And so we arrived safely in Malawi. This month are partnered with Harvest ministries. They are a church planting organization with a high emphasis on evangelism, preaching, and leadership development. Needless to say, I am pretty excited about the opportunity. My team is joined by our Squad leader Tiffany Berkowitz as we are soloing it this month in the north part of Malawi around Lake Malawi.
Our first village was called Chentechi. The people there were some of the most welcoming and gracious people ever. Pastor Manda opened him home to us and his family was so kind. It was actually pretty eye opening to be there during the few days leading up to Christmas. The picture of the American Christmas is filled with consumerism while we did not have the luxury of electricity or a toilet seat. It definitely changed your perspective.
Harvest is moving our team around a lot this month. We will have about 4 days in each small village. On Tuesday we did an evangelism outreach. We split up into pairs and traveled throughout the village area. Cori and I had a chance to visit three different homes and spent time with the families there. The immediate family here is much larger that what we would think of back in the states. It almost seemed as if a family reunion was going on. The second family that we had a chance to visit with had never heard the gospel and pretty much knew nothing about Jesus. The family was ruled by an elderly matriarch who called the shots. We spent about 30 minutes unpacking the gospel to this group of people. There was one guy there named Norman. He was just an average guy who walked out of his house and sat down to listen. It was obvious that he was just a normal teenager who was living a normal worldly life and had no clue that there was something that was bigger than him in the world. As we opened up the Bible, his face started to stir with a conviction that only comes from heaven. And when we asked if anyone wanted to put their faith in Jesus, only a few people raised their hands but he was the first one. The rest of the family finally put their hands up after the matriarch of the family said we are in. But Norman stood apart from the family. He made his decision for the Son of God before the rest of the family even had time to think about it. And Jesus changed his life that day. Afterwards he walked with us some more as we shared Christ with some more homes and I had a chance to speak life over this young man, telling him that God loved him and had a huge plan for his life that was better than anything the world could ever give him. Norman showed up to our new believers service the next day excited and transformed. It was amazing.
Services went great that day. Jessica did an amazing job leading the new believers service and I was asked to do some leadership training in the afternoon. Felt led to talk first on how a leaders first ministry is to the family, not the local church. After that I walked the group through the qualifications of a pastor/elder in 1 Timothy 3 because there seemed to be some kind of disconnect around this issue. Probably the most interesting question that was asked during the Q&A time was “If I am a polygamist and have just found out that this is a sin, should I divorce my second wife and keep those kids or divorce my second wife and get rid of the kids as well.” Can say I really did not see that one coming. By the mercy of God, I heard somewhere in my life a pastor answer this question so I just stole his answer which seemed as true to the Bible as it could. I told him that both of these women are his wives and he is to love both of them as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5). He is not to divorce these women because divorce under non-biblical exceptions is a sin (Malachi 2, Matt 5). And so his role because of the decisions that he has made is to love both of these women and care for them as Christ would call him to instead of throwing one to the side, which will lead to her being thrown deeply into poverty and likely prostitution to be able to feed herself. I told him that is to care for these children and raise them up in Godliness holding to the truth of the Word of God and teaching them that monogamy is the only Biblical answer. He is to lead his family in truth and stop the cycle of polygamy in his family. It ends with him. I also told him that because of the decision that he had made he would never be able to be a elder in a church (1 Tim 3) yet God can still use him greatly to change his village for the glory of God. What a day.
All together over the few days we saw about 80 people put their faith in Jesus. God is moving mightily in Malawi. And we are getting front row seats to the awakening!
For God
For People
For the Nations
For the Kingdom
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