Bright Yellow Bicycles

The very first meeting Alisha & I had with the CBO managers when we arrived in Kabwe was introductory, get to know the managers and the work they do; learn their successes, learn their struggles. One of the main struggles they told us that they all faced was transportation for their home based care volunteers who often walk several km’s in a day to visit just 2 or 3 patients and be completely exhausted by the end. They expressed the need for bicycles so that the volunteers could visit more patients and still have energy for other responsibilities when they finished.

In the days following I did some research online to find any organizations in the bicycle business in Africa and came across a relatively new organization called Zambikes that had good quality parts shipped from the US and Taiwan and then assembled and sold out of Lusaka. I decided it was worth a shot to email the director in Lusaka and ask if they would consider donating to our volunteers, and while I was waiting for a reply I found out from the other missionaries in Kabwe that the director, Dustin, was actually a good friend and they had an outlet for Zambikes at Grace Centre in town. A few days later I received an enthusiastic email from Dustin saying they would love to provide our volunteers with Zambikes but that we would be a pioneer project for their donor partner Acirfa (Africa backwards :P) so it could take awhile before getting anything.

Over the last few months since that email, our relationship with Zambikes has proved to be so much more than just about bicycles. Dustin came to Kabwe to visit in January while Alisha was in Livingstone with her parents and on their way back to fly out of Lusaka they found all the lodges there were full, leaving them stranded without a place to stay. I talked to Dustin and he volunteered his place for them to stay the night. Later in February, Alisha was looking to buy 20 soccer balls for our community schools and Dustin connected us to an organization called Alive & Kicking that sells good quality soccer balls at a low price. When we went up to Lusaka to pick them up, he once again provided a place to stay free of charge.

In mid-March I received an email from Dustin telling us that a cycling group called Tour de’ Afrique had donated enough money for 40 Zambikes to a recipient of their choice – and they chose Hands at Work! The catch was that Tour de’ Afrique would be riding through Lusaka from Europe on their way to the southern tip of Africa and they wanted to have a donation ceremony with at least 10 of the volunteers present in Lusaka. Cost of transporting 10 volunteers from Kabwe to Lusaka and back? The exact amount of money we saved on soccer balls by going through Alive & Kicking! As if that wasn’t enough, a few days before the ceremony we got the news that Tour de’ Afrique was throwing in an extra 19 bicycles!

Above: Zambikes mechanic giving volunteers a crash course in bike maintenance, Dustin & I watching from the back

The donors from Tour de' Afrique with Hands at Work recipients at the Tour's campsite

On April 7 we piled into a minbus and traveled up to Lusaka for a nice relaxed ceremony and the following day back in Kabwe we were able to distribute the bicycles to our very excited volunteers. In the next few weeks Zambikes will be sending up a mechanic to provide bicycle maintenance training to the volunteers so that they’ll know how to take care of the bikes themselves. I am completely amazed by how God works and excited to see what He’ll do next!

The bicycles piled on a truck for the 2 hour drive north to Kabwe - once there, some volunteers looking over the sea of bright yellow bicycles

Hard working Alisha taking down serial numbers as the bikes are destributed to the thankful volunteers