still developing a series of Ministry Training seminars with Lifeline-based teachers coming with him into local and isolated areas.  These have been very successful and continuing.

June 03 team profile

We leave this update on line to give an idea of what, who, and how Lifeline operates.  Network leaders meet from time to time, and the relational structure of Lifeline is basically its heart and soul.  It is THIS, more than a formal chain of command and task assignment, that makes Lifeline what it is - a relational servant network stretching across Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries, transcending denominational and hierarchical structures, trusting God to keep it useful to His great purposes in Southern Africa.

Greetings from the team here.  I invited the three guys from Bulawayo and the three from Gweru as well as Peter & Martha and Anacleto and Carmelia to come and stay here with us here in Harare for a week during the ACTION Conference and spend some time together as well as to benefit from the conference.

In the event Felix was in hospital and could not come but Albert Chatindo was in Harare and he joined with us instead - as you may know he is the overseer of the Christian Faith Fellowships farm ministry in which Felix serves as a pastor.   Anacleto was also unable to be with us for that week but did come and stay here before and after it as he had been sent by Feed the Hungry International (FHI) to a children's ministry conference in Kenya at the same time. Martha also did not make it as their son Blessing was to be married and she had the first of the relatives arrive just as she and Peter were leaving to come here.

It was rather a squeeze getting everyone in but we gave the office staff the week off, made the office into a bedroom  and invited them to come to ACTION with us.  James took the opportunity to go to see his family but Joshua came every day and so had time with us as well.  We were glad of 4 bathrooms when we were getting ready to go out soon after 8am each morning, and of having 3 vehicles available - all with fuel - when trying to get all of us, Good and Thirdson and others from this area to the Celebration Centre each day.

We were not able to spend very much time sitting down together as a team but the many interactions and late night discussions  ensured that we all got to know one another much better. The other great benefit was of them all seeing the outworking of a vision in all that happened at the conference.  The building itself was a testimony to many of the things we teach and the way that the staff and volunteers served everyone had a major impact on them.  When some of the ushers were seen to be giving very generously in a special offering some of them were amazed that people who had large businesses were prepared to be ushers, or that others were drivers for the visiting speakers.  Some pictures tell a thousand words but modelling the things we are teaching has a powerful impact.  Some of them who have controversies in their churches about women's dress saw some of the anointed women speakers - in trouser suits - having a powerful impact in the teaching sessions.  All in all a very good time was enjoyed by all of us.

Peter & Martha have been here all the week while he had his cystoscopy and subsequent CT scan. we get the results when he sees the doctor later today. In the doctors office is a poster saying "Doctor Jesus is my healer" so you can see where he stands.

Felix was taken to hospital - eventually - with severe abdominal pain [there was no fuel for the ambulances]. He had an operation and was discharged but had to be re-admitted when the problem came back.  In the end he had two more operations and a section of his bowel, which had become twisted - was removed.  The hospital did not have the drugs he needed and we were able to supply $Z60,000 for them here which Albert arranged to be made available in Bulawayo.  Many of the banks have no cash and so if we had paid it in here they would not have been able to get it out in Bulawayo and most people do not accept cheques for that reason (we paid James' salary in by stop order and when he went to get it today there was no money in the ATM!).  Then I had a call from Felix who was finally at home and recovering.

While Anacleto was here we arranged for him to have a scan to see what was happening with his gall bladder as he had had two periods of acute pain.  The report from the Clinic was that it was all OK but he still has to persuade the doctors in Beira who seem to want to operate on him.  While he was in Kenya we were able to get the Beira truck repaired and he was very pleased with all the changes - like being able to lock both doors and the canopy and having the screen washers working as well as making good all the bush mechanics work that had been done in Beira.

We are all looking forward to Brian Rensford's visit in July and trust that we will be able to work out the program in spite of the shortages of fuel, food, post, phones, money and other things that make life interesting here.  We send greetings to you all and the churches from all of us -from Loxley, on behalf of George, Cosmos, Felix, Albert, Rabbi, Addmore, Joseph, Peter, Joshua, James and Anacleto and our wives.

Further update to Friends of Peter & Martha. Peter's second course of radiotherapy was completed at the end of April and since then he has had a "cooling off" period of rest before an assessment could be made of the results of the treatment.  Last week Peter had an ultrasound scan and this week was admitted to the hospital as a day patient for a cystoscopy. These showed that the tumour had been reduced considerably in size but the specialist then asked for a CT scan to confirm its exact extent and affect on the rest of his abdomen.  Peter had this done on Tuesday and today I went with him to see the urologist and find out the state of the tumour and what was recommended as the next stage of his treatment.

We were told that the tumour while greatly reduced in size was nevertheless still affecting his right kidney.  To remove the tumour completely it would be necessary to remove his bladder. Peter will therefore have to be fitted with a stoma and collect his urine externally in a bag.  The doctor said that the effect on the kidney could only be discovered from the operation but that from the CT scan it did not appear that the tumour was in the kidney or to be affecting its function. If any decision had to be made about the kidney it would have to be made during the operation.

This was quite a shock to Peter who had believed he would not need any further operation. Having been away from home for 8 days he & Martha were keen to get home and so I had only a limited time to talk to him when we got back from the doctor.  Although he knows all the technical info about a stoma it is obviously quite a different thing to contemplate having one for the rest of your life. He does know of someone in his area who has one and is due to see the stoma nurse before he goes to hospital.

At present he is due to go with a team from UK to the bush at the end of next week and so would have a tight deadline to be prepared for the operation this month. So he is booked into St. Ann's Hospital for admission on Saturday 5th July and for the operation on Tuesday 8th. He will need to be in for a total of 10 days to ensure that everything is working OK after the operation.

We were told that the deposit payment to the Hospital [$1,444,000 ] and the Anaesthetist's fees [$335,000 ] would have to be paid before Peter's admission.  He will also have to pay the stoma nurse and any other costs at the hospital beyond the deposit. The tests, scans and hospital fees during the last week have cost just under $600 000 so the total for this part of Peter's treatment is about $2.5 million which is about US$1440 or just under £900.  Any help in meeting these costs would be greatly appreciated by Peter & Martha and us.  Please pray very much for Peter and Martha especially in these next few days as he comes to terms with this news.

FOOTNOTE: Our dear brother, Peter Zulu, died in Feb 2004 after a rapid deterioration from a secondary cancer in the brain.  We have left this update on the web as a mark of respect to him, and as an indication of the kind of relationship that exists among the Lifeline network leaders, workers, and supporters.