The cholera epidemic in Zambia had forced the country’s Minister of Health to issue a public notice declaring urban Lusaka and Mpulungu District (in the Northern Province) infected areas last month. To date, more than 110 people have died from the disease and a further 2,100 people have been infected.

Sam Vinton of Grace Ministries International (GMI) reported, “We got word that they had this cholera epidemic, and there was even a matter of closing down certain things.” GMI’s Lusaka Bible School suspended classes in the last week of February as the result of the epidemic. But while the epidemic slowed GMI’s ministry, the staff there remains thankful and hopeful.

“We’re thankful, at least as it stands right now, things are such that they will be going, and the people who have been ill, none of them have died,” Vinton commented

Also, Vinton says the good news is that quarantines appear to have been lifted in the ministry’s area, and so the short-term mission teams they are expecting should arrive on schedule. "We have a team going out there from Seattle this coming week. We have a building we've purchased right in the middle of town that we're converting into a bookstore. This team that is going is going to be involved in doing that."