Children’s Ministry

Children’s Work in Malawi! (Sent March 19, 2023)

 

Dickens Mwakawonja Gondwe comes from the Hara area in Uliwa. He is one of the founders of Christian Love Church. He is so teachable and humble. He learned from the DCI Team when we started trainings at Uliwa and has been there since. He takes us to different Life Groups including the one which he has established in his own village.

This time he took us to the Children Life Group. He prays with the children as if he is a child and in this way they understand what he is teaching. His has a heart and a passion for the children. He has also trained other children’s teachers, Blanco Munthari and 2 more women.

We were so encouraged to see that children are being saved are taught and trained. They are being discipled while they are young so that when they grow up it will be difficult for false teachers to deceive them.

When a child is taught the truth while young it is difficult for that child to be deceived when they grow up. Discipling children is reaching and touching the next generation. They meet three times a week.

These children are discipled and as a result, their lives are changed. They learn more of the Word of God through one-on-one as well as on their own as they read and study the word of God. Those who were troublesome at home as well as at school are no longer troublesome. Jesus has saved them and changed their lives. They are now able to obey their parents. Before parents and teachers tried to change them but failed. That is why parents and teachers are very happy with the changes that have taken place in their children’s’ lives. Some of these children can even teach their parents. Seeing what God has done in their children’s lives, the parents are encouraging their children to go to the Life Group meetings.

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Euthini Region Reports

(sent Feb. 25, 2023)

The man in the picture is Zaccheus Nyirenda a village headman. He trusted Jesus for salvation during one of our Life Group follow-up meetings at Mulewera in the Euthini region.

After he trusted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he was filled with joy and happiness for the peace of the Lord that filled his heart.

Zaccheus once attended a Holy Cross Pentecostal Church and was devout about the things of God. As time passed, he stopped going to church and got busy with village duties, customs, and the traditions of the community. For this reason, he has not attended church for over three years and his pastor stopped following up on him long ago.

Fortunately, a woman who was discipled by one of the people we trained started a Life Group in his area and Zaccheus started attending. Later he was given someone to disciple him and he received a Bible and a DB.

Now that he has trusted Jesus, he will be discipled by a member of the Life Group as they read the Bible and go through the Dynamic Basic booklet.

Thanks,

Caleb


EUTHINI FIFTH VISIT

This past week (February 2023) God gave us the privilege to conduct the fifth training with pastors from the Euthini area under the leadership of pastor Misted Manda of Pentecostal Christ Church International who also is the coach in this area. We started the trainings with the leaders from Euthini last year, but the work has advanced beyond the boundaries of Euthini. A lot of people have been saved in Euthini through the training these leaders have received from the DCI team.

So far there are over 37 active Life Groups and over 41 leaders have been trained. This is really an explosive growth experience we are witnessing in this region. The DCI team started to work in Euthini in 2012, but for some reason the work didn’t survive. We decided to stop going there, instead we used our time and resources to go to other places where the teaching is well received and implemented. But we never gave up on Euthini and we continued praying and kept searching for the man of peace in this region. We found pastor Manda who came from Ekwendeni (where DCI also trained and equipped leaders and pastors, ed.).

Euthini has a small number of born-again Christians. Most people who call themselves Christians do not really understand what that means. Most of these people belongs to Traditional Churches that do not preach the gospel. And we found that most these folks are double worshipers, they worship God, and they also worship the spirits of their ancestors. Many people still practice rituals such as drinking fresh blood of goats and chickens. Many others are into drinking much beer (both men and women).

We heard a story of a certain butcher who on the 24th of December last year (2022) killed a cow which spoke back to the men who were slaughtering it in the slaughterhouse. It is said that the cow said, “Why are you killing me? Please release me and let me go back and raise my kids”. They said the voice sounded like a lady. They thought it was the voice of a certain lady who went missing a few weeks earlier before this cow was taken to the slaughterhouse from the area where the butcher lives. As the result the butcher has lost his business. These are some of the true stories that when you hear them are hard to believe but witchcraft and magic are very real here in Malawi.

We also found that there are some people in this area (so called Men of God, self-proclaimed prophets) who are selling anointed water. They charge people Mk2500 (about $ 3.00) for a very small bottle of water and the price goes higher depending on the size of the bottle.

We were told that some of these men also sell stickers and make people believe that these stickers have divine powers to protect them from accidents and the attacks of evil spirits. Many people buy these items because people are hungry for the spiritual.

One of these prophets is so popular that he attracts people from far places like Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and even from Zambia. Learning about these things helps us to pray for Euthini in a better way and to also have a better way of presenting the gospel. That’s why we combine training sessions with follow-up visits right from the second visit. During these follow-ups we make sure we encourage the Life Group leaders and members from the Word of God. We are very encouraged to see God working in the lives of the people in Euthini, lives are being changed as traditional practices are abandoned by those that have come to faith through one-to-one discipleship. And seeing all these 37 Life Groups that started within a year’s time is a great encouragement to us and the body of Christ. This is a testimony that God is working in this area. During this trip we only visited three Life Groups and the testimonies we heard from the people we met encouraged us very much.

Please keep Euthini in your prayers for God to continue the great work He has begun in Euthini and that more people will come to salvation through the one-to-one discipleship and the Life Groups. Pray also that the Traditional Church will be reached so those churches also begin to preach the true gospel of salvation. And this can happen when the pastors of these Traditional Churches are saved. We already have seen two of these pastors saved and they are among the first generation of believing leaders in these churches.

Thank you

John


Dear friends,

As you can read from these reports the work in Malawi is seeing much amazing fruit. God is blessing the work in souls saved and we rejoice. But we need help. Right now we are short about 20% for the every month expenses. Would you help? Perhaps a one-time gift or a monthly commitment?

Thanks for your prayers and financial help,

Hans and Elly Timmermans for the DCI Team

 

Pastor Carmel Mtika Banda

Carmel Mtika Banda is a committed pastor. As George Chipeta explains in the article below, he is using his training to further the Kingdom of God in the Central Region. From the map you can see how great the distance is. The trip takes many hours. On his way home Carmel, travelling on the back of a truck, was involved in an accident. Two of his fellow travellers were killed, Carmel survived with bruises and much pain. Please pray for him.

-Hans and Elly Timmermans for the DCI Team


Sent on Feb. 11, 2023

I had a great time this past week with pastor Carmel Mtika Banda from Madise in Dowa District that’s the Central Region of Malawi. He came all the way from the Central Region to be trained further on DCI Principles as well as get some materials. This is the second time for him to use his own resources to come and learn more about DCI principles. He heared from another pastor that these training are very helpful to grow the work of God.

He reported that the work is going well. He has established 7 church branches using DCI principles and each church has a number of Life Groups where people are either being discipled or discipling others. The one-on-one discipling takes place outside the participation in the Life Group. I have been training him as a leader on one-to-one when he comes here as well as on the phone calls. He has also trained a number of leaders who are leading the churches and those church leaders are also training the Life Group leaders in turn. I like pastor Carmel because of his a humble heart. He is teachable as well as hard working. He is one of the pastors that we talk with for a long time on our phone calls. He feels free to ask for advice.

These are the churches he has planted so far:

  • Wakerenela church branch. The Leader is Damiyano and has 4 Life Groups.
  • Dwangwa branch. The leader is Precious Chiziko and has 3 Life Groups.
  • Mponera has 5 Life Groups. The Leader is Lisa Kamanga
  • Nsanganga. The leader is Juphrikisi Kapundu and has 4 Life Groups
  • Nambamba branch. The leader is Selina Bizwick and has 5 Life Groups
  • Kamwendo has 2 Life Groups and tey they have no bibles.
  • Madise, where Carmel is based has 7 Life Groups

These are Life groups in other places:

  • Chambande boundary Zambia & Mozambique. The leader is Dickson and has 2 Life Groups.
  • Chinkhoma. Pastor Gibson Seza Banda is the leader and has 2 Life Groups.
  • Lojwa. The leader is Fumu Chizunba and has 8 Life Groups.

Carmel has also started teaching some orphans the Word of God, seeing that it is the only hope for them to hear God’s Word and to start a Life Group with them.

– George

Tracking the DCI Malawi Budget

Dear friends of DCI Malawi

(Sent out in February 2023)

Greetings in Jesus’ Name! We are very thankful for the amazing reports we continue to receive from our Team in Malawi. They have returned from their Christmas break refreshed and ready for this new year of seeing what God has in store for them and their fellow Malawians.

You may have been wondering how your donations are used in Malawi… Thank you for your help in these very important items which are needed to facilitate the discipleship and leadership training that John, George and Caleb do in Malawi.

The exchange rate fluctuates a lot. In January 2022 the exchange rate was MKW 620 for CAN$ 1.00. In December it was MKW 750 for CAN $ 1.00.

The allowances for the three DCI Team members, John Singinie, George Chipeta and Caleb Chirambo take up 42% of the expenditures. This gives them an income comparable to a teacher in Malawi.

A lot of ministry takes place over the phone and “airtime” takes up 15% of the budget. Staying in touch by phone and counselling Life Group leaders this way helps the Team to stay connected. Transportation (truck and motorbike costs), lodging, meals, and providing food during the training for the participants, etc. are all part of our regular expenses.

We are so thankful for everyone who helps make this work possible through prayer and financial giving. God is using the DCI Team for His glory by saving many Malawians from a life without hope and making them part of God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ.

As workers together with Christ we can look forward to meeting these Malawian brothers and sisters when we personally see Jesus face to face. Then we will all together praise Him for His love and the salvation He worked for us. Then our new life in Christ, which we already have now, will be completed as He also gives us a new, sinless body. How exciting!

In the mean time things are getting more expensive, here and in Malawi. In Malawi, we ask the Team to operate on this budget of approximately $50,000, whereas in reality, the budget should be approximately 30% higher. So we want to ask you to think about how you can help this work. Perhaps you have never given on a monthly basis and are in a position to do so now, or perhaps you are able to increase the amount you already give each month. God is doing amazing things in Malawi and your dollars are laying up treasures for eternity.

Here is how you can help:

e-tranfer: dcioffice@shaw.ca

See our donate page here.

Thanks again for your interest in this work.

Shalom,

Hans and Elly Timmermans (for the DCI Team in Malawi).

Year-End Greeting, 2020

Dear family and friends,
It is the season to celebrate God’s great Gift of Salvation through the birth, death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. This is the One we celebrate this Christmas season. We know that no matter how difficult things get for us in this world, God has a plan for us all that man cannot change.
Let’s take comfort from 2 Samuel 22:3, “….my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my Savior – from violent people you save me.”.
This year we added Caleb Chirambo to the DCI Team. He is a real blessing to the Team and also to those he teaches in the villages. Caleb and Mary now have a son, Providence. They are almost ready to move into the little house they are currently building.
George and Glory and their 5 children – Pempero, Orine, Tenson, Caleb and Timothy, are doing well; as are John and Maureen and Gracious. We praise God that he continues to give and restore health to these families. We have seen answers to our prayers! Praise God.
We are ordering 10,000 Dynamic Basic Discipling booklets, and 1,000 Dynamic Discipling booklets. The work keeps expanding as new believers reach out to others.
This coming year we hope to raise enough money to buy a 4×4 truck to replace the Nissan X-Trail. We are estimating a cost of $45,000 (approx. 50% tax and import duties) but that number may change as we get closer to the time we are actually able to buy it. Some of you have responded generously already. Thank you. There is still time to get your donation in before year end. Sending an etransfer to dcioffice@shaw.ca is the easiest way to donate. Or, visit www.dynamicchurches.org – “donate”, “Canada Helps”, and select “Malawi, vehicle” for the fund box.
May God bless you richly as you walk in the light of His word in 2021.
Hans and Elly Timmermans

Christmas Update

Dear Friends of DCI Malawi,

We want to wish you God’s blessings this Christmas Season. How amazing that the Creator of the universe sent His beloved Son to this earth to teach us about His Father, but ultimately to die on a cross to bring salvation to a lost world. As we ponder the work of God in Malawi, we marvel. So many souls have been saved through the one-on-one discipling of one believer discipling his family member or neighbour. We want to thank you too for your part in this miraculous work of God. As you prayed, contributed to the work, God worked using the DCI Team, John, George and Caleb as they trained and taught people about the Great God we serve and His Son, Jesus the Messiah. Eternity will tell the whole story.

This Christmas Season we have been trying to raise money for Bibles. Each disciple receives a New Testament when they finish the 4 Basic lessons (if available). We need so many more Bibles. Would you consider making a year-end contribution to help with this project? So far we have enough money to buy about 4,000 New Testaments, but many more are needed. Also Discipling materials need to be printed regularly.

  • You can e-transfer: dcioffice@shaw.ca
  • Use Canada Helps: This link
  • Send a cheque to the address of Dynamic Churches International at the bottom of this email.

Please read on about God’s Work in Chipita.

God bless you all as we remember the birth of our Saviour,

Hans and Elly


Chipita, Dec 1, 2022

I want to share with you a story that Honest Mwenisungu (pictured) shared with us in Chitipa (Chitipa is as far North as you can go in Malawi). Honest is the chairperson of the pastors fraternity in Chitipa. It was our first time meeting him and we were blessed to have him attend the training along with the other pastors. This pastor was discipled one-to-one by Stephen Siyami who is the DCI coach in Chitipa. Stephen trained and discipled him and now Honest has started Life Groups himself and is training Life Group leaders.

This is the story that pastor Honest shared with us.

One day two girls from his community passed greetings to him and his family at his house and he invited them to go through the Dynamic Basics lessons, which they accepted.

To the glory of GOD, after going through lesson one (all about salvation) and some other verses from other Dynamic Basics lessons, the two girls accepted the LORD JESUS as their Lord and Saviour. This brought joy to Honest and his family as well as to the two girls because they testified that they now felt the peace of the Lord in their hearts. One of these girls brought out a bottle of Tamec which she destroyed. (Tamec is a poisonous substance). She had just bought this bottle at the market and she was on her way home to kill herself because she had no hope for the future. Nothing was working out for her and on top of that she was very frustrated because her marriage had just broken apart.

Thank God the pastor invited her to the Word of God through the Dynamic Basics and she was saved not only from the second death and the eternal wrath of God, but also from suicide death that she was just about to commit. The next day these two girls came to the pastor’s house again to continue going through the Dynamic Basics, now not with sad faces and dwindling hearts, but with joy on their faces and cheerfulness in their hearts because of what Jesus has done for them.

Imagine if pastor Honest did not obey his call to disciple people in his community, these two lives may not have been saved.  We thank God for the discipleship work of one-to-one discipling that is done in Chitipa.

May we keep praying for Chitipa so that many lives should be saved.

Thanks,

Caleb

Bible Application in Malawi

Read how this Bible Truth is applied in Chikwina, Malawi!


John’s Report on their recent. trip to Chikwina is a very timely reminder that simply, faithfully, sharing your faith with your neighbour can have amazing results!

CHIKWINA FOLLOW-UP REPORT 2022

We had a wonderful trip to Chikwina the past week for follow-up exercise. We were lodging at Nkhata Bay. We were greatly encouraged with the reports on how the work is going on. Chikwina is one of many places that we have experienced God’s great move in the lives of people. When we started visiting Chikwina some years ago we heard too many stories of witchcraft, prostitution, violence and many being involved with drugs (Cannabis). During the years we have been going there we have seen the violent young people at the trading centre who smoked marijuana in public.  But this time we witnessed a great change. 

Most people in Chikwina area live in great poverty, have a poor education, experience poor health conditions and above all poor roads to the rest of the world. People in this area depend for their entire livelihood on farming. In Chikwina they grow bananas, cassava and maize.  Most of the cassava is used for making flour for nsima which is called kondowole. Bananas are taken to the market at Mpamba which is over 30 kilometres. If a farmer doesn’t take his bananas to the market at Mpamba they end up wasted or sold to vendors who look for bananas in these areas and buy them at a very low price. Likewise, maize farmers will take their maize to Mpamba to sell and if they can’t find a way to transport their maize there, they sell it to vendors, who take advantage of the locals. These are some of the reasons people in the Chikwina area live in deep poverty. They can produce wonderful crops but can’t find a good market for their produce.

Most of the bananas we buy in Mzuzu market comes from Chikwina through Mpamba. And yet the people who produce them keep on living in poverty and the vendors are the ones getting rich. The Malawi Minister of Transport and Roads comes from Chikwina, but he fails to support his own people (his home village). He feels no need to help them because he lives in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi in a nice house. 

Pastor Governor Chunda shared with us a recent experience where people waited for the dead body of a man. His remains were to be buried in the Chikwina area, which was his home village. Due to the very poor roads, the truck carrying the dead body couldn’t make it to Chikwina. People waited for days until finally someone decided to use a motorcycle to carry the coffin. According to their local tradition this is not proper. This all happened because this sick person had been transferred from the Chikwina Health Centre to the Nkhata Bay hospital. Often people die during transport over those bad roads. These same conditions also hinder the Gospel because a lot of Ministries find it too difficult to take the Gospel to this area.   

This time we were much encouraged with the work at Chikwina. The work has gone into the far mountains where the Gospel has never been preached before. We heard that most people living in these mountains have never had a Bible to read for themselves until Pastor Chunda, who is the DCI coach, visited these areas. We couldn’t visit these areas during this trip because of distance and accessibility.  It takes almost a full day of walking to get there and another full day back. Our worry was for us to leave the truck parked, walk to this place and come back to the truck a day or two days after. (Leaving the truck is not safe). But we are very eager to visit these places in the future and see for ourselves what the Lord is doing in these areas. The one-to-one discipleship is reaching areas that most outsiders can’t reach. The work is done by the locals who are being trained by the local leaders we trained. We see the principle of passing it on from 2 Timothy 2:2 works very well! 

We were also told that more Life Groups have started in these mountains after we introduced the work some years back to the people of Chikwina. Pastor Governor Chunda shared with us that the people of these mountains live far from civilisation. They grow local crops and eat them, no market no football grounds for people to play football or do any sport activities. People don’t even own a bicycle, there is no place to ride them. Many have grown old without knowing what a car looks like. Yet God has reached them through the one-to-one discipleship. Pastor Chunda told us about plans to establish more Life Groups and to expand the work to more places that are hard to reach, even by the locals. We were very much encouraged hearing this and to know that the New Testaments we give out are a blessing to people who are less privileged.  He shared that people who receive these New Testaments are very grateful and so are we. 

We are planning to visit two places when we return for follow-up exercises. We plan to visit Kanyenyezi and Mulunguzi which, we were told are easier to reach. We will have to walk for 2 to 3 hours up the mountains. We think we will be able to manage this. Kanyenyezi and Mulunguzi have a total of about 7 Life Groups. These mountain people spend most of their time sharing the Word since they don’t have many other activities to take up their time. Truly the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to all mankind. We witnessed this in Chikwina, where one-to-one discipleship and reproducing Life Groups are making it possible for the Gospel to spread far and wide. No one needs to go to Bible School to be a witness to his neighbours. The Dynamic Basic equips for the work of evangelism. 

We are so thankful to you all friends and Partners of DCI ministries for making it possible for the gospel to reach the unreachable. One to one discipleship is producing many Pastors, leaders and believers who are actively witnessing the gospel of the Kingdom into their circle of influence. 

-John Singinie

Support the DCI Team by email transfer: dcioffice@shaw.ca (tag: DCI Malawi).
Cheques can be sent to: DCI, 164 Stonegate Close, Airdrie, AB, T4B 2V2.
Or donate online here

Coach for Sani

JOHN MWAFULIWA, COACH FOR SANI

John Mwafulirwa is one of the Local leaders in the Anglican church, which is one of the first Churches that were introduced in Nkhotakota which is one of strongholds of the Islamic religion here in Malawi. This Church was formed by the U.M.C.A (University Mission to Central Africa). We had the privilege in 2020 when we were visiting Nkhotakota on our discipleship program to step foot into the first Anglican Church that was planted in the 1800s. We talk about Nkhotakota as being one of the strongholds of the Islamic religion, Nkhotakota also has a great percentages of Christian people compared to Muslims. But we discovered the Islamic religion is having more impact than the Christian religion because the Islamic people have dominated most parts of Nkhotakota: the strategic business areas, they dominate villages that have influential chieftainships and they take advantage of these meeting and influential areas to spread their religion. Then they build mosques in the villages where churches already are, but not active (not preaching the true Gospel of Salvation). This has caused them to have no impact in the region. The Islamic religion has also taken the lead because they distribute handouts to the people in the communities they are. The history of this region is that Nkhotakota has been much influenced by the Swahili people who came to do slave trade through Jumbe. They would buy slaves by giving some items to the Traditional Chiefs in the area. That attitude is still being passed on from one generation to another. This is what causes people to sell out to the Islamic religion and follow it, due to the material things they get from the Muslims. We have witnessed this a number of times as we work in this region. We see people lining up to receive gifts from the mosques and then are asked to join Islam. This is one of the reasons Islam has gained influence over people in the region and it becoming one of the Islamic strong holds. However, Nkhotakota is one of the regions in Malawi where people still worship evil spirits, and there is a lot of witchcraft happening in this region. So Nkhotakota has Christian communities, Islam and ancestor worshipers.

Back to John Mwafulirwa who is one of the Anglican local leaders at Sani, And Sani is one of the areas where there are many Muslims and witches. Before the D.C.I Team came to Sani John was just a traditional, religious leader. He was in a Christian Church, but they were not preaching the true Gospel of salvation. After John was reached by Raphael Hara, who was one of the people we trained in Baula, John caught the vision of discipleship and started to bring this new idea into his church and other leaders started to be trained. John became one of the coaches that Raphael Hara trained through the DCI materials. We first met John in 2018 and saw that he was one of the most committed leaders Raphael has trained in the region.

John became the main Coach in 2020 after Raphael Hara was transferred back to Mzuzu. Since the time he took over John has been training people all over the region of Nkhotakota and has even gone as far as Salima, Dwangwa and other far places. As John was going about teaching people in the Islamic region the news got out and the Islamic leaders didn’t like it. Their Islamic followers where turning back from Islam and are turning to Christ, who John was preaching. They got together and assaulted John. John was physical beaten and persecuted because he was preaching strange things in their community. More of their followers started to follower John, just like in the Jesus’ day. After the beating they threatened him and told him to never preach again in the name of the Lord. One of the old people that was among the group that was beating John, who was also believed to be a witch, told John in openly that, because he was wiped by his magic stick, he would die within one year. People who heard this felt sorry for John knowing the kind of an old man he was (a witchdoctor), believed John will soon die. But John didn’t believe what this old witchdoctor said, due to the promises found in the word of God that no weapon fashioned against us will prosper and other promises. John went back home and didn’t stop the discipleship. The work grew even more because the people that were present the day he was beaten and cursed by this witchdoctor saw that John was not moved but kept his faith. This led to many following him to learn more about his faith in God. From that moment the news spread even to far distances that John had stood his ground. More doors of opportunities for John to go and do more discipleship opened. John got connected to a number of leaders from different denominations and these leaders started coming to learn from him. They then went back to their churches and communities teaching the things they have heard from John. They went from house to house and began forming Life Groups in their areas. This has caused the word of God to grow mightily and prevail in this Islamic region. Many dormant churches are awaked to the true Gospel and are making a great impact is the region now through practicing the discipleship principles they are learning. Churches like the Anglican church, Last Church, Apostolic, African Abraham Church, Afriacan Yakobe, and African Church are now making an impact by teaching their followers the true Gospel. This is helping these new believers to stand their ground and not be bought by Islam with their handouts. These churches have also learnt how to do door to door evangelism using the one-to-one approach. This has also helped to win more Muslims for Christ. Establishing multiplying Life Groups has helped a lot in discipling Muslim converts, among whom some are now beginning to openly confess their new-found faith in Christ. They are not afraid of being persecuted or even killed. The Gospel is now really making an impact in the region through underground approach. (Muslim believers are at first afraid of persecution, but as they learn to trust the Lord in faith, they openly begin confessing Christ to their neighbours, ed.)

During our recent trip to Nkhotakota, we took time to encourage John by teaching on the subject Trials and Temptations, realizing that what John went through was not easy and he needed some encouragement. We also shared with him our experiences as the DCI Team of being persecuted because of the Gospel. We shared with him how we could have been stoned to death by an angry mob at Jenda who accused us that we were of the devil. We shared with him that the news was even broadcast on Malawi Television how we escaped the angry mob. We told him that despite this trial we still went back to Jenda after some months past and still continued the discipleship program, which is now growing even faster than before and has reached part of Zambia from the same place we were chased. Not only at Jenda but in some other places we have been threatened that we will be witched and die if we continue to preach the Gospel in such areas. But we have never stopped preaching the Gospel in such areas. We realise that it is due to the real impact the ministry has that we carried there that irritates these people. Satan tries his very best to stop the progress of the Gospel. But like the Scriptures say, “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world”. We will never be afraid or stop preaching this truth. These are just some examples of the persecuted Christians (Missionaries) here in Malawi in these present times. Many preachers are persecuted in one way or the other for their faith in Christ, so keep us in your prayers at all times as you always do.
Thank you,
DCI Malawi team member, John.

Trip to Livingstonia

April 2022 Trip to Livingstonia

Livingstonia area is one of the areas where the Phoka people live. The Phoka people are habitually involved in much in drinking and witchcraft

Many are drunkards and drinking too much is so much the way they live that they name their beer “porridge”. When they invite someone for a drink they say, “Let us go and take porridge”. We were encouraged to hear that some of the drunkards are being saved, discipled and changed and they are also reaching their friends through one-to-one discipling. Phoka is where people go to learn about witchcraft or get help when they are attacked by witches and wizards in the Northern Region of Malawi.

Leviso Msiska

Leviso Msiska was so religious. He went to church but was not saved. His father was a witch doctor, and he also was trained by him as a witch doctor. His father started training Levison when he was 7 years old. Levison became addicted to that. They earned their living as witch doctors.  When people came for help from them, they paid Levison and his father. Witch doctors believe that they are more powerful than witches and wizards hence people go to them for help when they are attacked by witch doctors. They believe that demons reveal to them what people have done to put a curse on others and the types of herbs to use to heal them.

Levison Msiska was involved in this kind of work, trained by his father. By the grace of God through discipleship he heard the Good News that Jesus died for him, and he was saved. After being saved and discipled his life began to change. He stopped being a witch doctor and started one-to-one discipling. He started with his family. Levison has discovered that the best way to deal with witches and wizards is to believe in Jesus who is more powerful than any witchcraft. When people come to him now to get help he teaches them what God has done for him and leads them to Jesus. They are saved and are set free and they no longer live the life of fear. This is now reaching people in  Livingstonia and the entire Phoka area to believe and trust in God rather than witch doctors and drinking.

George


We are happy to have visited and followed up on the discipleship work that is done at Livingstonia again. I want to share with you two stores.

VINCENT BAMDA

VINCENT BAMDA

As you can remember, last time when we followed up on Livingstonia I wrote about Greg that GOD saved him through the discipling work of Mr. Mavumbanya. It is interesting to note that Greg also has started doing one-to-one discipling others. One of the people he is discipling is Vincent Banda and Vincent has been saved and is now a dedicated Christian believer and a member of the local Methodist Church. But at first Vincent was a drunkard just like Greg.

INNOCENT BOTA

Now after Greg’s life became changed, Vincent came to him and asked him how he can also change his life. Greg saw that GOD has opened a door for him to share the gospel with Vincent and he started doing one-on-one discipling with him. Buy GOD’s grace, Vincent was saved and Greg is very thankful to GOD that HE has entrusted him to use him to change people’s lives such as Vincent.

MARIA NYASULU

MARIA NYASULU

Maria is a member of CCAP church. She was discipled through one-to-one. Now she is also discipling others and she has opened a life group at her house where people are meeting for Bible studies and prayers. One of the people she has discipled is DANIEL NYASULU. Daniel is her brother’s son but is living with her and has been causing trouble in the house. Many times, he disturbed people doing Bible studies and prayers in the house by making lots of boring noise. Maria started discipling him and going with him through the Dynamic Basics and praying for him. Later, Daniel gave his life to JESUS and now he is a strong believer, and he is also sharing the gospel to other people.

Thank you

Caleb