Category: News

One young sister’s sacrificial exercise has made a very significant contribution to the work here in Malawi.

Using funds given for the purpose of advancing the work of the Gospel we have been able to buy brother Goodson a motorcycle which will greatly increase his effective reach in school visitation, literature distribution and open-air work. He just got in yesterday, and it still had the wrapping on!

The Lord knows the heart that gave and will reward in His own time. In the meantime, ZIKOMO KWAMBIRI!

We had the real joy again today of distributing exercise books to three local schools. Altogether around 900 children received a complimentary jotter with a Gospel message from Acts 16v31.

It may not seem like much, but if you could only see the pathetic conditions in which some of these students are “learning”.  The classrooms in one of the schools particularly were hardly fit for housing cattle, never mind as a place to study.  The metal sheets on the roofs had been re-used so many times they had enough holes to make a good colander, and the heat was incredible.  Around 80-100 youngsters were cramped into each small classroom, which had no desks so that they were simply writing on their laps!  So a free exercise book is, in fact something of real value.

Brother Harold enjoyed taking his place among the kids when he wasn’t explaining the message to them.

I haven’t done as much travelling on this trip as I usually do, mainly because brother Harold has been suffering badly from sciatic pain after an injury last August. I’ve been able to help him have a few physio appointments since I arrived, but this has restricted our movements quite a bit. In any case, he finds it difficult to stand in the open air at the moment, and sitting in the car for prolonged periods doesn’t help him.

However the Lord makes no mistakes and this enforced limitation had provided a perfect opportunity to make some follow-up visits to contacts from earlier literature distribution.

This morning Harold and I had the great joy of speaking to a young lady called Nellie who listened very attentively as we explained the Gospel and shared our own testimonies with her. She first contacted Harold by sms after we visited Thondwe market with Seed Sower texts last August. Please remember her in your prayers. Nellie says she had trusted the Saviour, but has many unanswered questions. We left her with a selection of tracts and invited her to get in touch again.

Meanwhile, as we say in the car talking to Nellie, Mr Saidi was waiting to see us. We also met him at the market last August when he took a few tracts to distribute elsewhere. Today, as we talked with him it was clear that he loves the Lord and is active in open-air and door to door evangelism. We were able to apply him with several thousand tracts and a little booklet to help him in his understanding of the Gospel. We expect he will be looking for more tracts soon!

Later in Chinamwali we met two more contacts also involved in evangelism. One, James, was very clear on the Gospel, while the other was much less so. The “village gospel” which is little more than salvation by good works is so rampant here, and it is heart breaking how many we meet who are “sincerely lost”. Just like our final contact of the day, a leader of a village church looking for material to help him in his outreach work, who when giving us his testimony spoke at length about his call to serve God, his dreams and visions and the “amazing change” in his life since he started to serve, but never once mentioned the cross or faith in our Lord Jesus Christ! As I said, sincere. But lost.

I’ve used my trusty pickup for manys-a-thing in Malawi (including as an ambulance and a hearse!) but nothing quite thrills me like seeing it loaded up with Gospel Literature!
Today I took delivery of another 25,000 Gospel Tracts, on top of the 25,000 I received yesterday, but I’m especially excited about the consignment of 10,000 Exercise Books for distribution in local schools.

Malawi is the world’s poorest country, and the cash-strapped government has failed to provide writing materials to many of the impoverished students this year (never mind textbooks!) and so it is a thrill to be able to provide some to students in neighbouring schools. I was going to say that the “sting” is in the tail, but really it’s the blessing – the back page has a simple Gospel message themed on Acts 16v31.

We hope to begin distribution tomorrow (Lord willing) so please pray for blessing upon the Word of God.

I know I’ve grumbled about the slow service at the printer before, but I’ve got to know the guys here quite well. Notice the older man standing to the right of the pallet of books. That’s one of our tracts in his hand – and I didn’t give it to him! When I turned up to collect the materials this afternoon he was sitting chatting to the others with the tract in his hand.

Another older man spoke of the “powerful preaching” in the books. Pray for the blessing of those men – wouldn’t it be a thrill if the Lord blessed the material in salvation even before it left the print room!