Thankfulness for LTLA - December 2024

 

Greetings LTLA Friends, As we finish another year in which God has sustained the ministry efforts of Life to Life Africa through your prayers and financial contributions, we want to share with you words of thankfulness from those to whom we minister. You heard from the young generation in our Thanksgiving greeting so we want to share words of gratitude from the older men and women whom we serve in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe.

Lina Mukuwo

My name is Lina Mukowo. I am a widow who cares for six grandchildren who lost their father. Life to Life Ministry helps me provide food for my grandchildren and has trained me in how to grow a plot of corn to supplement our food needs. My grandchildren and I are also receiving spiritual nourishment through the ministry as we are encouraged to grow in our faith in Jesus. I am grateful for the spiritual and physical support I am receiving through Life to Life Ministry.

Mr. Terekwani

My name is Murambiwa Tarekwani. I am grateful to those who give to Life to Life Ministry, because the support makes it possible for me to receive the medication I need as a stroke survivor. Through the ministry I am also encouraged spiritually through the Men of Hope meetings that I attend. Thank you for your support.

Linda Dutiro

My name is Linda Dutiro. I have been involved with the Life to Life Ministry Women of Hope meetings for some time now. The meetings and fellowship have helped me grow in my relationship with Christ. I am especially thankful for the discipleship follow-up meetings that I have with Life to Life team members which have really helped me in my walk with Christ. I am grateful for Life to Life Ministry and those who support such a noble cause. Thank you for your prayerful support of this ministry. Year-end gifts provide close to a third of our annual budget. If you have not contributed and would like to do so you can mail a check to: Life to Life Africa PMB 344 10151 University Blvd Orlando, FL 32817 For an online option, you can use "Bill Pay" from your online bank account. Typically your bank will mail a check as you provide the address for Life to Life Africa listed above but if they require the Life to Life Africa bank account and routing number please contact me for those details. If you have any other questions regarding financial contributions feel free to contact me. Grateful for your partnership! Mike Sulc Life to Life Africa 515-520-3607

Discipleship Impact - 2024 Newsletter

 

“I was going to divorce my husband,” Barbara Romeo shared with LTLA team members, Diana and Jane. She and her husband were struggling in their marriage, burdened by the stress of poverty. Diana and Jane live in her neighborhood and reached out to her as our ministry follows the model Christ established in sending out his disciples two by two. (Mark 6:7) The LTLA Community Ministry team goes out in pairs every Friday to meet with people. In January, Barbara made a decision to receive Christ when Diana and Jane shared a Gospel illustration with her on a Friday morning. Now they meet each week for a discipleship Bible study. Barbara attributes the saving of her marriage to giving her life to Christ and the discipleship she is receiving from Diana and Jane. She is so excited about her new life in Christ that she is sharing her testimony with her neighbors. One of her neighbors now attends the weekly Bible study but has not yet given her life to Christ, so Barbara invites us to pray for her. You may recall that LTLA team member, Diana, had surgery for cancer in April this year. Jane carried on meeting with Barbara and the other ladies in Diana’s absence, but Diana has rejoined them now that she has regained strength.

(L to R) Jane, Barbara & Diana

Among the young people in Chinhoyi, the LTLA Training Ministry team has also been faithful in discipling the next generation. Messiah is in his early twenties and he has been involved with LTLA since his first year of high school. LTLA team member, Zviko, has been discipling Messiah and calls him a “faithful, available and teachable” guy. He always has a smile even though life has been hard as he struggled to get the needed scores in order to go to college. LTLA assisted him in receiving tutoring to achieve the required scores. We are now sponsoring him as he pursues a degree in development studies at the Catholic University of Zimbabwe. Last month after attending the LTLA student & alumni conference, he was involved in helping a young lady, Blessing, pray to receive Christ.

Messiah

The other person involved in Blessing coming to Christ is Ivai, an alum of our ministry at Chinhoyi Univ of Technology. Ivai was discipled by Marvelous, a LTLA team member, initially via WhatsApp calls and messages during the pandemic. Once they were able to meet in person, they met weekly to continue encouraging each other in the Lord. She returned for the conference last month as an alumnus and helped with a workshop on our identity in Christ. At the conference she was challenged to share her faith without shame by a student’s devotional from Romans 1:16. That propelled her to share the Gospel with Blessing, a young lady who caught a ride in the van that was carrying Ivai, Messiah and others from the conference. Upon hearing the Gospel, Blessing was ready to pray to receive Christ but Ivai wasn't sure how to do that so Messiah offered to lead her in prayer.

Ivai and Marvelous

From what we read on Messiah’s shirt, the LTLA team has learned that, “We are stronger together.” Thank you for your partnership with us that makes us stronger together. We ask for your support as we seek to see the impact of Christ focused discipleship continue into next year.

To give you can send a check payable to: Life to Life Africa PMB 344 10151 University Blvd Orlando, FL 32817 For an online option, you can use "Bill Pay" from your online bank account. Here are the details you may need for sending money to the Life to Life Ministry bank account: For an online option, you can use "Bill Pay" from your online bank account. Typically your bank will mail a check as you provide the address for Life to Life Africa listed above but if they require the Life to Life Africa bank account and routing number please contact me for those details. If you have any other questions regarding financial contributions feel free to contact me. Grateful for your prayer and financial support! Mike Sulc Life to Life Africa

Happy Thanksgiving from LTLA!

 

Dear LTLA Friends, We at Life to Life Africa wish to extend our warm Thanksgiving greetings. Thank you for your support in prayer and finances of our efforts to share the love of God and disciple young and old among orphans, widows, the poor as well as college students in Zimbabwe! It is not only our team that are grateful but also those to whom we minister. Over the remaining weeks of this year, we will share how grateful young and old in Zimbabwe are for the ministry of Life to Life Africa. Today, we will share words of thankfulness from elementary and high school students who participate in the weekly Saturday youth LTLA meetings:

"My name is Ethan. I am 11 years old and I am in Grade 5. I would like to thank Life to Life for providing a place on Saturdays where I can spend time with friends playing games, memorizing verses like Philippians 4:4, 'Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice,' along with eating cookies and juice."

"My name is Kupakwashe. I am 12 years old and I am in Grade 6. I want to thank Life to Life for the opportunity to attend Bible study on Saturdays. It helps me alot and the teachers are lovely."

"My name is Mthulisi. I am 13 years old and I am in Grade 6. I would like to thank Life to Life for teaching us the Bible and for a place to play games and eat cookies and drink juice. I want to say thank you for helping us with school fees. Thank you for everything you do for us. THANK YOU LIFE TO LIFE!"

Here is a video of Amit, who is in her second year of high school.  Link:  https://youtube.com/shorts/wYAcBNZ2vic

Happy Thanksgiving! Mike Sulc for the LTLA Team

Pressing Forward - LTLA Update - November 2024

 

Thanksgiving Greetings, I would like to share with you through photos the encouraging news from my recent trip to Zimbabwe. God is at work through the efforts of the Life to Life Africa team in Chinhoyi and in Mutare. Your prayers and financial support are instrumental in the progress we are seeing as the LTLA team presses forward in advancing God's Kingdom. Thank you!!

Tatenda leading a lesson with the LTLA Youth Bible Study.

Shelton and Lunga, LTLA Community Ministry team members on the left, distribute corn plot inputs to people whose plots were inspected for readiness to plant. We thank the Lord as rains have been watering the land. Please pray for continued timely rains for the corn to grow this season. Last year Zimbabwe experienced a very bad drought which prevented people from harvesting what they needed to feed their families.

LTLA Sewing Group meets every Monday afternoon to fill the orders they are receiving from people in the community. The orders are helping build the group's sewing skills and the income is helping provide some ministry funds.

Brandon (left), a young man we have been discipling, is helping install a fence in preparation for having the dogs at the LTLA Community Center patrol the area around the broiler chicken coop which can be seen back to the right. The fence will keep the dogs out of the vegetable gardens where we are growing food for the ministry and for sale in the community.

Our first batch of broiler chicks. They will be ready for sale for all the Christmas celebrations in the community. This will be a year-round income project for the ministry as chicken is the primary source of protein in Zimbabwe.

I traveled to Mutare, the third largest city in Zimbabwe, where I visited Simba and Pamela. They have launched our ministry efforts among the college students at the five colleges and universities in that city. God has opened wide the doors for ministry at these schools, especially Manicaland State University where the administrators want to see the students impacted spiritually.

Pamela (far left) and Marvelous (far right) hosted these young ladies from Manicaland State University for a sleepover during our visit. They are some of the 30 students who are in Bible study. Marvelous accompanied me from Chinhoyi. She had spent a week in Mutare in June with a team from the US and she had met these girls last month at the LTLA Student & Alumni Conference.

Tinotenda, fruit from the LTLA Youth Ministry in Chinhoyi, also accompanied me to Mutare. He plans to enroll at Mutare Polytechnic, where he will continue his mechanical engineering studies and will help Simba launch a ministry to students on that campus.

Mike with Simba and Rev Paul Neshangwe. I had the privilege to meet Rev Paul Neshangwe who was instrumental in helping Ron Shimkus launch Life to Life Africa in Chinhoyi. He is now the pastor at the Presbyterian Church in Mutare where Simba and Pamela are becoming members. As we start ministering in Mutare we are very encouraged to have the support of Rev Paul, who is excited to reconnect with Life to Life Africa.

With a thankful heart to our Lord, Mike Sulc Life to Life Africa

Survival & Flourishing - LTLA Update - October 2024

 

Dear LTLA Friends, When you receive this email, I will be en route to Zimbabwe. I covet your prayers as I meet with Arthur Nhau, LTLA Director in Zimbabwe, and the team leaders. We are asking the Lord to guide us as we evaluate this past year and plan for the future. As we make plans, may we delight in the Lord and see the Lord establish our steps to accomplish his purposes through Life to Life Africa. (Psalm 37:23; Proverbs 16:9 & 19:21) God created us to depend on him. Our survival and flourishing spiritually as well as physically require us to depend upon God for his redeeming work in our lives. My report from Zimbabwe this month speaks of how the LTLA team is influencing the next generation to trust in the Lord for their spiritual and physical flourishing. Each October, the LTLA Training Ministry team invites students and alumni for a weekend conference where they are encouraged as followers and laborers for the Lord. Typically they invite a friend of the ministry who has a vibrant walk with the Lord to provide messages. This year due to a late change in conference dates the invited speaker was not able to attend, so the LTLA team took turns as speakers along with the help of Pastor Clarence, who married former LTLA team member, Anna.  Arthur reports that it was a good developmental experience for the team members he has been training. They also utilized alumni from our student ministry to help lead workshops along with students sharing testimonies and devotionals. You will hear a story from the conference in our year-end letter later this month. It is encouraging to see the fruit of our discipleship efforts among those to whom we are ministering.

LTLA Student and Alumni Conference group photo.

Simba and Pamela brought eight students from Mutare for the conference. God is at work through their pioneering efforts!

I also want to share about the individual efforts that the LTLA team members are making to model trusting the Lord to survive and flourish in the midst of the economic challenges in Zimbabwe. The video below shows Brian with his wife, Privilege, working in their vegetable garden where Brian is applying the Biblically practical principles we teach in growing food. He has established a large garden so he can provide income from vegetable sales and food for his family.  On this trip I am taking a tuft gun to Prestege who has been inspired by the sewing training she received in recent months. She is excited about her efforts in rug making and sees this as an opportunity to provide extra income for her family. These are just two efforts that I have heard about in the last month from LTLA team members. Would you pray for Brian and Prestege in their efforts to model trusting the Lord in their efforts to provide for their families? Pray with us as we continue to help people survive and flourish as they, "trust in the Lord with all their heart." (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Brian and Privilege working in their garden. Link:  https://youtube.com/shorts/pEIaBZYUwMQ?feature=shared

Prestege made this rug for her daughter while she was pregnant.

Trusting in the Lord to survive and flourish, Mike Sulc  Life to Life Africa

Reproducing - LTLA Update Sept 2024

 

Greetings LTLA Friends, Last month, Arthur Nhau, LTLA Director in Zimbabwe, shared about spiritual fruitfulness in the Life to Life Africa ministry. This month we will hear about reproducing efforts. Yesterday I received an update from Shelton Nhundu, LTLA Community Ministry Team Leader, which displays the heart and faithfulness of the LTLA team in their desire to see God's Kingdom grow in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe.  One of our ministry efforts is to train people in sustainable farming practices and the corresponding spiritual principles of faithful stewardship. Twelve years ago, our team received this training from Foundations for Farming, a Christ-centered organization founded in Zimbabwe. Our team has been implementing this training in their own farming efforts and at our LTLA Community Center. They have been reproducing this training every year for people in the Chinhoyi community. This past month we trained 30 different family members, of which 20 were receiving the training for the first time. The worst drought in 20 years this past season motivated these 20 new families and the 10 other families who came for a refresher. They harvested nothing this year and wanted to learn how to get a harvest even in the midst of a drought. Pray with us that they will apply the training and be led to faith in Christ as they learn the spiritual principles of faithful stewardship.

Mr. Lunga, LTLA team member, leading the training for the 30 family members.

The ladies on the LTLA team were trained in sewing by ladies from the Hopevale Church team that visited in July. As you will see in the two videos below, the LTLA ladies are putting into practice the training. The prayer is that as they become more proficient in their sewing skill they will be able to reproduce the sewing training with other ladies in the community. As you can hear from the video, there is a natural opportunity for conversation while sewing, which can lead to spiritual discussions. Pray for that to happen in the near future even among the youth as we see the double blessing of providing skill training while having eternally impactful conversations.

LTLA Sewing Club update.

Gogo Sixpence models the wraparound skirt they have been making. Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YxRC1vH-R6o

Effective reproduction is happening in the LTLA vegetable gardens due to the drip irrigation systems that were installed in July. We are growing off season corn which can be sold for a good profit. We thank Hopevale Church and their team for helping make the drip irrigation systems a reality, along with the 500 capacity chicken coop. We plan to have broilers ready for sale in December in preparation for the Christmas celebration demand. We will plan to do trainings in gardening and broiler production in the coming years. Pray with us for God's blessings on these income generating and training efforts.

Off season corn growing at the LTLA Community Center.

The LTLA Community Ministry team has been discipling a good number of women for a number of years. The team asks for your prayers as they challenge these women to reproduce their lives spiritually in keeping with 2 Timothy 2:2. The men on the team ask for your prayers as they consider ways to reach, disciple, and equip men in the community to reproduce their lives spiritually. It is challenging to reach men who are struggling to meet the demands of their families and in a lot of cases who have given up due to the limited opportunities in a poor economy. Thank you for supporting our efforts to see God's Kingdom grow in Zimbabwe! Mike Sulc Life to Life Africa

Fruitfulness - LTLA Update - August 2024

 

Greetings LTLA Friends,   August proved to be a fruitful month for the LTLA team in Zimbabwe. Three ladies received Christ through our Women of Hope ministry and Shelton, LTLA Community Ministry team leader, led three boys from his street to Christ. LTLA Community Ministry team members, Itai, Gogo Mildred and Patricia shared the Gospel with Janeffer, Pamela and Ustina respectively while Shelton shared with Dennis, Munyaradzi and Simba. Join us in praying for our team members as they meet with these new believers to help establish them in their faith in Christ.   LTLA Director in Zimbabwe, Arthur Nhau, traveled with LTLA Training Ministry team members, Zviko and Tatenda, to Mutare where they encouraged fellow team members Simba and Pamela in their efforts to launch a ministry to college students. Here is a report from Arthur on their visit:   Our trip to Mutare was fun-filled and exciting to see God at work through Simba and Pamela. Their convictions to follow God in this pioneering work are being challenged and deepened as they trust the Lord to see their lives multiplied spiritually. They are putting into practice what the Lord has taught them and they are continuing to learn as they take steps of trusting and obeying God. Philippians 1:3-6 comes to my mind as I think of my investment in Simba's life. It is truly a joy to see the Lord ministering through him in Mutare.   We had a day of prayer and asked the Lord to open a door for Simba and Pamela to have access to other institutions like Mutare Polytechnic and Mutare Teachers College. We were encouraged today to hear from Simba that he has been allowed to minister at Mutare Teachers College.

Simba sent this photo two days after our visit of his participation at Mutare Teachers College (MTC) with FOCUS, the recognized ministry to students at MTC and Mutare Polytechnic. He will minister to students at MTC and hopefully at Mutare Polytechnic through FOCUS.

(L to R) Zviko, Arthur, Donnell, Tatenda, Simba & Simba's friend Arthur who joined them for a day in prayer for the ministry efforts in Mutare. (Athur is Simba's college classmate who now lives and works in Mutare. Simba is encouraging him in his walk with the Lord.)

It was encouraging to take my son Donnell and daughter Daisy on the trip to let them observe my heart's desire to make Christ known. It was very encouraging to see Donnell's keen interest in how to share your faith with someone.

Donnell (far right) joined Zviko (in the middle) in meeting students at Manicaland State University.

Manicaland State University (MSU) is a 20 minute drive outside of Mutare and currently has no hostels (residence halls) for students. So to meet students we had to approach them in the open grounds, which is different from what we experience at Chinhoyi University of Technology where we meet students in hostels. We engaged students in relational evangelism and later introduced them to Simba. We met many students who expressed an interest in deepening their relationship with Christ. There is an open door at MSU as Simba has built a good relationship with the Chaplain and Dean of Students at the Manicaland State University (MSU) who have encouraged him to minister on campus.

Tatenda (right) sharing with a student at MSU.

Arthur (far right) meeting students at MSU.

It is exciting to observe the enthusiasm that Simba has in ministering to students in Mutare. The doors are open at MSU and now at Mutare Teachers College. Please pray for Simba and Pamela as they respond to these open doors. Simba also has family in that region and hopes to be an influence for Christ with them.

Simba and Pamela in downtown Mutare.

Our prayer is that Simba and Pamela will be a light to many in Mutare and the Manicaland Province. (Matthew 5:16). Serving our Lord, Arthur   Grateful for your partnership in this work of the Lord!   Mike Sulc Life to Life Africa