The simple decision to set up a screen had a big impact, attracting people of all ages. During the half-time break of each match, OM ran prayer meetings and shared Bible verses in small groups.

“We discovered that people didn’t go away at the end of the matches,” said Oscar, OM’s team leader. “They started coming to play football, and then other people said: ‘We want to be coming to pray with you and have Bible studies’.”

In response, the OM team began meeting under a tree. People came to listen to the preaching, then left. “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.”

Many children started playing football around the church during the day when they should have been in school. Parents had stopped sending their children to school because they didn’t want them to cross a dangerous road. “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,” Oscar shared.

Friends of OM from the USA trained the first 15 teachers, and the school opened in 2015 to children up to the age of 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.

In recent years, the school has become a target for thieves looking for computers and other valuable equipment. The team decided to build a wall around the building to make it more secure, and with money donated, work began.

“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 feeds 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.

The next project will be to add a secondary school to the site so that children can stay at one school until they graduate.

The school has recently been given grant-aided status, meaning the government provides financial support for teachers’ salaries and potentially other operational costs. At the same time, OM remains responsible for other expenses.

Local people often say, ‘Nothing good comes from Makwati,’ but God has a different story to write for these people.

Thank God for the children who come to the school. Pray that what they learn about the Bible and discipleship will spread in their homes. And the original building—the church—continues to be a place where people flourish, with 200 community members regularly attending.