Malawi update!

Baptism procession

We have been continually busy with our ministries, work at Mapanga Orphanage, and giving out medicine up at Ntcheu and down in Sutemwa. We have continued to soul win on the weekends, mainly in the village of Kautuka #1. We have seen approximately 212 people get saved in this village during the last two months with an additional 500 plus people believing and receiving Jesus as their Savior in other villages and areas. I am noticing one trend, and perhaps not a good one. Even though we have seen many people saved in Kautuka #1 we are only seeing 8 to 17 people per week attend the Sunday Service. When I talked to Andrew Nyenga, my translator, about this he stated that since we are meeting at the Mfumu’s home many people stay away. He went on to say that when we purchase some land and get a shelter raised more will come. I am also seeing this in the village of Chizinja. We are meeting in a family’s home as we have not purchased property yet nor constructed a shelter. We have seen many hundreds get saved, but on Sunday we are averaging about 15 to 20 people. We are looking hard in these villages to purchase land but it is scarce as most of the land is owned by the tea estates. Lord willing He will provide some land quickly.

The church in Khovi Good Samaritan Baptist Church is doing well. We have purchased a plot of land, about 1.2 hectares, and we are getting ready to build a temporary shelter. We have also have a national pastor ready to move down into this village in the next couple of weeks Lord willing. We showed the “Jesus Film” in this village last Friday and we had about 800 to 900 people present. I do not have an accurate count of how many people got saved, but I hear it was around 150.

Our family went to the village of Makwasa today to hold a Baptism Service at Makwasa Good Samaritan Baptist Church. Darcy and the kids did a Sunday School and I preached out of Psalm 32:7. We went to this village about 2 months ago and had 166 people accept Christ as their Savior. Since that time more people have come to the Savior through the preaching of other Good Samaritan national evangelist. We are currently looking for a national pastor to take this work as this church is hungry for the Word of God. As you may recall it was an Abraham Church that was being led by a wicked pastor. These people want God’s Best and they are a joy to visit and preach to. I have attached two photos of our baptism procession. We had to walk about ½ mile to the pit the men dug into a very small creek. I ended up baptizing 136 people; it took just over 2.5 hours but it was a joy and a privilege. The youngest was about 5 years and the oldest was 75.

Our main church, Good Samaritan Bible Baptist Church of Bwaila, is doing well, but in the last week I believe our families are under attack. We have seen one husband beat his wife because she was late coming from a Bible Study, he is not saved, another leave his wife because of a misunderstanding, and just today I was informed one of our solid families are having a bad time with the wife wanting the husband to leave. Because I was not there today Darcy and I are going to travel to Bwaila tomorrow to talk to this family. To be honest it is a real shock. When we heard about this our whole family prayed for not only this family but the church as a whole.

We have been listening to a message from our sending church Bible Baptist Church of Alaska from Sunday, 3-15-09, “When God Limits Himself” when we got home from Makwasa. It makes me do a heart check as I want God’s Best for this ministry; I do not want the Savior limited because of me!

I cannot put into words how grateful our family is for BBC! Because of their un-selfishness there is a harvest in Malawi, Levuka, Moldova, Point Lay, Selawick, Barrow and many parts of the world.

God has given our family the opportunity to see the fields that BBC is harvesting!