Recently in our daze of Home Assignment time I answered the telephone to hear an old friend say: "Nicole wants to do something different for her birthday. I thought of asking the girls to bring stuffed animals and then we would give them to an orphanage or something. Do you have any project or a place we could give stuff like that?"

"We are doing a 'container' project for FMZ!" I said. "Let me think about it for a bit and I’ll get back to you."

Being the total frizz brain that I am, I thought Nicole was a woman in our church who was having a birthday party for herself, as a youth leader, and having the girls from the youth group bring things for a "project" of her choosing. HOW WRONG I WAS! Nicole is a 12-year-old girl. She wanted to do something for her birthday that would benefit others and share with her school friends a different cultural experience. And also, share a bit of the light of Christ in lives as well. For the Lott family this involved a minimum of thought and effort but it will have a lasting impact on the "Rainbow Kidz" of the Makeni Konga village, the area surrounding our airstrip and base at Chilongolo in Zambia.

We decided to have the girls bring gifts of crayons, stickers and colored paper, and then, if Nicole had extra money, her mom would order "lap boards". The kids in Zambia will use these lapboards during their weekly story and craft time. EvaLynn went to the party of fifteen 7th graders and told them about the Rainbow Kidz and also taught them some dance steps and in general gave them a taste of what it feels like to be in a very different culture than the USA! In Nicole’s own living room! 

Nicole did receive extra money! With it the family ordered 36 white boards as lapboards. Then our youth pastor, said "Hey, I use a piece of shower wall board for my white/lap boards!" So Cindy, Nicole's Mum, looked into getting shower board. She and Nicole cut them into 10"x12" pieces! The girls in Nicole’s youth group were glad to sand the edges, and just like that, instead of 36 white lapboards, we had 100 … more like the number of kids that come to Rainbowz!

From the beginning we had said if they could pack the goodies in to Rubbermaid Tubs and supply some money for shipping, it would be a seed for us to start our FMZ Container East Project! It will cost $10 per cubic foot to ship, but this is much cheaper than sending things through the post office. The container project we are talking about is for building Flying Mission Zambia’s infrastructure and ministry capacity most importantly, but also to help FMZ’s individual missionary families. You too can have a part in getting this container out to Zambia.  Visit the story 'Worth Waiting For' to see pictures of the last container sent from the US. The contents were a real blessing and like 'Christmas in August' for FMZ! 

Thank you, Nicole and your friends, for your soft heart towards African children!

Story shared by Sally Lott.