Zambia Hunt

Printed in black ink in the flyleaf of the Bible that I bought when I was 14yrs old are these words: “Called to the mission field, Nov 10, 1982. Not I’m willing, but I will.” I’m overwhelmed by God’s grace.

Family Providences

In God’s providence, I was born into a pastor’s home on April 4, 1966, where I was faithfully taught the Scriptures. Just before my fifth birthday, I realized my sinful condition and fell under the conviction of my sin. I cried out to God for the forgiveness he offers to anyone who will come to Him. In simple, childlike faith, I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My father, Larry Hunt, baptized me in a lakeside baptism service at age six.

My earliest memories were of Brooks Bible Church, where my dad was planting a church in the rural town of Brooks, Maine. On January 23, 1966, Just over two months before I was born, my dad held the first service in the home of retired school teacher Margie Fogg (where the current Brooks Town Office is located at 15 Purple Heart Hwy). There were 62 in attendance. There were 70 in attendance by the first Easter service on April 10. On August 14, my dad baptized several of the first converts in Randall Pond in Brooks.

In 1971, my dad moved us to Lynchburg, VA, because he was one of the first 100 students accepted at Liberty Baptist College, now Liberty University, but with financial problems dropped out and pastored Trinity Baptist Church in the neighboring town of Charlottesville. Within a few years, we moved to Lakewood, Colorado, then back to Maine, where, over the years, we would live in Casco, Winthrop, Readfield, Clinton, and Unity. During this time began the downward spiral of our lives. By the time I was eight years old, my dad had a nervous breakdown and, in the years that followed, was in and out of mental hospitals. He was, at times, violent. During my adolescent teen years, Dad attempted suicide on three separate occasions. Once, he overdosed on pills. The last time was in Oklahoma, and he was nearly successful, except the rancher came into the barn where Dad had hanged himself and cut him down in time. 

Early one morning, when we were living in Winthrop, Maine, my dad threatened my mom’s life with a knife to her throat. Later that morning he threatened to kill me. As an adolescent, our family moved across the country to Oklahoma because my dad was doing better for a time, and heard there were jobs there. My mom agreed to the move but told Dad that this would be the last time she would agree to uproot the family. We moved to the Oklahoma City area and joined Windsor Hills Baptist Church. Soon after, there was a restraining order for my father… these were weeks, sometimes months, of terror and living under threats of violence. I grew up hating my father. 

Divine Providences

It was through those difficult times that I learned in the trials that God could be trusted. I saw God answer prayers for our family and for me personally. I grew to believe in a big God. One weekend, when my mother called us five children together for prayer and Bible reading, she calmly announced that we were nearly out of food in the house and would pray and ask God to meet our needs. The next day, we went to Sunday services. When we arrived home in the early afternoon, our front porch was covered in bags of groceries that someone had dropped off. I don’t know who delivered those groceries, but as a young teenager, I knew Who sent them.

In the early days after my dad was removed from our family home in Mustang, Oklahoma, my mother worked a minimum-pay job. She would rise early and open at the local donut shop. We prayed and trusted God to make ends meet. Mom wanted her children to move from the public school to the Christian school in our home church. We prayed, and when I was going into 8th grade, God provided a scholarship for me to attend Windsor Hills Baptist School in Oklahoma City.

Spiritual Disciplines

The Lord convinced me in late adolescence that I needed to have my devotions each day. I determined that I would read through the Bible in a year. I have done that most years since childhood. At one point, I heard a challenge from a visiting evangelist: if you read 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the evening, an average reader could read through the Bible in 30 days. I was determined to do that and committed to not watching TV during that 30-day period. That month, President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley. I violated my commitment to watch one newscast of the shooting. I agonized over that decision because I had decided before God I would not watch TV for this period of time. 

A pivotal moment in my spiritual growth occurred years after an incident from my childhood. As a child in Mustang, Oklahoma, I would often accompany my mother to the local TG&Y department store. While she shopped, I’d gravitate towards the candy aisle, filled with bins of individually wrapped penny candies. One day, spotting an unwrapped piece, I rationalized that it couldn’t be sold and ate it without paying. This became a habit, and I even began unwrapping candies myself when no loose ones were available.

Years later, as a teenager, during my personal devotions, God’s Spirit began to convict me about these past transgressions. Despite having long since moved to Oklahoma City, I wanted to make amends. Driven by this conviction, I returned to Mustang and sought out the TG&Y manager. I confessed my childhood thefts, insisting on making restitution even when the manager dismissed it as inconsequential. For me, it was my deep longing to live in obedience to the Word of God and the prompting of the Holy Spirit in my life that caused me to insist! I remember the joy I felt on the drive back to OKC.

God was working in my heart. We were in church every time the doors were open. I had a desire to serve the Lord in whatever way I could, so I worked on a bus route, bringing people from downtown OKC to church. I went out weekly to share the gospel and participated in all events and activities at the church. By the age of 15yrs, God was at work in my heart with a definite sense of calling to the ministry as a missionary.

I resisted this, not because I did not want to serve Christ, but because I did not want to preach.  The last thing I wanted to do was stand before people and say anything. I would hear a sermon on consecration and service and be deeply convicted. I would pray and surrender my life to Christ for whatever He willed for me… except preach.  I was miserable for a period of 18 months or so. Then, at a mission conference when I was 16 years old, I knelt at the front and told God that He already knew that I did not want to preach, and I still didn’t, but I was there to surrender fully to His will. If God would have me preach, He would have to change my desires, but my life was His to do as He pleased.  That was such a moment of sweet relief! I left the church that evening feeling like I could fly. It was then that I wrote in the flyleaf of my Bible: “Called to the mission field, Nov 10, 1982. Not I’m willing, but I will.”

During my senior year in high school, I stumbled across John MacArthur’s radio ministry. I had never heard the Scriptures taught in this way. There was a hunger in my soul, and I drank in the word. Then, I came across MacArthur’s Bible Study booklets at a used bookstore. I began to purchase them wherever I could find them. John MacArthur taught me how to study the Word of God and fueled an appetite for expository preaching.

When I completed high school, I was recruited to the Oklahoma Baptist College, a ministry of the local church where we were members. I enrolled in the missionary aviation program. As a teen, my heart and imagination had been moved by the story of Nate Saint, the pilot for Operation Auca in Ecuador. The five missionaries had lost their lives taking the gospel to an unreached tribe. I wanted to serve the Lord and felt at the time that aviation would provide me the avenue for that service.

I discovered AW Tozer my freshman year of college when The Pursuit of God was assigned in my Christian Living class. I would go on to read Tozer’s The Attributes of God and Knowledge of the Holy… several times. My mom gave me my dad’s collection of books, and among his Sword of the Lord titles was a commentary by AW Pink on the Gospel of John. I read that book, and it deeply impacted me.

In 1986, the college canceled the missionary aviation program between my second and third years. That summer, I packed my bags into my car and drove across the country to New Hampshire. Bruce Richards, my coach and mentor in high school, knew I was struggling with the church and ministry where my family raised me. He invited me to join him and serve in a small-town church in southern New Hampshire. I moved to Hampstead, NH, and soon enrolled at Eagle Flight School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to continue aviation training, earning my private pilot license. At Pentucket Baptist Church, I was given the opportunity to preach by Pastor Dan Sherman, and I began to teach weekly in Sunday School and Wednesday teen outreach. I read the rest of AW Tozer’s works, discovered some of CH Spurgeon’s, and read everything I could by John MacArthur (I even drove to Bangor, Maine in the late 1980’s to attend a Q&A with JMac, this was during the infamous “blood” controversy and sadly most of the pastors asked questions about that.) 

Marriage

In September 1989, I married a beautiful Christian woman by the name of Lori Spurr. Lori surrendered her life as a teenager to serve the Lord as a missionary. At the age of eight, she accepted the Lord as her personal Savior. This came about after close family friends began attending a new church, embraced the gospel, and accepted Christ themselves. They extended an invitation to Lori’s family to join them one Sunday morning, where she was introduced to the message of salvation for the first time—she learned of God’s love for her and placed her faith in Jesus. Lori often shares how her gratitude for God’s work in her life and in the lives of her family members; in the months that followed, her parents and siblings also embraced faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, profoundly transforming their family.

Though she was not born into a Christian household, the Lord shielded her from many of the pitfalls that ensnare young people. At thirteen, her journey took a significant turn when her parents chose to enroll her in a Christian school in Derry, New Hampshire, a decision for which she is eternally grateful. It was during her time there that she experienced significant spiritual growth.

The Lord’s influence became especially evident during her school’s annual mission conference, which stirred Lori’s heart toward missions. In the summer of 1986, she seized an opportunity to participate in a short-term mission trip to the Dominican Republic, a pivotal experience that led her to fully commit to doing whatever God called her to do.

Missionary Work

God had burdened my heart for the country of Zaire (DRC). Pastor Dan connected me with missionary statesman Darrell Champlin. Darrell & Louise became close friends and mentored me in missions philosophy. After being accepted by Independent Faith Mission, Lori and I raised financial support for ministry in the DRC. We were ready to leave for DRC in 1991, but we were delayed in leaving due to conflict in the country. After Christmas that year, the decision was made to go to Mombasa, Kenya, for cultural training and French language study. In Kenya, God knit our hearts to Neil and Jeanie Whitwam. This couple took Lori and me under their wings and mentored us. Over the fourteen months in Kenya God formed us into a team that would collaborate to start a new work.

In May 1993, we moved from Mombasa, Kenya, to Zambia and settled in the city of Kitwe in the northern Copperbelt Province. On September 5th of that year, we held the first service of Faith Baptist Church of Riverside. I served as a pastor of this local assembly for 14 years. We began Faith Baptist Institute of the Bible in the church to provide training for our members who were eager to serve Christ. As God moved in the hearts of His people, leaders went from Faith Baptist Riverside to plant churches in Chipata Compound (1998), Kakolo (1999), and Kwacha Township (2005).

In 2003, property was purchased in Kakolo, Kitwe, for Faith Children’s Village Orphanage. The ministry opened in September 2004. I served as the Director for 13 years before resigning during a ministry transition that saw Mukuka Chilando appointed as the Director.

In 2006, we walked together with the church family at Faith Baptist Church of Riverside through a leadership transition plan. The church called Saidi Chishimba to follow me as lead teaching pastor, and he was ordained and installed as pastor in March 2007.

In 2014, the Lord opened an opportunity for us to lead an outreach campaign targeting unreached people in Kitwe.  This Sunday Bible Study aimed to offer an apology for the Christian faith. This work began with a few people meeting at the Polo Club at the Kitwe Showgrounds.  In late 2014, we moved to the center of Kitwe and met at the MOTHS Club community hall. It was there in 2015 that the Bible study transitioned into Kitwe Church.  After seven years of faithful service, Saidi was called to pastor a church in Lusaka. In the same year, Chopo Mwanza became the lead teaching pastor at Faith Baptist Church in Riverside.

While the leadership transition for the church was happening in 2006, Central Africa Baptist College also opened a Bible degree program with seven students enrolling in the first semester. That number grew in the second semester and continues to grow from year to year. In 2008, CABC moved from rented facilities for classroom and dorm and shared office space at Faith Baptist Church of Riverside to the permanent campus home along Jambo Drive in Riverside Extension. In 2020, CABC was upgraded by the Ministry of Education to a University.

Two Life-Shaping Ministry Trials

The first challenging time in ministry was painful because it involved my uncle and aunt. I invited them to join us in work in Zambia. My uncle is kind, quiet, and a skilled builder. He came to Zambia to assist us with the construction of the Faith Baptist Church Riverside church building in 1996. That trip impacted them, and they decided to return with their family full-time. It would not be long before tensions arose and troubles ensued. My uncle and aunt were part of the church planting effort at Faith Baptist Church in Chipata Compound in 1998. They were unwilling to follow the team’s lead regarding the distribution of money and material goods within the context of the ministry. There were also some personal family relationship dynamics that created gossip in the community. The result was that, eventually, the missionary team would ask them to step away from the ministry. They would leave our ministry but remain in Kitwe for a couple more years. This painful experience forced me to solidify my philosophy of ministry and articulate it with increased clarity. Much of what is now the church planting and missions philosophy was nurtured through this trial.

The second deep trial would occur after Central Africa Baptist College was established in 2006. A team of missionaries came to Zambia and were part of the faculty start-up from 2006 – 2009. After a year, deep philosophical divides created a powder keg that eventually exploded. The issues were various but were centered on what these brethren saw as issues of separation and compromise. Issues like African music styles, whether it was acceptable to clap, the use of percussion instruments, types of Western Christian music, the permitted use of preachers and teachers who do not share similar positions on secondary issues such as eschatology, and issues of missionary relationship with the local church resulting in pushback on my insistence that missionaries be healthy members of locally established churches on the field. 

These philosophical differences played out in a lack of unity on a discipleship approach to discipline at the University. Some of these men, over time, became adversarial relationally and in the ministry. This escalated into issues of trust, character accusations, vicious gossip, and undermining the leadership. Charges were made against me by local team members and others in the West. One missionary brother told our students and staff at CABC that I would be fired at the annual board meeting and that I would not be returning as President of the college. This same brother once told me that I should leave the ministry and resign from CABU because they could run the institution much better than I was able to. 

The matter came to a head in 2010 at the annual CABC board meeting held at Brookside Baptist Church in Brookfield, WI. The board deliberated on whether or not to remove me as President of the institution. A decision was made in that meeting to affirm my leadership, a decision that was not unanimously supported. The result was two board members resigning in the following year. During that same time, every one of these men who had been involved in these problems would leave for other foreign ministries or return to the United States. The stress took its toll on me personally and a greater toll on my wife. I learned through this that not everyone who says they are with you really is. I also realized that a segment of the family of “independent fundamental” Baptists that I had come from and discovered on the way was not my tribe. 

Through God’s grace, CABC’s ministry endured, and following the departure of these men, the college entered a period of peace, unity, and unprecedented growth and blessing. Over the years, I’m grateful that relationships with some of these individuals have been repaired and restored. I harbor no animosity towards them, recognizing that they were products of their backgrounds, churches, movements, and training institutions.

This pivotal event, however, prompted a shift in our approach. In subsequent years, I became increasingly intentional about who we brought into the ministry. We began offering potential Western partners short-term assignments to evaluate and confirm God’s leading. This trial also compelled me to further articulate our philosophy of ministry, define our church planting goals, clarify our understanding of terms like “Great Commission” and “discipleship,” and develop a more comprehensive biblical philosophy regarding the relationship between Western missionaries and local ministry leaders.

Resulting in Articulating a Philosophy of Ministry

The outcome of these and many other shaping influences in our lives is clarity for ministry. The philosophy of ministry flows from the sum total of our true values. Our philosophy of ministry is rooted in a comprehensive approach to achieving biblical goals through united efforts. We emphasize everyday evangelism (Acts 1:8), where all members of the body actively bear witness to Christ in their daily lives. This is complemented by expository preaching (II Tim. 4:2), which allows us to declare the full counsel of God’s Word (Acts 20:27). We strive for biblical balance (Col. 1:28), ensuring that no scriptural truth is compromised for the sake of another.

Central to our approach is dedicated discipleship (II Tim. 2:2), where more mature believers invest in the spiritual growth of others through transparent, real-life examples of faith and obedience. This discipleship model extends to leadership development as we train others for ministry work (Eph. 4:11,12). We aim to cultivate godly, competent leaders by gradually increasing their responsibilities within the body, always mindful of the need to move at a pace suitable for the people we serve and to avoid placing novices in leadership positions prematurely (I Tim. 3:6). Through these methods, we seek to build a strong, self-sustaining ministry that reflects Christ’s teachings and empowers believers to fulfill their God-given potential.

Resulting in Articulating Goals for Church Planting

Our goals as church planters are centered on establishing an indigenous, self-sustaining, and self-propagating church. The primary aim is to create an indigenous church that ministers to people in ways that communicate truth within their cultural context (I Co. 9:19-23), resulting in true worship and glorifying God (I Co.10:31). We recognize the need for flexibility, distinguishing between scriptural precepts and cultural traditions.

A key objective is to develop a self-supporting church. While initial funding may come from the missionary, the long-term goal is to foster financial independence in the growing body of believers. This involves setting attainable goals, encouraging the church to take financial responsibility, and developing the ministry only to the extent that the local assembly can handle it financially. Simultaneously, we aim for a self-governing church, gradually involving the congregation in decision-making processes and developing spiritual leadership. The church should be taught to handle its own affairs, including financial decisions, leadership selection, and disciplinary matters. Finally, we strive for a self-propagating church where the mature assembly naturally reproduces itself. This involves allowing trained, competent local leadership to teach, make decisions, and assume financial responsibility for new works. Throughout this process, the missionary’s role transitions from leader to advisor, always careful not to hinder the indigenous nature of the church by doing for them what they can do for themselves.

To Be Continued…

God continues to write the story of our life and ministry. I am grateful for my wife, Lori, who has persevered through many challenges and changes in the ministry. She has labored to educate our children and works for deep relationships that result in encouragement and growth. Her attention to detail checks my eager forward momentum for Christ and the advance of the gospel in Africa, ensuring that as we move forward, we do so with thoughtful plans.