When are you going to Cleethorpes?

Zambian Flag

I have been asked about when we are going to Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Cleethorpes. People have trouble remembering to which part of Africa we are going. Actually the Cleethorpes bit isn't true. We are leaving for Zambia on the 16th September, so I thought I would give some information about this lovely country,  about how Newfrontiers became involved and what we are hoping to see happen.


Zambia is in Southern Africa. North of Zimbabwe and Botswana, South of the DRC, with Angola and Namibia to the East and Tanzania and Malawi to the West.

Thanks to Graphic maps for the image

Newfrontiers' involvement with Zambia began in several ways. In 2001 Simon Pettit visited the country with Neil Rabey. Neil comes from the Church on the Rock in Guernsey and is now at Helderberg Christian Church (HCC) in Somerset West South Africa, with Gary Welsh. I met Neil when I went to Zambia in 2008 to see Jubilee Church in Livingstone launched. Jubilee Church was the first Newfrontiers Church in Zambia.
Meanwhile Joseph Mwila was studying in Bolton and became part of Bolton Family Church. After Joseph and his wife Lillian returned to Zambia, they founded Dayspring Ministries in The Copperbelt Province where they have a group of churches with several hundred members. Dayspring is also part of the Newfrontiers Family. There is a wealth of information about Newfrontiers in Zambia on the HCC website

In Lusaka, Tony and Val Harwood, originally from Honiton UK, have a business called Shakespeare Court.

They have moved to Zambia to see a Church planted in Lusaka. They are being joined by others from the UK and are gathering people from Zambia. Martin and Amanda Rider have recently moved out to Lusaka, they are also from Honiton you can read Martin and Amanda's blog here.

The vision is to see God glorified by building a multi-cultural, inter-generational, socially diverse Church in Lusaka and to serve other Churches in the country. This is the vision that increasingly fills my mind.
At the Newfrontiers Leadership conference in 2002 Simon Pettit spoke about risk taking, he said "As the Lord Jesus opens up further and even greater new frontiers for us together, we need to become bolder and more willing to take risks." A Church that glorifies God is always worth taking risks for.

I am finding that as we prepare our house for renting we are throwing out an immense amount of things that we had kept. Much of what we are throwing out had been kept because it represented a dream: a different type of work in optometry, things we would do to the house. It would seem that to make room for a bigger dream, we have to give up on other ones. At the same conference I referred to above, Simon Pettit said,"I want to get my own ambitions out and say Lord,'what do you think of them?'"

I am increasingly convinced that Our Lord Jesus has New Frontiers for us all. The new frontier for Elizabeth and I is not Zambia primarily but the untapped promises of God in Scripture. We must hold the name Newfrontiers lightly, there are many other streams pursuing God's promises who will cross into new frontiers, but we must be those who are motivated by the untapped promises of God.

Please pray us as we prepare the house for rental, there is a lot to do! Please pray for someone to rent the house and for a successful visa application.

In the next post, I will share about the things I want to take to Zambia.