Tracy Murray is mom to 8 grown children. She is an occupational therapist by education and never had any dream of starting a non-profit organization,especially in Africa. During her 30 years of homeschooling Tracy read missionary stories to her children. She learned right alongside them. She did not grow up in a Christian home and didn’t know about missionaries as a child or youth. As a mom, she found ways to serve together with her children benefitting domestic and overseas to missions projects.

Tracy accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior at age 13. A friend shared 2 Corinthians 5:17 with her explaining how she could be a new creation in Christ. The sins of her past would be washed away and she would be made new.

Later a pastor spoke about ‘getting a burden for a people.” By now Tracy knew she wanted to become a missionary, but thought it would be after her children were grown. God knew more.

On her first survey trip to Zambia in 2005 she knew within three days that Zambians were her people group.

After moving to Zambia in 2007 with 7 of her 8 children she was sure she would work with children. In fact, when someone suggested she start a handbag ministry she emphatically said, ‘No!” She was working with children at a church pastored by Saul Mwailenge and had no interest in working with women. At Tracy’s first ladies fellowship meeting Pastor Saul’s wife, Mauldrine, announced the women of the church would have prayer partners. Tracy recalls all the Zambian women sitting around her reaching out to be her partner. Tracy was perplexed. God knew the plans (Jerimiah 29:11-14), Tracy’s life verse, and Tracy’s lot fell in with Irene, an ill-fitting member of the church who lived in the nearby ghetto slum called Kamanga. When Tracy visited Irene’s simple block house with dirt floors and no glass windows Tracy was further burdened and found her true calling there.

Pastor Saul and Mauldrine had become Tracy’s close friends and mentors. She saw them struggling to educate their three young adult children on $750/ month. He worked as a fulltime pastor and she, a fulltime nurse midwife. As they talked and prayed, a ministry began. God literally sent women and men
to Tracy’s home with miraculous stories about how they heard about this newly formed ministry from five miles away deep inside the Kamanga Compound. The majority of the women and men, the RecycloCraftz artisans, still live in or nearby the Kamanga Compound. Irene went to be with the Lord unexpectedly five years after Tracy first met her. Tracy is rebuilding relationships with Irene’s adult children now..

First founded as New Creation Ministry Zambia in 2008, the ministry later became known as RecycloCraftz. Tracy can pinpoint the place where she was riding her bike when the Lord spoke that new name into her heart. She feels it aptly captures the essence of 2 Corinthians 5:17 and the unique products made by the artisans using bottle caps, old video tapes, cardboard boxes, plastic grocery bags, scrap fabrics and more. The RecycloCraftz women, there children and now their grandchildren are making beautiful new creations out of old junk. From 2011 to 2022 Tracy lived in the States. She finished raising her children and caring for her parents until they went to heaven. Sadly, she ended a difficult 34-year marriage.

Fast forward to today, Tracy is blessed to be living full-time in Zambia again. The ministry rebranded in 2022 to become Global 8235 while maintaining the RecycloCraftz brand and work.

The rebrand gives a platform to promote all 7 Areas of Outreach within the ministry that have been active since it began.

Tracy hopes to be in Zambia for the next 15-20 years and loves working with children as a part of the Educational Enrichment and Literary development aspect of the ministry. She is grateful to have a chance to ‘sit in the dirt and teach women to read, so they can read God’s Word” again.