Christmas at Good Samaritan Childrens Home

We had a wonderful church service on Christmas day at Mapanga Good Samaritan Bible Church. There were many choirs, good singing, and Blessing and other children did a great job of the Christmas Story in a play form.

John Fullford preached on the “Gifts of God”; The Gift of Fulfilled Promises/The Gift of Compassion/The Gift of Grace/The Gift of God”. The bus went out and picked up people from the surrounding villages, and we had a packed house. The church service lasted about 2.5 hours but it went so fast.

After about 2 hours we served the orphans and staff the Christ meal of Chicken, Chips, Salad and Soda. Many people helped to make it happen, with about 7 people starting the cooking the day before. We cooked 90 whole chickens, 400 pounds of chips, 40 heads of cabbage for salad, and we had 300 bottles of soda. It was a great time as Darcy Fullford and John Fullford helped served the kids. God has been so good to us it is without question we owe Him our all!

Christmas in Malawi

Dr. Gentry,

Yesterday afternoon, Christmas Eve day we took about 20 kids from the orphanage to the Chiradzulu Hospital to give out gifts, tracts and John/Romans.

Thandie coordinated with the hospital for our group to do this ministry, and it went very well. Besides the kids, there were Thandie, Rackson, Navigator, Ms. Goodman, Darcy, Johnathan and myself. Darcy and Joseph Edson baked over 300 sweet rolls to give to the patients, and Thandie organized 280 gift bags that contained body soap, clothes soap, and body care jell. We went to two general patient wards, the TB ward, both men and women, the maternity ward, the ER wing, and the Labor ward. We gave out all the gifts, rolls, almost 1000 special Christmas tracts that Darcy typed up, had translated and printed locally, and 250 John/Romans. It was a great time! It was a special blessing for me in that almost all of the young men and women we took jumped right in with soul winning and giving gifts. On several of the wards Navigator, Rackson, and Blessing preached to the whole ward and many raised their hands for salvation. In the mens' TB ward there were 28 men, and when Blessing got done preaching all of them raised their hands for salvation; To God be the Glory!! It would not be hard to see that over 200 souls prayed to receive Jesus as their Savior; what a wonderful Christmas gift!

I have attached several photos for you to see.

I pray that God has been gracious during this time of year to all of you.

By His Grace & Mercy,

John

Fullford family visit

Yesterday our family went to the Chisoka Good Samaritan Baptist Church in the district of Mayaka. It was about 1 hour plus from our home, but most of the travel was on the tarmac road, Praise God! We had about 300 people present, representing several Good Samaritan churches. There were even a couple of pastors from other local churches, Abraham and Evangelical Charasmatic. I have scheduled an appointment with the pastor of the Evangelical church just to find out their doctrinal stand. Sometimes it is hard to see where they are coming from. Andrew Nyenga taught Sunday School, and I preached out of I John 2:25, “The Promises of God”. The basis of my message was that the birth of Christ fulfilled many of God’s promises; Gen. 3:15, Isa. 9:6,7, John 3:16. During the invitation about 40-50 hands were raised to accept God’s Perfect Gift. After we prayed with them, we gave them John/Romans and some tracts. We also answered some of their questions. The church service lasted from 9:30am till 1:30pm. After the church service they presented us with 2 chickens, 5 heads of cabbage, and a meal of nsima and chicken relish. It was more than then had, bless their hearts!

I have attached two photos, one with raised hands for salvation, and the other of the preaching service.

Dear Family in Christ, November 2010

Our mobile college took another trip to encourage the churches in the Monkey Bay area, which is right on Lake Malawi. It was a good trip, but we had a group much smaller than expected. There was a communication breakdown, so there were no ladies present to be taught. Fortunately by evening, a group of ladies was gathered. The men, however, were in place and eager to be taught when we arrived. As usual, we integrated the plan of salvation into our lessons. We had several who had never accepted Christ totally by faith and they made that glorious decision. The eagerness of the people to hear God’s Word was such an encouragement to me, especially because it was so hot and physically taxing to teach in those conditions. We had two more trips planned for this year, but they had to be canceled. The rainy season is upon us, which makes travel in many areas difficult and some impossible. The men are already scheduling trips for this coming year. I am ready and excited to go.

At Mapanga, school is in progress and doing well. We have had nine computers and two printers donated to the school. Two gracious gentlemen bought all the equipment, paid their own way to come over here, modified the room, and installed all the equipment. Our children our enjoying the fruits of these men’s diligent labor. Over all, I see a more seriousness among our students this year. Last year we implemented study hall for forty five minutes after school hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for grades 5-8. The children did not like it and were quite rebellious during that time. This year most of the students are utilizing that time wisely. As they have seen their grades go up, their rebellion has decreased. Our high school students get home quite late, so they have study hall 7-8pm. I have purchased textbooks for them to prepare for their JCE tests and the MSCE tests. Without passing these tests, the students have no hope of entering the university. Four of our six graduates this last year passed. I have made many changes on the primary school level to ensure that we send strong students into high school. Our first term ends on December 10^th and will resume for the second term on January 3^rd. During the break I have made arrangements for a teacher to tutor our grade 8 students who have a special test to qualify for high school. I will also have tutoring for our students who are taking the JCE and MSCE tests this year. I know that the year will go by quickly just as the first term is about gone.

Malaria season has arrived. I beg prayers for all of us. There are no screens on the orphanage windows, so mosquito nets are the children’s only protection. We have had four already with Malaria. Two of the four had a temperature of 107 F. I really had to act fast. I had the sponged down, and had them chomp several bwabwa (Their version of a popsicle in a bag) to help cool them down. The one child fainted, so we immediately headed to the hospital. Doctors and hospitals are not like home. We had to go to the doctor’s house to wake him up, then we left to meet him at the hospital. Simon was admitted and kept for a couple of days before he had any strength to come home. Both of the children with the temperature of 107F would have died if they had been in the village. Our children have a good diet and medicine right away. Malaria is a real killer!

On a lighter subject, I am becoming more Malawian every day. I had too many things to carry that were heavy the other day in town. My backpack was loaded, and I still had a bundle of school exercise books to carry. I had a guard at the store help me put the exercise books on my head like everyone else does. I can’t balance it on my head with no hands like the other women, but using my head did help to get my purchases to the mini bus to get home. I am eating “ngumbi” (flying termites). The rain flushes the “ngumbi” out of the ground, and they are a great treat for everyone. The procedures is to pull the wings off and roast them in a pan over the fire. All I taste is a salty crunch. If and when I start eating mice, I’ll let you know.

Love in Christ,

Sharon Goodman

(Malawi, Africa)