In our June 2024 Stories of Impact blog titled, “A Virtual What?,” we shared stories of how your prayers and funds raised impacted youth in Mexico through a unique event, called the 2023 Break Every Chain Virtual Bike Ride. Here is yet another story of what God has done through this unique tour.
In 2022, we hosted our annual Break Every Chain Virtual Bike Ride. This year, we you rode for the youth of Zambia, Africa. We saw 52 cyclists pray, ride and raise funds in Jesus’ Name for our partners, All Kids Can Learn International.
Zambia is a nation that struggles with hunger. Eleven of the last thirteen years have brought nation-wide drought. One of All Kids Can Learn International’s main youth programs is their government certified instruction in Sustainable Agriculture. They have a three month, six month, and one-year residential program that teaches young people (16 years +) how to effectively practice farming in order to grow food to feed themselves and their families.
Dear friends at Ends Cycling. Kathleen and I (Benedict) want to thank you for your support from the 2022 Break Every Chain Virtual Bike Ride which enabled us to build a dormitory for youth. Zambia is experiencing the worst drought in forty-years. Many international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are expecting food insecurity to move to starvation for many families in the country. We are teaching youth sustainable strategies for growing crops and feeding their families even during these times of drought.
We love that the environment is immersed in a focus on Jesus Christ and a call to Christian discipleship; beginning the day with Bible lessons, prayer and praise. The curriculum includes “Farming God’s Way“, which has been taught to over 30,000 small scale African farmers, and shows how Godly principles of working to standards, faithfulness, and eliminating waste can double crop yields.
With years worth of drought, the need for this program was overwhelming, yet we faced a serious problem. There was a tremendous shortage of housing for the male students. Over the last two years we have managed to construct dormitories for the young women with 30+ girls housed in the dorms. We had no such housing for the men. Men were forced to find accommodations in our impoverished rural community in inadequate and unhealthy places. Before the new dorm, sixteen of the young men that were part of our program were crammed into a crumbling house with unhealthy pit-latrines and an open, hand-dug well.
Construction in Zambia is much different and simpler than the US. With the prayers & funds raised from this tour, All Kids Can Learn International did their own construction with teams that completed block layers, carpentry, electrical work, welding, and plumbing. They make our own trusses, steel window frames and door frames, and hard-wood doors. Over the last 16 years, they have constructed all of their own buildings (over 30 of them). They even make their own furniture!
You have been instrumental partners in the fruit-bearing that God is enabling here. The dorm is being used for male youth in both our Hope College Agricultural Training Program as well as in our seven-day, Foundations for Life Camps which are teaching hundreds of teens from government public schools about why Jesus had to come and die for them.
In just the last three months, 239 teens have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We are also teaching them survival skills through Farming God’s Way, how to sustain a family of six even in challenging times of drought.
Please pray that we are able to continue to effectively share both the Good News of Jesus’ love for them, as well as teach practical skills of sustainable conservation farming.
Thank you so much for enabling us to construct the dormitory facilities.
Grace and Blessings,
Benedict & Kathleen Schwartz
All Kids Can Learn International
Zambia, Africa
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We are an active bicycling community impacting youth globally. We give people who want to change the world opportunities to use cycling to bring the hope of the Gospel to global youth through multi-day, Christ-centered bicycling tours.
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