Dear friends,
2018 is history and 2019 the new reality. We pray God’s blessings on you and your loved ones as we face changing times and new challenges. We can trust God in dealing with all these, He is faithful!
January 15, 2019 we will be travelling to Malawi for 4 weeks. Our goal is to encourage the DCI Team and prayerfully discern God’s direction in light of the exponential growth we see in the work.
As you may remember, the university allowed a bar to open right by their guest house. the nightly parties kept us awake during our last visit and we had to move to a motel, some distance away from our team’s location.
This time we will be staying in the newly built guest house Good Hope is building. It will be almost finished when we get there, so it will be a mix of comfort and camping. We hope to have our team meetings at the Good Hope Compound as well. We are thankful for these accommodations.
During our last week in Malawi Charles Ambaka, an associate lecturer with Grace Fellowship International from Kenya will join us for a conference. He will be teaching on the Exchanged Life (go to
GraceFellowshipInternational.com to learn more). Charles will use the mornings. In the afternoon Elly will teach on Firm Foundations, the first 11 chapters of Genesis and Hans will round out the day and teach on Bible Interpretation. Time will also be used for testimonies of the 20+ coaches that have been invited to this conference. We appreciate your prayers for this conference.
Some of you will be wondering what happened to the fund raiser for Bibles for Malawi. Well, we have raised $27,239.00 to buy New Testaments and print discipling materials. We are thankful for your part in this and we trust God for all our needs. Thank you for your prayer and support!
Simeon is no longer a witchdoctor
Simeon told the DCI Team that before he came to Christ, he was a witchdoctor. He even built a temple for his rituals and the evil spirits that controlled him. Crowds of people would gather and sing for him and these spirits, while he would be dancing in this temple. He believed that the spirits of his ancestors would reveal the people’s problems to him and show him solutions. Influenced by evil spirits he would tell people their problems and would give them. Many people came from different places in Malawi and even as far away as Mozambique and Tanzania. They paid him, he earned a living through witchcraft. He believed the spirits of his ancestors helped him do his work. His faith was in charms, he did not believe in God. He would cut people’s bodies with a razorblade, so he could to spread charms in these wounds for healing. He believed he was healing sickness through spells and charms. He even had a uniform which he said he was led by the spirits to buy. When people who has been bewitched by him went to the hospital for help could not be helped by the doctors. They would have to come to him for help.
One day Bishop Dickens Mwakawonja Gondwe came to his house and reached him using the one to one discipleship booklet. Dickens is one of the pastors trained by the DCI Team at Uliwa. He led Simeon to Christ and began discipling him. Now Simeon is a changed man and so is his family. He has realized what he was doing was demonic and was not honouring God. He considers his past practices useless for the sake of Christ. He no longer uses charms nor believes in the ancestal spirits, but he now trusts only in Christ. After he was discipled, he began leading a Life Group and he was chosen as a church elder at his church. He now firmly believes that Jesus is the only Saviour and Healer. Instead of earning a living as a witch doctor, he now farms. They have family devotions each and every evening at his house.
Simeon Nyirenda comes from Manganani Village, Group Village Headman Mung’ombwa,Traditional Authority Wasambo. He is married to Chancy Gondwe and the Lord has blessed them with 7 children, 5 girls and 2 boys.
You may donate to help sponsor the Malawi outreach here.
Hi everyone,
Malawi Discipleship Experiment 