About 100 families in an isolated area on Zambia’s Lunsemfwa River received food assistance after heavy rains and flooding wiped out their crops and some homes.
In early March, Kevin Rodgers, a Baptist Global Response (BGR) field partner, transported 55-pound bags of cornmeal to a river landing, where the bags were loaded onto a rubber boat and taken 30 minutes up the river.
The boat could only hold about 500 pounds of cargo, so it took 15–20 trips over two days to move the entire shipment, said Mark Hatfield, who leads BGR work in sub-Saharan Africa. "The Lunsemfwa River has lots of hippo and crocodile, so there’s plenty of adventure in this small project."
The only other access to the area requires several days of walking, Hatfield said.
In mid-January, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa declared a national disaster in the country’s flooded districts.
"All our maize stocks have since been washed away," Chief Sianjalika, a traditional leader in one of the flooded areas, told a reporter. "We have remained with completely nothing. My people are starving, even their goats and chickens have all disappeared."
The project was financed with $3,200 from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, one of the ways Southern Baptists reach out to people in need around the world, Hatfield said. (BP)
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