Hello friends,
I have been living in Lilongwe, Malawi for about six days now. In such a short span of time I have learned so much about God’s power and His love for the lost.
We have been busy with ministry each day. Our ministry consist of going out into rural villages each day across Lilongwe to preach the gospel and testify to Christ’s love for them. We then plant churches in those communities. Many people do not know the gospel in these villages, so if you can imagine, the ministry has been very fruitful and many people have come to Christ.
My heart is so happy here. I am filled with joy as I walk into remote communities to preach Christ and all that he has done for me! He is so very good. Just two days ago we crammed our team into a bus with all of our translators and drove a hour outside the city. We looked and saw a beautiful African countryside. One of our African translators pointed his finger to a distant mountain and said, “we are going there” I was excited for a new experience. After a while, the city road turned into a dirt trail and we began to see mud huts with grass roofs. We finally got out of our bus to see an amazing mountain valley before us – it’s very hard to put to words how beautiful it looked.
We split up into 2 teams and began to walk to a nearby village. I could hear the laughs of joyful kids playing in the distance and before I knew it, I had 3 little children holding my hand. Finally we arrived to the middle of the village and our ministry host, Harvey, began to say this at the top of his voice, “All who can hear my voice, listen to this, you need to come down here and listen, because this is going to change your life!” After about 5 minutes, there were about 130 people before us. We all gathered under a large tree, sang some Chichewa songs, then began the message. Before we entered the village Harvey asked for someone to preach the message of salvation, so I had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer and share the gospel to these people.
As I was praying for what the Lord wanted me to say, I felt like He was telling me, “Invite them! Tell them what I did in you, tell them how satisfying I am” So I began to speak, and I began to share my story of how the Lord brought me to Himself. And I got to preach to them how we have been given a gift far more valuable than any other treasure.
“I want to tell you something. When I was apart from Christ and rebelled against him. My heart was like a poor man. I had no clothes, no food, no water, and no roof over my head. Then when Christ came and invited me into His grace, he was like a rich man who came to me as a poor man and said, ‘come follow me, I am going to give you clothes, food, a new house, and all of these things’ Christ gave me the gift of salvation, the one thing I did not deserve, and he is inviting you to just do one thing! Accept it.”
I am so deeply humbled and grateful that the Lord allowed me to be apart of His work in that village that day. He is moving greatly here and I am so thankful for everything He has done for me to be here right now.
As far as where we sleep, we are living in a village community with a gated area. Each of our team members have a cozy room with a bed, bug net, shower, and toilet – everything we need. Each room is named after a place Harvey has been. The rooms names are the Netherlands, Germany, London, Virginia, Peru, and last but not least, the room Brady and I sleep in, Nebraska.
It’s been so fun here already, I am excited to share with you all what the Lord is doing and is going to do in the coming months.
Blessings,
Ethan
