Ministering in Malawi takes a lot out of you; but as you see God's hand at work in the lives of the people around you, God fills you up again.  Here is a first-hand account of God working through those who step forth in obedience to spread the Good News of the saving power of Jesus Christ  

The two pastors, Rev. Phiri and Rev. Kaiya had planned the trip.  Mat and I were along for encouragement, prayer support, a little teaching, and LOTS of driving.  Nsanje is only about 75 miles south of Blantyre, but the trip takes 3 1/2 hours!  The road is ROUGH!!!  

At Nsanje, we spoke in schools during the day and had open air preaching at night.  With people being saved each night, we also started doing follow up Bible studies with new believers each day.  From this first group of believers, eight were baptized on Sunday.  Three of them were women who rode in a canoe across the Shire River from Mozambique each day to attend the preaching and the discipleship teaching.  PRAY FOR THE OTHERS WHO PRAYED TO RECEIVE CHRIST BUT WERE NOT READY TO BE BAPTIZED.  While the pastors preached at the schools, I spoke about HIV/AIDS one day.  I think that Rev. Kaiya has a new job for me sending me around to the schools to teach about God's plan for human intimacy now.

 

On Friday we went on to Chinsomba Village near Mutarara, Mozambique.  These two pastors (second from left and far right) that you see  in the picture with Rev. Kaiya and Rev. Phiri, rode bicycles three days last year from their village to Blantyre looking for training for people in their churches.  (Over the last 20 miles of their trip, they climbed nearly 4,000 feet!)  They found their way to Soche Baptist Church, and the pastor there sent them to see Rev. Kaiya.  He did not get the whole story.  He thought they were from a Baptist church.  It turns out they are from an independent church started by a visiting preacher from South Africa ten years ago.  As we heard their story, and taught them on Saturday, we found that they are close to Baptist beliefs.  They believe in salvation by grace through faith.  They practice immersion.  But they do not understand the security of the believer.  So, we had a wonderful time of teaching on Saturday with one pastor teaching the men, another the women, another the youth, and another the children. 

 

Since we were in two vehicles, one group of us left for Nsanje early Sunday morning to lead the service there.  Rev. Kaiya stayed with the group in Chinsomba to do the baptism there in the expansive Zambezi River.  He baptized 25, and then the people started bringing their small children to be baptized.  That is when he realized that they did not understand about the difference in believer's baptism and infant baptism.  So, it was back to the church for more teaching.  Meanwhile at Nsanje, the group was gathering.  There were two places to baptize--the Shire River, notorious for crocodiles, or a small stream up in the mountain!  All agreed on the stream in the mountain.  We ferried the baptismal candidates about 5 miles to the place where they could walk up the mountain to the stream.  The stream just died out in the sand by the time it got to the bottom of the mountain.  Along with the eight from the new church, there were 17 more from an established village church to be baptized.  Three of the women and one man must have been over 70 years old.

 

During the week, we had noticed that the people living near the river had plenty of food as they could plant near the river and water their gardens from it.  But those at the foot of the mountain were short of food, as are many people in Malawi.  To really meet the needs of the area would take a lot of resources, but we wanted to at least do something.  So, I decided it was time to "get the ox out of the ditch."  I went down to the river where the people were selling corn brought across the river from Mozambique.  The Lord, through Mat with a little help from me, bought four bags of corn and took it to the church.  Actually, four churches were involved in the service that day.  So, we gave one bag to each of the newer churches and two bags to the older, larger church.  The church leaders will identify the widows, orphans and widowers to divide the corn among them.  

 

Then at 4:30 we had a 3 1/2 hour drive back to Blantyre over the very rough road. The Lord blessed us and kept us safe.  Now back to the office work.  But last week was a wonderful eight days with 12 others who love the Lord and shared their faith daily.