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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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
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.
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 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.
We were schedule to go to Mbalachanda for our fourth visit. Unfortunately, at the very last minute George got a call from pastor Banda, the main Coach for the Mbalachanda area, that they won’t be able to attend the training this time due to the rains that came. Malawi as whole this year is facing late rains. Farmers usually start planting crops in the middle of December, but this growing season things have been different due to the late rains. In most parts of Malawi farmers are starting to plant their crops now, in January. This could also be a sign of hunger coming. The DCI Team likes to be flexible, and when we heard of this problem in Mbalanchanda we started communicating with other coaches from other areas to see if we could have a visit with them, but still bearing in mind the growing season. I communicated with Raphael Hara, coach for Baula, who said we could come. So, on Tuesday afternoon we left for Mwenje after we had the truck serviced. After the oil change I went home, got prepared and went to pick up George and Caleb around 4 pm. We had a safe trip.
MWENJE Early Wednesday morning we were set for the follow-up exercise, we had a good turn-out, 13 leaders came despite the short notice. We went over the Explosive Growth teaching and heard some testimonies of what God is doing in this area. The work at Mwenje was introduced by Raphael Hara after he returned from Nkhotakota, and this was our first to visit there. God is doing amazing things in this area and the gospel is spreading like wildfire since Raphael introduced the work. More than 10 Life groups have been started. We had leaders from the CCAP Church, the African Church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Kalibu Kwayesu, and the Chipangano Church. From Mwenje we went to Euthini, TENDERE (Euthini).
From Mwenje we went to Euthini, where we were following up with Pastor Manda of the Pentecostal Christ Church, whom we trained at Ekwendeni together with Pastor Chrispine Mukanga. Pastor Manda got transferred to Euthini and started to train church leaders and other people in the one-on-one discipling. The work has spread into different areas. Raphael had been asking for a visit with him. We took advantage of the cancellation of the Mbalachanda trip and visited him. We thank God that we visited him because the testimonies we heard there were very encouraging. We met people like Michael Msuku who was a herbalist assistant, but Michael was saved and denounced his connection with evil Spirits. He is now a devoted follower of Christ, and his testimony is serving to bring many to Christ.
ENUKWENI From Euthini we went to Enukweni to hear how the work is going and to encourage them. We meet with Pastor Laswell Banda who also testified of his conversion during our first visit to Enukweni. He told us it made him cry, that he was a pastor of an African Church while he was not saved. He said I cried because he misled many people. But he said he is thankful to God that since that day when he got saved his live has been nothing but a living testimony of a true changed life. And he went on to say that preaching the true gospel of Christ is a privilege and his congregation is now full of living people who love Jesus. – John
Pastor Laswell Banda
Note by Hans: We heard Laswell’s testimony when he was saved during the first training. He was so convicted of the poor job he had done, being pastor of a church while not knowing Jesus Christ as His Saviour. He said during his testimony, “I need to get to my people, they need to hear the Good News, because right now they all walking dead without Christ.” This was in 2019 and we praise God for saving Laswell and his faithfulness in preaching and teaching what salvation through Jesus Christ means. We praise God for the many believers Laswell has seen come to faith in Christ.
I want to share the testimony of MICHAEL MSUKU from Euthini.
MICHAEL was a witch doctor. He was taught by his father who was also a witch doctor. He became a practicing witchdoctor while he was a young boy and now he is grown up and with a wife and children. So being a witch doctor was like a business that helped his family to survive. People would come to him searching for help and he would charge them chickens, money, or other items. Dancing vimbuza was his lifestyle. He would eat foods sacrificed to the spirits and do many things which are ungodly…
One day he was visited by pastor Manda who started discipling him using the one-on-one and discipled him. He then trusted the LORD Jesus as his LORD and savior. His life was changed because of the Gospel and he stopped everything he was doing as a witch doctor and now he is a strong member of pastor Manda’s Church as well as a devoted member of the life group. He is now farming to support his family.
But this brought divisions and dispute between him and his father who taught him to be a witch doctor. His father said to him that he cannot dump his traditional beliefs, but he said to him that he will never deny Jesus for the sake of these traditional beliefs. We can be praying for Michael to remain strong in the Lord, and for his father to trust Jesus also.
Another testimony is about Mr. MACDONAlD NGOMA from MWENJE
Macdonald Ngoma is an old man over 60 years old, but he is still devotedly going up and down his village doing one-on-one discipling.
One day he met Macloud Mvula who was not saved. He had not even heard about salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Macdonald began discipling him. Macloud accepted Jesus Christ and his life changed, and he is now discipling others using one-on-one discipling with them.
Elly just finished reading the book, “Jungle Pilot”, the story of Nate Saint’s life. He dedicated his life to God and His mission. He was killed as he pursued bringing the Good News to the Waodani people. They killed him and his fellow missionaries as they tried to connect with them. Those five missionaries died a long time ago seeking to bring the Good News to these people in their jungle home in Ecuador, South America. A very worthwhile read and a very challenging read as it relates to our work in Malawi.
Since the start of DCI Malawi, as it is today, in 2012, we have always felt that it is only the Good News that is able to change the lives of the people our DCI team is trying to reach. John Singinie, the team leader set the direction early. He had witnessed how missionaries work in Malawi and, since he was already very much involved in Gospel work, also saw the lasting impact which their approach had on his fellow Malawians. He also saw that the “extras” these missionaries brought to the people of Malawi diverted the message and made it less effective. The material goods brought to these villages became the focus, not the Gospel.
So we began focussing on building a stronger church by training pastors and leaders and promoting unity amongst believers. We have seen amazing things happen. Pastors from different denominations discipling each other, Life Groups functioning and made up of believers from different churches effectively reaching their communities. The body of Christ is one! This does not mean compromising the doctrines of the Bible; Christ is the foundation we build on, the God-man who came to save us from our sins.
To get back to “Jungle Pilot” and Nate Saint’s story, he confirmed our approach to reaching the lost. It is always encouraging to read someone else sharing the same approach to missions. Here it is:
“The Waodani do need their own source of medicines and additional medical training. They need help to learn to protect their “inalienable rights.” They need to learn leadership skills and how to defends themselves politically. But what they need most is a functioning, vibrant, and independent church, committed to meeting the medical, economic, and social needs of their own people as a means of showing them God’s love and His desire to provide for their eternal need as well.” (emphasis added)
Our goal is helping the church in Malawi to become healthy and vibrant through discipleship and leadership training. Then they will become Biblically motivated to take care of each other as a way of expressing God’s love to those around them. We have noticed when people come to faith in Christ they begin to live differently. Their money is directed toward the well-being of the family and others. Love begins to live where love was not. Harmony comes to the village as more begin to trust Christ.
One-on-one discipling goes deep. It builds God-honouring lives that are a blessing to the family and their community.
One thing is needed from us, here in the West: Bibles. Without the Word of God, true life cannot develop. Together we can make a difference! Will you help?
We left for Nkhotakota Sunday after the church service. We left Mzuzu around 2 pm and got to Nkhotakota 7 pm. The lake shore road is very bad now, the road is getting too narrow with lots of potholes. Of course there’s good news that in the near future the government will rebuild the road, the funds are already available. They are planning to cover a distance of about 160 kilometres, this will ease up our travelling to and from Nkhotakota.
This time we started with S…., the first day we had a full day training with the first generation of leaders. We taught the Explosive Growth. We heard lots of testimonies of how God is changing lives through the one to one approach, especially in areas where there are radical Muslims. We even had a chance to meet people like Morris Kamanga, who was a radical Muslim but now he is a committed Christian. Morris was discipled after accepting Christ and trained through the leadership course (Using the Leaders Manual). Morris professed his faith in Christ openly without fear. His wife came to faith also and then his in-laws followed suit and people surrounding him. This group started a Life Group which grew into a church in the midst of radical Muslims. God is using Morris and his wife to bring more Muslims to Christ.
We had good time chatting with the leaders, hearing them talk about the different challenges they are facing in this area. One of the challenges was distance, for example, we discovered that some Life Groups are 50+ kilometres away from S….. We had the opportunity to see these Life Groups first hand. We saw for ourselves that the distance is just too much. Some of the Life Groups we visited were:
1). ……. To get to M…… we went through some mountains, and on our way, we saw a fox. This was the first time we ever saw one. The fox is a very beautiful animal with a large tail. We tried to take some photos, but we failed. From when we saw the fox the discussion as we travelled changed. We started talking about the Bible stories where the fox was mentioned. We were able to connect the dots after seeing it life in God’s beautiful creation.
We were welcomed by cheerful believers at M……. who were very happy to meet with us for the first time. We sang together and then introductions followed. When we mentioned that we came all the way from Mzuzu to see and meet with them, they were moved and touched with the love of God. Some said they had never been to Mzuzu but had heard that there is a city called Mzuzu. As part of our teaching, we asked them to demonstrate how they conduct their Life Groups. They did well except for a few areas, we took the time re-teach those areas and then George did the Explosive Growth teaching. After that we also had a group discussion on how one receives Christ, which was an awesome experience. We heard how some understand this topic: a few would say one is born again when they get immersed in water during baptism, some would say it happens when you stop bad things and start going to church. We explained how one is saved to them and one guy, whose name is B……, said right away, “I need to accept Christ in my life” when he understood what it really means to be born again. We used the story of Jesus and Nicodemus on John 3:16, also Romans 10:9-10 and other scriptures.
The area where these people live is very mountainous and they live far apart, away from interaction with the larger world. The Life Groups bring them together. Before Life Groups were introduced people did not study the Word of God or meet as a group to do Bible study. Now people are spending much of their time doing one to one discipling and meeting in Life Groups.
2). C….. VILLAGE We also went to visit the Life Group leaders at C….. village where we found 6 Life Groups. We were amazed to find Life Groups in this area. We meet with 11 Life Group leaders and we had a great time hearing how they conduct their meetings and what God is doing among them. They practice all the five W’s: Welcome, Worship, Word, Win and Work. We heard lots of testimonies of people who have been transformed by the Gospel through the one to one discipling. This area has both Muslim and Christian communities. We saw a CCAP (Presbyterian) church, a Roman Catholic Church, as well as traditional churches. People didn’t know about Christ until John Mwafulirwa, the coach for S…., introduced the DCI Teachings in this area. We were told that hundreds of people have come to Christ and many Life Groups have been established. People can share their faith with others.
LINGA After we were done in Sani, we met with Leaders (Pastors) at L…. where Daniel Banda is the head Coach. At Linga we did the Explosive Growth teaching and also heard how the work is going. We were so encouraged to learn that the people we heard about last time we were there and had turned to Christ from the Muslim religion are still going strong and growing in their new faith. More Muslims are still turning to Christ. We heard of a few new families that have become believers and are worshiping at night (Since their lives are in danger from the Muslim community at present). They are meeting at night learning the Word of God. Some have received a New Testament Bible, but don’t dare take it to their homes in fear of their husbands or relatives. One woman, who has just accepted Christ through pastor Daniel Banda, loves her Bible but can’t take it home because her husband is a radical Muslim. She says if he discovers she has become a Christian, he may kill her. She comes from a village where everyone is a Muslim and they hate Christians. We were told that when the villagers discover that she has become a believer in Christ, they may slaughter you like an animal. But if she is lucky they may just throw her out of the village and make her an outcast. That means she will lose everything, her children, her marriage and her relatives.
In the Muslim religion people are taught right from the time they are young that once you decide to leave the Muslim religion and join a different one you’re automatically considered an outcast and a cursed person. For these reasons we have begun to understand why, when one accepts Christ and becomes a Christian in N……., you do not come right away out publicly to let others know this. They still fear that they will be cursed by their leaders and become outcasts. So they go undercover as Christians, still dress as Muslims, still pray as Muslims in public and continue attending the mosque. But after they have been trained and matured a little in their new faith, they are no longer afraid of being an outcast. That is why we need to keep praying for our brothers and sisters in N…….. who have just become believers in Christ, that God should preserve them. It’s not easy to be a Christian amid a Muslim community. We are learning a lot through chatting with these believers each time we visit there. The good news is that the number of converts and disciples of Christ is increasing rapidly. Pastors testify that the New Testament Bibles we give them are a game changer in these Muslim strongholds. They told us that we are winning the battle, for many people are secret disciples. They told us, “One day the Imams and Muslims will wake up and discover that all the people they thought were Muslims are in reality Christians”.
We were exceedingly blessed during this trip and it is too bad that not all the things we heard and saw there can be expressed in words.
Malawi Discipleship Experiment 