The Missing Blanket
Ackim Chali has lived all his life in the northeastern region of Zambia. As a young man he thought he was accompanying a large crowd to watch a football (soccer) game, when in reality he found himself attending a Billy Graham crusade. There he heard the message of salvation for the first time, and it changed his life. He longed for more of his people to know this God of salvation—not in tradition only as there are many such churches in Zambia, but in godliness and living power. Ackim Chali attended Bible College and returned to his home region.
This man was one of the first national preachers sponsored when Gospelink began working in Zambia in 1998. In the years that Ackim Chali was supported through Gospelink he recorded that he was able to visit143 villages, similar to the method and approach that you have heard in the episode about his missing blanket. In 17 years he was able to plant 60 churches in the Luapula region of Zambia, and during those years Ackim Chali held outdoor evangelistic meetings, showed the Jesus film in different areas, and by a modest estimate, saw over 12,000 people pray to receive Jesus as their personal Savior. Click the link below to identify the Luapula region where Pastor Chali has served.
Gospelink Field Director, Dean Kershner, enjoys a meal in Zambia with Pastor Ackim Chali. Dean prefers the shredded mustard greens to the nshima, which can be seen in the right hand of Ackim Chali. Nshima is cornmeal mush. In most of sub-Sahara Africa white maize is grown, dried, and then grown into meal, some fine and some coarse. The meal is then boiled and thickened to where it can be molded into a irregular-shaped ball and dipped in stewed tomatoes or eaten with chicken or fish, or in this case, mustard greens. Nshima fills the belly with warmth and calories and has become the “staple” food of much of Africa. Because of its poor nutritional value, Nshima is rarely eaten alone — to do so is a sign of desperation and poverty. Nshima must always be accompanied by “relish,” which is anything —usually greens or in prosperous seasons and celebratory occasions with meat.