What A Glorious Heritage!

Let this be recorded for a generation to come, 

so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD. (Psalm 102:18, ESV)

My late uncle, Linda Makelele - freedom fighter, politician, and journalist

On 8th September this year, we lost an uncle, Mr. Linda M. Makelele right  here in Lusaka. He was the immediate younger brother to my mother, a noted freedom fighter, and one of the founder members of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD). In his letter of condolences to the family, the then president of Zambia, Mr. Rupiah Bwezani Banda, among other things, wrote: 

I am heartbroken to learn of the death of Mr. Linda Makelele, a noted freedom fighter and political leader. I am deeply moved to see that the deceased has left us shortly before the 2011 elections, a democratic pillar that he fought so hard to achieve for his country. His exemplary record is a powerful lesson to upcoming generations about the meaning of selfless service. Without people like Mr. Makelele, the independence struggle and the development of our nation would have been far more difficult to realise. 

Former president, Mr. Rupiah Bwezani Banda

My uncle did not die with any earthly and material possessions to his name. But there was one item that was almost inseparable from him. It was always by his side whenever he travelled out of town. This item was a black briefcase. For many years, we wondered what was in that briefcase. From the way he treasured it, our conclusion was that it must contain something very valuable and precious to him. 

So when uncle died last month, and after all the legal formalities of appointing an administrator had been taken care of, we had, for the first time, an opportunity to discover the contents of the deceased's briefcase. No one knew the combination to the locks, so we had to break the case open in order to have access to its contents. And what we discovered was nothing anyone of us expected. There were documents going as far back as 1963, a few photographs, and a book in which he had pasted dated newspaper articles and pictures from the 1960s on. My uncle was a trained journalist, and these things must have meant a lot to him. 

Priceless discovery in my late uncle's briefcase 

Some of these pictures and newspaper cuttings have information concerning some close family members, and many others are about significant events in the life of our nation, Zambia. 

I don’t think uncle was doing this for himself. He must have wanted to preserve these documents so that they become some kind of a window through which we can look back and learn something about his life and the history of our country. And for sure, there is so much, which we previously did not know about him and some of our close family members. Now we are glad that the missing gaps have been filled in by this prized collection. And that is the beauty of recording and preserving history, it speaks to future generations. 

The text at the head of this post eloquently speaks of what uncle was determined to do through his personal archive. He wanted to have these things put on record for future generations, and it has been inspiring to read these historical accounts and see the many sacrifices made by so many people in the struggle for our independence. In his address to the nation on the eve of Zambia's 47th Independence anniversary, the current president, His Excellency Mr. Michael Chilufya Sata extolled the contributions of many Zambian heroes who fought for our independence:

The independence we celebrate today was attained at great cost. Our founding fathers and mothers spared nothing in freeing us from the yoke of colonialism. No pain was too hard for them to bear, no load too heavy to carry; no life was too precious to lose for the cause of freedom, prosperity and dignity for mother Zambia.

Current Zambian President, His Excellency, Mr. Michael Chilufya Sata 

I feel a a sense of pride to know that my family, in a small way, contributed to the struggle for the liberation of Zambia. What a glorious heritage! I thank God for my late uncle who preserved vital historical information for us his progeny to know that we stand on the shoulders of giants. If the information we now possess was in our hands much earlier than this, we would have forced uncle to write a book and narrate his, and many other members of our family's involvement in the struggle for our independence.  Except for a school in Northwestern province named after one of our departed heroes, many remain humbly unknown.

My late grandfather, mum's dad, Mr. Makelele - preacher, headman and freedom fighter, being honoured by the former president, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda in October 1967. He died in September 1969, a few months before I was born. 

On the occasion of Zambia's 47th independence anniversary, I wish my country a prosperous and peaceful future. May the Almighty God bless the people of the republic of Zambia.

A Weak Christian Who Knew a Strong Saviour

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

(2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV) 

The 2nd of September marks exactly one year since I lost a cousin, Hellen Kamponge at Wusakile Mine Hospital in Kitwe. In our Kaonde and Zambian tradition, Hellen was my younger sister. Her mother and my mother are  sisters, with my mother being the older one. News of her death reached us when my wife and I were in Harare, Zimbabwe attending the annual Sola 5 Conference. When one is far away from home, the last message you want to receive is the sad news of the passing on of someone very dear to you. It is easier to process the pain of loss when you are surrounded by other close family members with whom you can share the grief. 

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;


the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,


Help of the helpless, O abide with me. 

Helen's casket during the church service at the Riverside Congregation of the United Church of Zambia

Although Hellen's death brought a piercingly painful ache to our hearts, there was also something about her life and her death that was soothing and comforting to many of us who knew her closely and know the Saviour she believed in. 

Hellen was born with Sickle Cell Anaemia. This illness is an inherited blood disorder characterized primarily by chronic anaemia and periodic episodes of pain. The underlying problem involves haemoglobin, a component of red blood cells. Haemoglobin molecules in each red blood cell carry oxygen from the lungs to body organs and tissues and bring carbon dioxide back to the lungs. In Sickle Cell Anaemia, the haemoglobin is defective. After hemoglobin molecules give up their oxygen, some may cluster together and form long, rod-like structures. These structures cause red blood cells to become stiff and assume a sickle shape. Unlike normal red cells, which are usually smooth and donut-shaped, sickled red cells cannot squeeze through small blood vessels. Instead, they stack up and cause blockages that deprive organs and tissues of oxygen-carrying blood. This process produces periodic episodes of pain and ultimately can damage tissues and vital organs and lead to other serious medical problems. Normal red blood cells live about 120 days in the bloodstream, but sickled red cells die after about 10 to 20 days. Because they cannot be replaced fast enough, the blood is chronically short of red blood cells, a condition called anaemia. My late sister, Mildred, also had Sickle Cell Anaemia, and died in December 1989. 

Swift to its close ebbs life's little day;


earth's joys grow dim; it's glories pass away;

change and decay in all around I see.


O, Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Throughout her life, Hellen suffered periods of intense pain and was hospitalised countless number of times. Looking frail from the constant bouts of pain in her body, she refused to let her condition discolour her sweet demeanour. Hers was a long battle with the frailty of life and she fought that battle with enviable courage and faith. Like all of us, Hellen had her gloomy moments. She had fears, and sometimes she could not entirely succeed in concealing this fact from us. Occasionally, we could see this in the eerie silence that would suddenly descend upon her, forcing her to recoil, conversing with her soul, and with the Saviour she had come to know and love. But even when the dark clouds broke heavily upon her, she did not allow her emotions to be strangled by the cold hands of pain that tightly held her and pulled her into deeper waters. 

Hellen's parents laying wreaths on her grave

I need thy presence every passing hour.


What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?


Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?


Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

The family tried to be very sensitive to her condition, but when she sensed that everyone was trying to be protective of her and to pull her back from the demanding chores that would drain her of the little strength she had, she would gracefully fight back with uncharacteristic energy, as if to say, “see, I can also do this, I can do it.” I often saw her hide her pain and step forward to do that which anyone in her condition wouldn’t dare do. A sense of duty and the desire to help the family in any way she could always compelled her to run difficulty errands in spite of their toll on her fragile body and health. She suffered much pain in her life, and much of it happened inside of her because she didn’t want those she loved to pity her all the time. I think that is the streak she must have inherited from our grandmother who died on her knees, praying. Hellen was a fighter, a very strong lady on the inside. 

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;


ills have no weight, and tears not bitterness.


Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?


I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

The last moments of her life on 2nd September, 2010 were witnessed by her sister Mrs. Mukubwe Banda. Mukubwe testifies that there was a confidence and a hope and a longing for heaven on Hellen's face. Her hand was seemingly clasping something she did not want to let go of. She knew she was about to be ushered into a better place, and did not want anything to delay that blissful departure. And so, quietly and peacefully, as her eyes closed, never to open again on this side of the world, a light shone through the gloom and pointed her to the skies, having gallantly fought the last battle.   

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;


shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.


Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;


in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

As I look back on her life, I see a weak Christian who knew a strong Saviour. She endured great suffering and faced death bravely. Real Christian character shines brightly when our vulnerability is greatest and our own power is exhausted. Then, as the apostle Paul puts it, God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. 

This time last year, our tears streamed down our cheeks and our voices choked with grief, but we celebrated a life that struggled and overcame. And by and by, we shall meet her on that beautiful shore.

What Can Be More Precious Than Jewels?

“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.” (Proverbs 31:10)

From early childhood, many of us absorbed the idea that marriage is a natural and integral part of normal life. I remember the games we used to play as I was growing up in the mining town of Luanshya; games that conditioned our minds to the reality of marriage. As dusk set in, we gathered under the faint shadows of the moon, and the slim silhouette of the closely built houses, singing “Nsale, nsale chinkamba, mulesala bawama...” or “I want to see my Jane, my Jane, my Jane.” Today, our visually-enthusiastic generation watches the Disney cartoons and fairly-tale characters like Snow White and Prince Charming, Shrek and Fiona, and early on in childhood, they receive signals that society expects them to one day be numbered among the married.

So it was not unnatural for me, with slightly more than a year remaining before I graduated from Bible college, to begin to seriously pray that God would bring into my life a godly young lady who would answer to the challenge of being a pastor’s wife. I had no idea where she would come from, and when I would meet her. I met several ladies in the course of time, corresponded with some of them through postal letters (those were days when e-mails and cell phones were not even in my remotest imagination), but none of these struck any note in my heart.

In April, 1995, we broke off from college for one month holiday. I travelled to Lusaka on a short attachment as a “trainee pastor” in one of the local churches. I was then in my third year at the Theological College of Central Africa (TCCA) in Ndola. During the one month that I was to spend in Lusaka, my friend and former college mate at TCCA was going to get married, and she had invited me to this wedding. The day of the wedding came, and I woke up with a swollen right foot, and it gave me a great deal of pain and discomfort. When I was all dressed up, and tried to force my swollen foot into my shoe, a bolt of pain rain through my entire body as if I had stepped in a pot of boiling water. I was determined to go for the wedding, but how was I going to make it with such pain?

I took a pain killer, waited for a few minutes for its efficacy to be felt in my body, and attempted again the unenviable task of squeezing my foot into the shoe. The pain was less severe this time, thanks to the pain killer. I literally wobbled to the bus stop, and got on the bus to the wedding service, and later the reception. God’s providence directed my steps to this wedding, in spite of the pain, and caused my path to cross with that of a fine young lady who two years later was to become my wife. The puritan John Flavel said “The providence of God is like Hebrew words - it can be read only backwards.” And that is true. As I look back, it was through that seemingly ordinary choice to put my swollen foot into my shoe and limp to this wedding that God began to unravel his intricate plan for my marital life, and as they say, the rest is history, or to put it differently, living the reality of history in the present.

Now, you may wonder, what has prompted this line of thought? Well, the 9th of August this year, marks our 14th wedding anniversary. Shupe and I got married on this date in 1997 in Kitwe, and what a blessing she has been to me all these years. The Lord couldn’t have given me a better wife! And humanly speaking, I couldn’t have made a better choice. I know that writing this way about my wife might attract stern rebukes from her. She is not the kind of person who seeks glory or attention to herself, and might express some embarrassment at this public acknowledgement of her great qualities. However, I will gladly bear with her rebuke in that area.

One of the great paperbacks that I would recommend to husbands is a short book, The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers, by Michael Haykin (with assistance from his daughter Victoria).

Dr. Haykin has assembled together 32 personal letters from noted Christian leaders through history with the purpose of illustrating, celebrating, and encouraging the delightful and passionate love that a husband and wife can (and ought to) have toward one another. Reading this book will have a rewarding experience in your marriage. One of the letters in this book was written by the forty year old Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to his wife Bethan after they had been married for twelve years. Dr. Lloyd-Jones wrote:

“Bethan dear, you are dearer to me than ever and I feel prouder of you than ever before…There is no one like you anywhere. The more I see of others the more obvious does this become…When I think of those days in London in 1925 and ’26, when I thought that no greater love was possible, I could laugh. But honestly during this last year I had come to believe that it was not possible for a man to love his wife more than I loved you. And yet I see there is no end to love, and that it is still true that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I am quite certain that there is no lover, anywhere, writing to his girl who is quite as mad about her as I am.”

I have taken a cue from these godly men to unblushingly express myself in this way to and about the wife of my youth. The liveliness and cheerfulness that Shupe exudes; her gentle and kind spirit; her godliness, simplicity, humility and generous heart are just the kind of virtues any man would want in a wife, better still, a pastor’s wife. In her courage to gently but firmly straighten me, I have found a suitable helper without whom much good in me would not abide. And not on a few occasions have I thought to myself, "I don’t think I deserve her."

I thank God for this precious gift. Happy 14th Anniversary dear!!!

Celebrating 10 Years of God's Precious Gift

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" (James 1:17). 

The birth of a baby in the family is often a source of great joy and celebration. And greater still is the joy if the baby is not only the first one, but also one that comes after the pain of losing two previous pregnancies. Such was the joy with which we welcomed our first baby. It was an indescribable experience!

Like most married couples, we looked forward to our first child. After providence frowned upon us with my wife's loss of two pregnancies in succession, the gift of our first baby in the third year of our marriage filled us with exceeding joy and gratitude to the Lord. It was at 20:45 hours on Sunday evening, 27th August, 2000, that our precious baby girl was born. I vividly remember that day as if it was only yesterday.

I had the privilege of witnessing Shupe's long labour at Nchanga South Hospital in Chingola. The midwives who attended to Shupe were excellent, and as providence would have it, all the three of them were not only personally known to us, but also very close sisters in the Lord, and fellow members with us at Central Baptist Church in Chingola, where I was then serving as an elder. The Lord could not have prepared better and competent hands to help bring this new life into the world! Two of these midwives have gone to be with the Lord, Mrs. Cornelia Kanyata and Mrs. Appronia Gardner and the third, Mrs. Cerrien Siluka is now working in Scotland. (Below, Shupe holding Mwitupa at 7 months)

As we celebrate our daughter's 10th birthday which falls on August 27th, we acknowledge God's provision of this precious gift to us. The name which we chose to give to our daughter sums up our sense of gratitude to the Lord. She is appropriately named MWITUPA, which in my native language, Kaonde, means " You have given us." God is the one who gave us this child. Our God, the Creator of the rolling spheres, He who is ineffably sublime and immutable is the source of this "good and perfect gift." He gave us a daughter, and less than two years later, a son. (below Mwitupa with her younger brother Taonga, picture taken in 2004). All that is loveliest and best has come to us from above, from the Father of the heavenly lights himself.

                    
It has been such a joy and a delight to see Mwitupa grow in her first decade. Oh, what joy she brings into our lives! Her name is a constant reminder to us of the goodness of the Lord and a summon to us to keep trusting Him and depending upon Him always. The birthday girl herself is so excited to be in the 2-digit age bracket! (Below, the picture taken outside the hospital where she was born).

The Lord constantly lavishes upon His people all the best gifts, and with these gifts comes responsibility. It is our hope and prayer that the Lord will grant us the wisdom and grace to shepherd the hearts of these little ones and "bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).

Promoting Family Religion

The following is an edited excerpt from an article A Call to Family Worship written by Dr. Ligon Duncan and Dr. Terry Johnson and published in Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship, ed. Philip Graham Ryken, Derek W. H. Thomas, and J. Ligon Duncan (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2003) 317-338. Dr. Duncan is Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church Jackson, Mississippi and Dr. Jonhson is Senior Pastor, Independent Presbyterian Church Savannah, Georgia. I was privileged to take some courses with Dr. Duncan at the Reformed Theological Seminary where he is an Adjunct Professor of Theology.

___________________________________________________________________________

When all is said and done though, some of the profoundest things we can repeatedly do to promote a heart for God in our children are also the simplest things.

First, sit together at church. Go to church every week (even on vacation), fifty-two weeks a year, year after year, and sit together. That is it. I guarantee it will have a profoundly beneficial spiritual impact. The family ought to be in corporate worship faithfully and in it together. Children can get with their friends after the services, but in church, the family ought to be prime. Do not underestimate the power of the ordinary means of grace in the life of the family.

Second, work to have a Lord’s Day. Live as if Sunday is the Lords, not yours. View it as the “market day of the soul.” Don’t let the day become cluttered up. Avoid unnecessary labor and travel. Anticipate it with enthusiasm rather than bemoaning it. Make going to church the high point of the week. Let yourchildren know you love it. Do special things with them on that day that you do no other (e.g., Dad: cook them breakfast, wake them in a special way, spend relational time with them in the afternoon, read them spiritual books and stories, make ice cream sundaes for them after the evening service and the like).

Third, attend evening worship. If we believe the whole day is the Lords day, then it ought to be framed with worship. Morning and evening worship in the Reformed tradition is the single most powerful and effective total congregational discipleship program in the history of Christianity. I have never known a family that was faithful in Sunday evening attendance in an evangelical church, that, when the great crises of life came, did not weather the storm and walk in faith, and persevere.

Fourth, memorize the catechisms. It is a proven method. It is simple. It is content rich. It teaches our children the language of Zion, as well as the precious doctrines of the Bible. It increases memory ability and capacity for thinking.

Fifth, worship together as a family at home. Praise, pray, and read the Bible together as a family at home. Why should we do family worship? (1) Because we are stewards to God of our children, whom he has graciously given to us. Ps 127:3 tells us how we are to view them “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD.” How will we account to him of the soul-care that we are to give these precious trusts? (2) Because God has commanded us to train our children up in the Lord in the home. As we have already seen in Deut 6:7, God says, “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” (3) Because the home is the seedbed of piety and religion for the church (1 Tim 3:4–5, 12).

In Search of Peace in the Sudan

“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.” (Psalm 46:9, ESV)

Just before midnight on Friday, February 27th, 2009, I drove to the Zambia Air Force (ZAF) Base, near the Lusaka International Airport. What took me there at such an awkward hour? It was the opportunity to see off my younger brother, and only surviving sibling, Staff Sergeant Mwitwa Makashinyi. (Pictured earlier at the Farewell Parade).
In a matter of minutes, he was to fly to Sudan as part of a contingent of Zambian military personnel sent to this vast northeastern African country on the United Nations/African Union Peacekeeping Mission.

After over three months of specialised training at a military camp south of Lusaka, the more than 150 soldiers were transported from the camp to the ZAF base in three big buses late Friday night. A week before their departure, they were given only a day to go and say bye to their families! I missed that opportunity to meet my younger brother, and so I elected to have my chance at the airport, though it was going to be late in the night. I was in touch with my brother on phone, so I knew exactly what time to leave home and join the convoy just a few kilometres before the ZAF Base. I think I was the only civilian who drove into the base that night, and my brother the only one to have a relative to see him off.

Just a little background about the United Nations Peace Keeping Missions. This is a unique and dynamic instrument developed by the Organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict create the conditions for lasting peace. According to the UN website (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/), the field operations of these peacekeeping missions have expanded from “traditional” missions involving strictly military tasks, to complex “multidimensional” enterprises designed to ensure the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements and assist in laying the foundations for sustainable peace. Today’s peacekeepers undertake a wide variety of complex tasks, from helping to build sustainable institutions of governance, to human rights monitoring, to security sector reform, to the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants. (Picture of UN forces escorting a convoy of humanitarian aid into Darfur)

The first UN peacekeeping mission was established in 1948, when the Security Council authorised the deployment of UN military observers to the Middle East to monitor the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Since then, there have been a total of 63 UN peacekeeping operations around the world, and Zambian troops have participated in some of these operations.

Sudan is the largest and one of the most diverse countries in Africa. The population stands at 40 million. Since attaining independence from British rule in 1956, military regimes favouring Islamic-oriented governments have dominated national politics. Sudan was embroiled in two prolonged civil wars, mainly between the Moslem North and the Christian South, during most of the remainder of the 20th century. The first civil war ended in 1972 but broke out again in 1983. The second war and famine-related effects resulted in more than four million people displaced and close to two million deaths over a period of two decades.

Perhaps the most famous, if not infamous word in international news concerning Sudan is Darfur. This is a desert region in western Sudan roughly the size of France, and has about seven significant rebel factions, who took up arms claiming the region had been neglected and marginalised, but are divided in their loyalties. The conflict in Darfur which broke out in 2003 has displaced nearly two million people and caused an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 deaths. Although a North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005, peace and political stability remain elusive.

On March the 4th, 2009, the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant of arrest for Sudanese President, General Omar Hasan al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur. This indictment has not gone down well with the Sudanese government which has already issued veiled threats against the UN and AU missions in Sudan, the international humanitarian agencies operating there and Sudanese who support the ICC prosecution. This will pose a real threat to the already fragile peace situation in Sudan.

This is the country to which my younger brother and other Zambian military personnel have been deployed as UN peace keepers. Two weeks before their departure to Sudan, I was privileged to attend a Farewell Parade for the soldiers at Arakan Barracks, here in Lusaka. This was a colourful event, though solemn for us whose relatives were going to be away to a war torn country for such a long time. The soldiers were addressed by the guest of honour, the Zambian Minister of Defence Mr. George Mpombo and the army commander General Isaac Chisuzi. (See pictures below)

I thank God that my brother is a Christian, and serves as deacon in his church. He is married with three sons, and his wife Judith is also a staff sergeant in the military (Zambia National Service). Please, do remember to pray for my brother and his colleagues that God will keep them safe. Pray that my brother will bear testimony to the transforming power of the gospel of God’s grace to his friends. Pray for his family back home, that the Lord will watch over his wife and children, and keep them in good health. (see picture of his family)


Pray that the Sudanese government may exercise restraint in its response to the decision to President Al-Bashir’s indictment and ensure that its actions do not undermine the opportunity to achieve peace in Sudan. Pray that Christ’s church in Sudan might thrive in the midst of conflict and be a banner of hope as it witnesses to the power of the gospel to change lives and foster peace.

Lasting peace will only come through the One who “makes wars cease to the end of the earth…”

Peace efforts through human institutions such as the UN are important and must be encouraged, but as subservient means, they can only go so far. They are only a temporal answer to the volatility in our world. Lasting peace will only come through the One who “makes wars cease to the end of the earth…” (Ps. 46:9). God alone is the One who can put an end to the wars of the nations and crown them with peace. War and peace depend on His word and will. And before He establishes a peaceful universal kingdom at the end of the age, when the instruments of wholesale murder shall be consigned to ignominious destruction, He is presently working in the hearts of people, breaking down the walls of hostility through the accomplished work of the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As we hugged with my brother in the cool breeze of that Friday night, I felt a wetness on my face as tears welled in my eyes and flowed down my cheek. I said a quick prayer to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, I entrust into your hands the life of my dear brother, my only brother and sibling, watch over him, and may it please you to bring him and his colleagues safely back home at the end of their mission.”

As I drove back home that night, I reflected on how truly privileged Zambia has been. God has blessed our nation with peace and stability since independence. For this, we are to be deeply grateful. Let us not relent in praying that this shall continue for many years to come, so "that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:2-4).