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| Robert and Doreen Zulu, such faithful servants of the Lord |
After
having served as the Chairman of S.O.S. for the past four years, I have had an
opportunity to meet incredibly interesting people with diverse personality
traits. Many of these encounters had
yielded positive working relationships – others have been negative. I know the cliche that ‘it takes all kinds of
people to make a world go round’ is true, but when you’re endeavoring to
accomplish a task whose scope is so vast and you know you’re venturing into
uncharted territory, you need to have someone on your team that is
empathetic, sees the big picture, cares about the details, asks questions, is
fully invested in the success of the mission, and is never condescending. Praise
the Lord such a person exists for Sisterhood Of Servants, and his name is
Robert Zulu. Robert has been my emissary
from the time I came home from Zambia last summer and began working on a
proposal that would be given to Chief Mnukwa to secure the land in Malongwe
Village for our school and vocational training center. He and I correspond back and forth regularly
between Chipata and the States. I always
get excited when a call comes in, and I see those 13 digits across my phone
screen. Robert and his wife Doreen (the
literacy school teacher) have been invaluable contributors to the work that is
taking place at Big Tree Baptist Church.
Robert is the Vice Chairman of our Zambian Board of Directors. He and Dan Jalowiec, secretary of the Board, worked
so diligently to see that all necessary paperwork was filed in a timely manner
with government officials so that S.O.S. could have representation in Zambia. Because of their persistence, Sisterhood Of Servants now has a branch in the country (ZSOS). Robert and Dan were also
instrumental in coordinating the details of my trip and getting together the
prospective candidates that would serve as members of the Board.
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| The new Board of Directors for Zambia Sisterhood Of Servants. Seated L to R: Justinah Kayela, Me, and Josephine Chirwa. Standing: Davis Mwanamoya (treasurer) Dan Jalowiec (secretary), Robert Zulu (vice-chairman), and Kevin Pestke |
The
time had finally come for me to preside over my first Board of Directors
meeting for Zambia Sisterhood Of Servants (I just love typing that out). Thursday night after the graduation ceremony,
we gathered around the Jalowiec’s dinner table.
I called the meeting to order and we began our Board business. I enjoyed hearing the personal testimonies of the
members and learning a little more about them.
We addressed several items listed on the agenda and had tremendous
discussion. I loved the creative,
intelligent, insightful, and thoughtful collaboration that was taking place
around the table between all the members.
Even though we redeemed our time and packed so much into the meeting,
there was more to be done before I returned to the states. Dan, with his great foresight, had already
made plans to schedule a second meeting on Saturday afternoon. What resulted from both meetings were the
following:
1. We adopted a Vision/Mission
Statement for the organization
2. We reviewed the Bylaws,
Conflict of Interest Policy, and Code of Conduct Policy for ZSOS that will
serve as our governing documents as we move forward
3. We discussed the roles of
each board member and officer
4. We decided on a regular
meeting schedule for future board meetings
5. We established 4 separate
committees that would be responsible for overseeing the work of ZSOS.
6. We made chairperson recommendations
to lead each committee
I
was so excited about our progress and felt like we had laid a great foundation
toward accomplishing our short and long term goals. Rome wasn’t built in a day, ZSOS wouldn’t
function as a 50 year old, seasoned organization in a few short months, but we had
made the first necessary steps to lead us in that direction. To God be the glory. Great things he is doing!
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