Picking up pieces

Lifestyle/Technology: What one Christian in Africa started | Susan Olasky

Linda Wilkinson/WORLD

Children are everywhere in Ng'ombe, an overcrowded, poor compound here. They play in the unpaved roads and dart around the cement blockhouses as curtains blow in the doorways. Men loaf outside the compound's numerous bars. Shoppers frequent the area's two main markets, "where almost anything can be found."

Ng'ombe is also home to Chikumbuso Community Center, a school and widow's project started by Linda Wilkinson, an American mother of five who has lived in Lusaka for the past three years with her husband, a World Vision project leader, and their 6-year-old son. "It simply started when I went to visit a widow in Ng'ombe who had no food for her five kids. The woman asked if I could start up a group that would help other widows like her."