It was almost a decade ago that East Texas natives Bre’Ana Whiting and Deejay Whiting went on an African mission trip for the first time. Now, after numerous other trips there since, the family will move to Zambia – in southern Africa – in early 2026.
The couple and their children live in the Dallas area but still have family in the Marshall and Tatum areas.
The work the Whiting family will be doing is through the nonprofit organization Godlink, which Deejay founded with Debbie Maxey, his former high school principal in Tatum.
After his first initial trip, Deejay, a Tatum native, said he enjoyed meeting the people of Zambia.
“I thought it was just like a one-time trip, go and see it and say you’ve seen it and did it, and then come back and go back about your life, but a piece of my heart was linked to the people and the children of Zambia,” Deejay said. “That’s why we named it Godlink, because God linked our hearts with the kids there in Zambia.”
Bre’Ana, a Marshall native, said that while she and her husband were in Zambia the first time, they met Godrick Mwanza, who is a pastor in Zambia, and they stayed connected. Over the years, the couple sent Mwanza money, and he would in turn use it to purchase things for children in his community.
Bre’Ana and Deejay, who are traveling musicians, later donated money from a 2018 concert to help Zambian children.
“Long afterwards, (Mwanza) sent us photos of how he had purchased uniforms for over 100 kids, including shoes, and he had gotten concrete or cement laid in one of the schools that they were attending — at the time their school was just literally dirt floors with like a brick that they were sitting on,” Bre’Ana said.
After seeing the impact, the Whitings’ from 2018 to 2021 sent money to Mwanza earned through their music.
“We saw that he was doing something and he was also feeding kids in the community. He would send us pictures of the kids he was feeding,” Bre’Ana said.
The Whitings returned to Zambia in 2021 along with Maxey.
They said they felt God wanted them to do something more with the Zambian community, which is when they founded Godlink.
Godlink
The mission of Godlink is to provide Zambian children with opportunities. The organization focuses on feeding children, providing shelter and educational programs.
The organization teams with three schools in Zambia and provides lunches for the children there. The organization also offers three programs within the schools: sewing, computer literacy and farming.
“One of our missions at Godlink is not to just take resources from America and just keep dumping it in the country, but the goal is, ‘How do we empower a generation of Zambians to break the cycle of poverty?’ ” Deejay said.
Destanie Perrodin went on her first trip to Zambia as part of Godlink in May 2024. The trip lasted around a week, but Perrodin decided to stay to continue to serve the community until October.
In those four months, she did missionary work by helping out in the schools and learning about the children.
“What’s really cool that they have is — what I’ve learned and brought home with me — it’s just a love for one another in the community of Christ, really, and how you implement that in your everyday it’s so different there,” Perrodin said.
She said the connection she felt to the Zambian community was strong and made her understand and appreciate her life in a different way.
Move to Zambia
The international move for the Whiting family is a work in progress. With all of the logistics and paperwork involved, they hope to be in Zambia by January.
However, plans and trips with Godlink are continuing to be made.
“We’re hoping to establish a high school that will be grade eight through grade 12, because our schools currently only go to seventh grade, so after seventh grade we’re losing contact with 1,100 kids. We want to see those kids all the way through graduation,” Deejay said.
He also said Maxie will continue to lead groups on missions to Zambia.
“We knew that the work we were doing in Zambia was growing, and it was to a point where it needed our full time attention,” Deejay said. “It was like God directed us to do Godlink full time. So at that point, we decided to give ourselves to moving there, investing all our time, energy and effort in building a better future for Zambian children.
“Anyone is welcome, regardless of your faith, regardless of your background — if you are a human being, you are invited to be a part of the Godlink team to use the gifts that you have to build a better future for children in Zambia.”
To learn more about their work and get involved, visit godlink.org.
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