Chimwemwe main SDA church is located in Lusaka’s Kabanana Site and Service/Chimwemwe plot number 79/24 of 8195. Before 1984, there weren’t any organized churches in Chimwemwe. The Seventh Day Adventists (SDAs) who lived in Chimwemwe then had to travel about two (2) kilometers every Sabbath to the next township (Chipata Compound) where there was a branch for the SDA under Mandevu SDA Church for their worship. In 1984, an Evangelist Kakwisa (now pastor Kakwisa) and his family moved to Chimwemwe to stay, they were not comfortable with the distance between their new home and the nearest worship center and thus decided to spend their first Sabbath at home where they worshiped as a family. The Sabbath that followed, they invited Sister Flen Shachele, Brother Sonny Chilala and Brother Elliot Mwansa and his family to join them in their house for worship. All the invited people were Seventh Day Adventists except for the Mwansa family who were converted to Adventism later on. These members continued to invite others to join them.
This gathering had not yet been recognized as an official branch of the SDA church because the nearby worship centers (Chipata and Mandevu SDA church) thought it unnecessary to have another branch so close by. However, the members insisted on worshiping from the evangelist’s home and argued that the distance was uncomfortable for them. This gathering was in this respect later in the same year organized into an official branch of the SDA with Elder Kunda as branch leader and Mandevu main SDA church as the mother (overseer) church. The rest of the leadership was as follows; Sister Shachele as a church secretary and Sabbath school superintendent, Brother Musonda as a deacon. In the same year the Dorcas society was organized and was composed of four members; Sister Shachele (leader), Sister Lumamba (secretary), Sister Chobwe and Sister Simutanda.
The church membership was composed of ten (10) families namely; Kakwisa, Nyirenda, Shachele, Chilala, Mwansa, Kalaluka, Mutemwa, Siyota, Simutanda and Mwansa’s family.
In the same year (1984) they moved from Evangelist Kakwisa to Brother Sani Chilala’s home since the former was a rented house and the Kakwisas had to move.
They then bought a church plot which they did not occupy immediately at the price of K1000.00 of which K600.00 was a contribution from church members and K400.00 was acquired from the local church/branch funds. Construction works began the same year with very minimal progress.
In 1987, the members had increased in number and thus decided to find a spacious place for worship. They thus moved from Brother Chilala’s house to Chimwemwe hall. They were allowed to worship free of charge by the owner for a year before they were demanded to pay rent.
In 1989, they moved to a council hall commonly known as ‘Housing’ just next to the Chimwemwe hall where they were allowed to worship free of charge. It was there and in the same year that the church choir was formed under the leadership of Brother Chibwe. The Adventist youth (AY) movement was soon introduced in the same year. The AY and Church choir members would always alternate between the two groups and the two thus seemed to be one and the same group to an on looker.
In the early 1990s they decided to construct a temporal wooden structure of their own at the church plot and shifted into the same structure. However, they just worshiped in this structure for less than a year before they returned to the council hall as their structure failed to stand even for a year.
In 1997, Chimwemwe SDA branch was organized into a company with Elder kibombwe as the company leader. A few years later, they moved to their plot and it was there organized into a church. The lord has since been with his church. Chimwemwe main SDA church currently has a membership of over 600 people. It has had three (3) companies: Chimwemwe west, Chimwemwe east and Kabanana. Chimwemwe west and Chimwemwe east are currently organized SDA churches.
