This month my team and I are in the villages outside Nkhotakota, Malawi working with Timothy Harvest Ministries. We are pretty far off the beaten trail. We are living in our tents and without access to running water we filter what we need from a nearby lake (which is inhabited by crocodiles). Internet is far away, expensive, and slow (thus the lack of pictures). The only time we have electricity is two outlets which are available for three hours a night when the generator is working (and some nights it doesn’t work). The bathroom is a hole in the ground surrounded by tall grass.
There is a peace here in the villages, the sound of the blowing wind is clear, the way that the clouds hang together across the horizon all at the same level, the rising sun in its brilliance and the coming of the looming moon each night in a monolith red glow unlike any moon I have seen elsewhere across the world.
The first outsiders to settle in this area were Muslims who came for ivory and slaves, and much of this legacy exists in the area today. Our ministry includes leading daily bible studies, working with over 100 kids every day, speaking at churches and schools, and visiting homes where we do a mixture of healing ministry and evangelization.
Already it has been a great month. I have felt the spirit stealing my tongue as the messages and sermons I have spoken here, be them in front of a full congregation or three Muslim men on the street corner, have been some of my best on the race. Already we have had numerous people here become Christians and have had an increase in Muslims visiting the land we are based on to see what is causing such a buzz in the villages, especially among the children.
Tuesday of this week was my best day yet on the Race. I sign up for home visits as often as many days as I can and had had wonderful and unique experiences each time. On this day I was paired with my favorite interpreter Ruthie, a school teacher in the morning who evangelizes with Timothy Harvest each afternoon and was known for doing things like giving away her Bible to new believers, and Lacey, a teammate who I have greatly enjoy working with last five months. We set off first down a dirt road and then just on a footpath through crop fields and then rising thickets of brush until we came to a clearing with three one room thatched roof houses all in a row.
There was four men, two older and two younger, sitting around the smoldering ashes of a fire. One of them was working on a radio that by Western standards would be archaic. There also was a woman and several children of varying ages in the dusty clearing. We greeted each person individually as we always do, “Muy Bwangee,” and “Nidi Bweeno!” We started talking to them about their lives and who we were. This group are connected to the Anglican church, but we know from our experience that many people who say they are Christian here are not actually saved and do not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them.
One of the things I like about doing this sort of evangelism is that one can never make a plan, there are no rehearsed sermons or underhand pitched questions. When they ask us to teach and provide words of encouragement I look to Lacey and she gives me the sign she doesn’t feel called to speak, so I open my Bible and look for inspiration. This is the core of the work I have been doing, opening the Bible and getting inspired by the word of God and then opening my mouth and letting those words inspire others. It is never the same message, never the same scriptures in the same way that the people we meet are never the same and their challenges and life stories are never the same.
I end up going with the Parable of the Sower, and break down each section with questions and challenges; “What are the thorns in your life that threaten to choke your life with Christ,” and “What can we do to grow deep roots in the Gospel so as to not wither?” I end with the story of some of the new believers who in their neighborhood just accepted Christ and touch on the honor and blessing they have to be called to join in the plentiful harvest here that God has prepared. As I speak more children gather, creeping closer until they are next to us mzungus. Another man comes out from behind a house and sits down too to listen.
When I finish they give us a heartfelt thank you and ask if I am a pastor or a prophet, and I delight in telling them no, that I am just a man who says yes to God, and use it as an opportunity to encourage them that missionaries, pastors, and prophets do not have a higher calling from God than them, that we all have the same powers in Christ and that we should all rejoice in the vocation and path set before us, even if it is just to be a wellspring of love in our own neighborhood.
The man who had came out as I was speaking responded most to where I was spoke on the importance of growing deep roots with prayer, fellowship, and studying the Bible. He inquires where he can get a Bible. This is a problem that we have experienced all across the places we have been in Africa, that many believers do not have access to Bibles because in many places, such as Nkhotakota, there is no where where one can buy a Bible, and in the places where they are for sale they are too expensive for the average person. We repeat the invitation to the Bible studies we do at our base, and let them know that that occasionally Timothy Harvest Ministries receives funds it can use to buy Bibles in the Chichewa language. Four of them sign up in my notebook so they can be on the waiting list. My team has made a habit of using our leftover budget each month to buy Bibles, and I believe this month we will have funds to buy many Bibles, but it will never be enough for all of the people.
We ask them if they want prayer and one man has been having kidney pains for a long time. Through prayer the pains stop immediately and he is glad. Another man goes to get his wife. We sit down with them and get to know each other for a bit, learning about their family. As we are talking a child walks up and my heart leaps. We all try not to have favorite children in the places we go, but we always do. I met Charles my first day here. I was sitting in a field and he came and sat next to me. He also was introverted and enjoyed watching the other kids, observing the details. He liked my pen and wrote my name and his name on my arm, showing a good grasp on such things compared to most of the kids his age (around six by my guess). Also, his shirt says “Space Warriors” on it and displays a picture which matches the description. I smile because not only is the shirt my favorite color, orange, but also one could identify space warriors as one of my favorite generas of fiction.
There he was sitting next to the woman I was about to pray with, it turns out he was her grandson and that he lived in the house we were next to. There was a day last week where I was walking with Charles and holding his hand. It was the part of the afternoon where the kids go home and each time the path through the grass split I would point each way and he would lead me toward his home, but eventually it was too far for me to go from camp without another racer and I had to wave goodbye. I yearned in my heart to one day be able to be at his home with him, and now here I was, sitting in the same dirt where he spent his playtime preaching the Gospel.
Charles’ grandfather spoke to me with worry about his life, he said that he was not feeling the Sprit move, that he doubted he had the powers that Jesus grants us. I ministered to him and told him that when we prayed for his wife he would pray with us, that this would be his opportunity to step out in the Spirit and witness its power in his life. As we were about to pray another child walked up. At first I didn’t recognize him because he had always wore the same outfit and now he had different clothes (and a very worn and dirty fur hat, which is a very comedic accessory considering the setting), but sure enough it was my five year old friend Bryan! I had no idea why he was there (as he looked very different than Charles’ family, and thus I assume he was not related to them) or where he had come from, but with his trademark smile, which very well may be the biggest smile in Africa, the little guy sat down with us.
So then Lacey, Ruthie, my favorite two little dudes in all of Malawi, the husband and wife, and I, all of us holding hands, began to pray for the woman’s ears. They were in constant pain and one of them she had trouble hearing out of. Then, like that, she was healed. We rejoiced, but honestly one of the most surprising things I have learned on the race is how people react to being healed. It isn’t with jumping or excitement, often it is with awe and perfect reverence, awe in the fact that they have been graced (in the most literal sense that often eludes us when we use this word) by God.
It was the perfect moment.
There was much more that day. We prayed with another man and I literally felt movement in his back as I prayed over its healing. We will be visiting him again as there is more healing needed, first in his soul, and then in his legs. The doctors told him there was no cause to his pain or lack of ability in his legs, and I believe he will be able to walk once the spiritual healing comes (and honestly that is far greater and more important than physical healing). We had great moments discipline and working with the exposure team, several college age missionaries who are joining our team and ministering alongside us for a single month. There are all the tiny moments of life along side people you love, be it my team and community who are all committed to building each other up and improving one another’s lives as well as all the other people we meet in our daily life here.
So while it was my best day yet on the race, in reality it was just another day, because in this experience every day is this good.
*If I do not raise another $800 before the end of the month I run the risk of being sent home, unable to finish my journey, and unable to continue having days like these. Please consider clicking the support me button either on the top of this page or on the left under my picture to help keep me here in the missionary field. Also, because of the lack of reliable internet here, sharing this blog and fundraising is quite difficult, so please consider sharing it online or sending it to your friends and family. Thank you so much!
