My names are Pastor Kamanga Ferrah, born from a family of seven, five boys and two girls. My father was a peasant farmer in Zambia, Africa. Being the second last in this poor family was the hardest thing to grow up in as I was made to experience poverty at a very tender age. At the age of five I already knew what it was to sleep without a meal a day, or just one meal on a lucky day. Growing up in the village where almost everyone was poor, except for a few working class people, such as teachers, agricultural extension officers, and other civil servants. It was a very big challenge for me because my family couldn’t afford basic things for all of us. All my three brothers dropped out from school due to lack of school fees and some school materials. In all of this I can say, luck was on my side because I happened to be very good at school which attracted some members of the family from my mother’s side who paid for school things and some stuff. When I reached Grade Eight I was a darling to most teachers at my school, and they encouraged me not to quit school because school would change the story of my Life and that of my family. Having teachers as my pillar of encouragement I discovered my ability to work hard and focus on education. I used to do piece work and do some gardening where I could make some money to sponsor myself and my younger sister to school. As tough as life was, I was determined to make it in life and indeed God was with me because whatever I touched used to prosper, from gardens, raising egg-laying chickens, and doing carpentry work at a young age helped me a lot and enabled me to sponsor myself to further my education. I was helped as well by having a network of people to assist me. Before I came to stay with my sister in Lusaka, I stayed with three different families all related to my father. All this was to help me in terms of my education, as my father was unable to provide for me and my siblings. After the death of my father in 1996, my life made a twist, as all the support I used to get from Dad’s relatives disappeared, and we were left helpless and hopeless, me, my mother, and my little sister. My four brothers relocated in the town in search of greener pastures but without education they ended up being garden boys which could not be enough to take care of the family back in the village. My elder sister got married at a tender age just to free herself from the shackles of poverty. Indeed, the year 1996 was a defining year in my life for all things stopped. I struggled to push myself, in terms of school, by doing peace work, but two years later, I had to stop school all together and leave my mother and young sister in the village, as I headed to the capital city, Lusaka, in search of employment to sponsor myself to further my schooling, and to take care of mum. I followed up with my brother in Lusaka, who was working as a security guard, maybe things could turn around, but nothing changed. I stayed with my brother for almost a year without meaningful employment and no money to send to my mother and sister in the village. We had no communication as those days there were no phones, only letters via post office. This was the most difficult time of my life, but through this difficult time, God remembered me by connecting me to a relative of my father who took an interest in me and started paying for my school again, now in Lusaka. She is the daughter to the elder brother to my Dad (my cousin). This God-sent woman kept me and sponsored my education until I finished my secondary School in 2000. After I finished my high school, I started living alone doing carpentry work, and things started heading in the right direction. I went back to the village in 2001 to see mum and promised her that very soon she would be living with me in the capital. As I was making plans to take her to starting living with me in town, the devastating news of her passing reached me and left me almost dying from anger and stress. That’s the first time I asked God a ‘why’ question. I almost lost faith in God. But by God’s grace I recovered from that shock and continued serving God as a young man. Around that time, I met Pastor Joshua Zulu. He was just a youth pastor at a local church. As youths, we would organize cell group meetings and overnights (over-night prayer meetings) at Joshua Zulu’s parent’s house; this helped me a lot to recover from stress as his mother treated me like a son. Through my business as a carpenter, I made lot of friends, especially those who would hire me to fix their broken furniture. It’s through these connections that God opened a way for me to find a job in civil service as a police officer, under a paramilitary unit, the 1st Grade of policing in Zambia. I joined the police in 2006, and went to live in Kafue Gorge, in the southern province of Zambia. In 2017, my friend and brother, Joshua Zulu, had completed his theology studies and was now a pastor with his own outreach church. It was just the right thing to do, to support him financially, as I understood his desire to serve God. In the subsequent years, we have passed along together in the work of God, as we used to share our vision of serving the under-privileged in society. Today I am a pastor under him, and I know God is in control, and that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. Today my desire is to help people who are struggling with anxiety and depression because I was once there, and I know how devastating it can be, hence the statement: We can tell the story, because we were there, but now I’m free, so help me God!

Pastor Kamanga

“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 15:57 NIV