Good News Malawi

We have just returned from our latest trip to Malawi, when we were delighted to be joined by an excellent group of volunteers for two weeks of open-air preaching and Seed Sower text  distribution.  Thank you sincerely for your prayers – the Lord was exceedingly gracious and gave many opportunities and much help to spread the Gospel, mainly around the busy streets of the capital city, Lilongwe.

We completely exhausted our supply of 25,000 bilingual texts and also handed out a large quantity of Gospel tracts.  It was encouraging to receive immediate responses to the distribution, and Brother Harold and Goodson continue with the follow-up work.

At present I am trying to organise a brief return visit to Malawi at the end of next month to tie-up a number of loose ends in anticipation of the commencement of the 2019 Gospel Calendar distribution later in the year.  One of those is to try to get our elderly Land Rover Discovery back on the road following a clutch failure a month or so ago.  Harold and Goodson rely upon it for the follow-up work and regular literature distribution, so it is important that it is available.  This is particularly so as we are just about to take delivery of 1,000,000 Gospel tracts, many of which need moved to distributors around the country.

We now have three shipping containers for use as regional literature storage depots.  A couple of these need further fitting out and painting, so I am keen to move this forward, and to get them stocked as soon as possible.  We hope to add to their number in the months ahead, Lord willing.  In the meantime, there is also a wide-open door to access the Malawi Prisons (no pun intended), having been given the go-ahead to visit and send literature into every prison in the country.  During our recent trip we had a visit to one of the district prisons, and the entire prison population was assembled to listen to the Gospel and to receive the literature we brought.  We were able to provide a quantity of food to help relieve hardship within the prison.  There are other exciting opportunities opening up, of which I will write more at a later time, when I hope to be able to furnish more detail.

A highlight for most of the team was a visit to the Dzaleka refugee camp, about 40 mins north of Lilongwe.  The camp is home to around 40,000 refugees from around 8 African countries, the majority coming from Democratic Republic of Congo, and there are many young children among them, some of whom have witnessed terrible atrocities and have been orphaned or separated from their families.  It was a privilege to visit the camp twice and to be able to preach the Gospel and to bring food and other supplies to support some of the most vulnerable there.  There are abundant opportunities to bring the Gospel to these needy people, and we look to the Lord for wisdom and enablement so to do.

Please continue to pray for wisdom and guidance as we seek to maximise the opportunities presented to us in the work in Malawi.

Today is our final day in Lilongwe having completed our seedsowers outreach to this area. This has been a brand new location for the MGO team and there were many similarities to previous years but also notable differences.

Being in the city was different as we reached out at roadside markets and bus depots more often than the village markets we were used to on previous years. This meant there wasn’t always as many children around to enjoy singing Chikondi cha Yesu with us girls but we really appreciated that a lot more of the adults could speak English so we were able to have conversations about the gospel much more often as well as simply handing out the texts.

Unfortunately we also encountered a lot more unemployed young men who do nothing all day but smoke and drink. Only the power of the gospel can change these lives.

We particularly enjoyed our two trips to Dzaleka refugee camp where we were privileged to work with a Congolese brother William who runs an orphan support care centre there in the camp. William used to work as a political analyst in Congo where he was well to do so to see him living in amongst the refugees was very humbling. It was obvious he has a great care for those children.

We were able to provide some practical support and hold a gospel meeting and children’s meeting with them alongside handing out seedsowers texts in the camp. Harold got a rest here as the people mostly spoke Swahili and French – a new experience for us all – our memories of secondary school French were suddenly resurrected!

We also had an opportunity to visit a small prison ‘Dedza’ where 300 cross-legged prisoners awaited us in the prison yard. As usual the prison chaplains and officers provided us with a good laugh – laughing certainly isn’t banned in Malawi prisons!! It was a real privilege to have this opportunity to present the gospel toso many people literally ‘captive’ to the gospel.

This year we were also privileged to work with more local brothers and one sister who are based in Lilongwe. These were a great example to us, even leaving their children at home alone all day to come with us and share the gospel (perhaps this would be less acceptable in the UK mind you!).

Please pray for the seed which has been sown, the growth of these local believers, the salvation of our driver Kennedy who stayed at our side throughout the whole two weeks and for all of us who were on the team, that our vision for the gospel will be expanded as a result of participation on this team.

Written by a member of the MGO2018 team.

It would do your heart good to see the children learning the Word of God

We got the time of the meeting wrong and ended up at the Gospel Hall an hour early (better than late!) which gave a perfect opportunity for an impromptu Sunday school with the group of youngsters who couldn’t resist the temptation of coming to see the bus load of azungu (white people) who had just descended on their community.

After meeting we collected all but one of the remaining team members from the airport, so we are now at almost fill numerical strength, and looking forward to Anna arriving tomorrow, Lord willing.

That’s the guy on the right. The one on the left is Ken(nedy) and he is to be our driver for the next couple of weeks.

Seems like we got the same bus as two years ago and it’s got the battle scars to prove it.

The next part of the team are just starting their journey in Dublin and are being very good girls by ensuring they are well hydrated – they don’t want to fall foul of Matron.

Meanwhile the team are having a truly Malawian experience as we had a fire in the main fuse box tonight leaving us without mains electricity, but the power supply company is not answering their phones.