An Update

Hi there! Faith Delic here. My dad asked if I wanted to write a few entries into the blog. Well, I was pretty excited when he asked me to do this, but I warn you: this is my first time, so I’m sorry if it’s a little rocky. 

I am sixteen years old, and the firstborn daughter of Dennis and Jasmine Delic, and my awesome younger sister is Grace who is fourteen years old. I was recently baptized (November 2018), and I am so thankful to God for His mercy and grace towards a sinner like me!

We moved to Zambia almost five years ago, and we now reside in the ever-developing city of Kitwe. It has been a very exciting five years, and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything! God has really provided in so many amazing ways, and I have seen Him work, not only in our lives, but in the ministry as well. One of our family’s major struggles is with the diseases here.

My mom has always been hit pretty bad with malaria. On top of that, in January of 2018—up until this past spring—she suffered from really bad migraines. Now I’m not talking about little headaches. These were crippling migraines that left her too weak to get out of bed for days at a time. Sometimes she would even get both the migraines and malaria at the same time. We were very worried thinking that this may indeed be more serious, but we took our worries to God and once again He came through! After this spring, mom’s migraines just stopped. When previously they would happen numerous time a MONTH, they now have only occurred once in the past 6 months! A definite praise to God for that!

From left to right: Julius, Renford, Godwin, Charles, and Matthew.

We just recently got back from a three-month furlough, which started in the middle of June and ended in the middle of September. We got to meet so many great people, and had so many amazing experiences! 

Our family joined the ACC Youth Choir in June and toured with them – that was an absolutely amazing experience! The fire that the believers in the youth choir have for Christ was truly inspiring to see! During our travels we also went to both the Western and Eastern Camps. At both camps we had the privilege of presenting the ministry, and enjoying great fellowship and Biblical sessions! From there it was a constant going back and forth from the States to Canada; both for the ministry, and spending time with people we haven’t seen in a while. Finally, we spent our last month in Canada before we packed up and came back to Zambia.

Before I go on, I would just like to take a moment to ask for prayer for two very special people in my life: my grandfather and my cousin. 

My grandfather has been battling with bleeding in his brain ever since last February. At the beginning of this illness, he was very weak and tired. He was constantly sleeping, and often times we wondered if he would wake up. Thankfully, he recovered from that aspect of the sickness, and is now only battling with confusion. He is eighty-six years old.

Secondly, my cousin Peter Vrankovic. He was diagnosed last month with stage four stomach cancer, and has been undergoing many chemotherapy treatments. Praise the Lord he is in high spirits! Peter is eighteen years old, and was just baptized earlier this year!! God has been with him every step of the way, and just earlier this week we heard that his tumour is shrinking!!!  Please pray with us for both his family and him, that God’s will would be done. 

Since we got back, Grace and I have been doing our schooling, and Dad and Mom are busy with their respective roles in the ministry. Just going to side-track for a minute here. In case you didn’t know, Mom recently (as of last year) opened up a café. It’s called Roast Café, and the food is amazing! There are five young Zambian men who work with her, and because these guys never had the opportunity to get sponsored they were hired to work here. They are constantly learning how to do different types of gourmet cooking and baked goods. Let me tell you, they are ROCKING IT!!!! The names of these guys are Charles, Matthew, Godwin, Renford, and Julius. I’ll put a picture down below for you to see! If you’re thinking, “Wow! That’s amazing! Can’t get any better than that!”, well it just did! Because our heritage is of Serbian background (as my dad says, “Don’t hold it against us!”) we have been really missing some traditional Serbian food. Well, Mom took it upon herself, and now makes a legit Serbian meal at the cafe every week! She goes all out: Lepinje—a soft bread—; kaymak—a cream-cheese spread—; chevaps—pork and lamb sausages—; gibanica—sort of like burek (but not at the same time)—; all of that deliciousness! Now I know this sounds crazy, but I promise you it’s true!! Really. If you don’t believe me, come out and see for yourself. Please do though, I’m not kidding! We long for visitors out here!

Anyway, the school and the girl’s home are doing great! We were so impressed to see how smoothly everything ran while we were away. We are currently building a vocational building on the school grounds where young men and women who won’t go to University can learn a trade so they can get a job. The trades that will be available there are the following: carpentry, electrical, welding, plumbing, and auto-mechanics.

We recently had Mr Bob Ritzmann’s team come out while we were gone. His team worked on the vocational school with each of the trades that they know. They did a great job! In addition to that, we had the Flores family come out at the end of September. Uncle Cy worked on the electrical part of the vocational school, Sabrina helped out with the teachers, and Josh hung out and had football matches with the kids! They were an absolute joy to have over here, and we were really sad to see them go! Visits like these make our day, or rather, our month! 

 Life has been going good on this side the globe! It’s October which means it’s getting hotter, and it also means that we’re getting ever closer to the rainy season (YAAAAAY!!!!). To be honest, the biggest stressor recently has been load-shedding. Everyday our power goes out for about fourteen hours which also means that our water goes out too. This isn’t something new, it’s been happening for a long time! The reason why the power goes out is because of the crack in the Kariba Dam, Zambia’s primary source for power. That means that precious, energy-providing water is lost; this causes the main power company (called Zesco) to switch off the power in Zambia. The power doesn’t go off in all of Zambia at the same time, instead it shuts off a different districts at different times.

Really though, God has been teaching us so many things living here, and He has been so good. Yes sometimes it gets stressful, but the amazing thing is that we can take our stresses to Him, leave them there, and rest knowing that He will take care of it! My aunt once said, “We often go and take off our burdens at the cross, praying and asking God to help us; however, after we’ve finished we go back and pick them up. We should instead drop them at his feet and walk away lighter.” Those words have really helped me when I’ve been feeling overwhelmed.

Just want to share with you a verse that encourages me: 
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”— Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)

Whew. I think I’ve got everything! Thank you all for tuning in to the blog, I hope you enjoyed reading this! A very special “Thank You” to all our donors and supporters - we couldn’t do this without you guys!!!

Signing off for now, 
Faith Delic