A couple weeks ago, we had a fantastic visit from Bryan Martin. Bryan went to seminary with Brian Biedebach, and when the Biedebachs delayed their return to Malawi, Brian and the leadership of GMI started looking for someone who could come fill the pulpit for a couple weeks in their absence. What a breath of fresh air! Bryan came all the way from New Zealand to preach for 2 Sundays, to encourage us, and to see a bit of the country and the ministry here in Malawi. We also lined up opportunities for him to speak twice in chapel at African Bible College, to take the first week of Brian Biedebach’s Sermon Preparation class, and to spend time with many of the Malawian and expatriate families in our church and community. I don’t think he had 10 minutes of time to himself in the week and a half he was here!

But what a great time for us! We so enjoyed long conversations about Malawi, ministry, life, and theology. Bryan has a very evident love for people, and we were the grateful recipients of his care for the whole time he was here. Bryan, thanks for your willingness to come and serve us. You have truly encouraged our hearts for the ministry God has here!

Making new friends is always fun, and here in Malawi it’s really easy. So we’re making a lot of friends, but some of them stand out above the rest. Meet the Banda family.

We first met Bright, on the far right, at our church where he helps lead worship every week. He’s a senior at African Bible College, and it’s been so great to get to know him over the last few months. About 2 weeks ago, he took us out to his village, Moya, and we were able to meet some of his family. One of his younger brothers is standing next to him, and his mother is next to me. Have you ever met someone that you immediately liked and wanted to spend more time with? Bright’s mom is one of those people for me, and I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.

The purpose of our visit, in addition to meeting Bright’s family, was to meet with the chief of his village about making door mats and area mats for our house. He makes the mats out of sisal, so Bright and his mom introduced us to the sisal plants around the village.

We bought a couple mats while we were there and put in an order for some more, larger mats. Then we took a look around the small village and met quite a few of the people who live there. This is the chief’s house and backyard fence.

Before we left that day, we took a tour of the Banda’s farm. It was fascinating! Bananas and rice in the boggy area near the river, tomatoes, lettuce, guava, maize, sweet potatoes, and so much more over the rest of the area. It’s all farmed by hand, machete, and hoe by 2 or 3 people. It was beautiful! They sent us home with lots of lettuce, tomatoes, and bananas, and they were so good! I was going to take a picture of them, but the electricity went out, which is not uncommon around here. So I made dinner in the dark and we ate by candlelight that night.

This last week, we were back in the neighborhood with Bright. After we confirmed a few things about the mat making process, Bright showed us another, larger variety of sisal. Some of you may recognize it as “mexican agave.”

He also showed us the sand mine that is a source of income for many people in the surrounding villages.

We’ll be back to this village many times over the coming weeks and months, so it’s fun to get to know some of the people and places. Please pray for us and for the Bandas, that we can encourage one another in the faith. And pray for us as we get to know the people of the village Moya, that we can be a testimony of God’s truth and salvation to them.

We’re starting a new study with the Ladies’ Bible Studies here at IBF. I’ll be leading the groups through the book of 1 Peter, with the helpful notes and lessons compiled by Lisa Hughes of Calvary Bible Church. I’m excited about the opportunity to continue studying with these ladies – we just finished A Woman’s High Calling by Elizabeth George this past Tuesday – and I’m super-excited to jump into this book of the Bible, rich with hope and encouragement.

I’d appreciate your prayers as I prepare and lead this study. I know that the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12-13), and I can’t wait to see it at work in my life and in the lives of all these ladies, my friends here in Lilongwe. Pray for the ladies in these studies too – for the continuing Tuesday morning group, and for the new Saturday afternoon group. It’s 21 weeks of really digging into God’s Word, so we’re all in need of diligence and the Spirit’s help to learn the truths of God’s Word as we walk through this book in the coming weeks and months!

We disappeared out of the blog world for a while, because we’ve been busy! We’ve had a team from Omaha, Nebraska, here for the past couple weeks, and we’ve been really enjoying this time! There are 7 members of the team, including an electrician, a handy-man, a couple of expert painters, a couple of doctors, and a physical therapist. With all these talents, they’ve been helping with construction on the church office, running VBS, working in the medical clinic, and running mobile medical clinics in the villages.

Here are some highlights from a medical clinic last week in the neighboring village of Mtzlesa.

Calvin checks a child’s blood pressure and vitals before sending him to see one of the doctors.

Tracy and Kristin took up the role of pharmacists.

One of the IBF interns, Bright, on the far right, helping translate for Dr. Wood.

Jim, with the translation help of another intern, Erica, sharing the gospel with a patient as they wait for a doctor.

We’re moving to Malawi! It’s a small country in Africa, but to many of us, Africa is one big country. Everybody has their own zebra, and they live in small huts on the edge of a vast desert. I’m quickly learning that this is not true. I think my perceptions of Africa are largely based on VBS missionary stories that were told with large colorful flannelgraph pictures. I figured I wasn’t going there, so I didn’t need to spend a lot of time making sure my mental image of Africa was accurate.

And here we are. We have plans to move to Malawi in the spring, and we’re going to visit – my first time to Africa! – in about 2 1/2 weeks. I’ll tell you a few things I know – or I think I know – about Malawi.

It’s green! That’s what I hear, and what I’ve seen in Matt’s pictures. Trees, fields, crops… it looks beautiful! Lake Malawi boarders most of the eastern edge of the country, which would explain the green.

Matt posted a lot of pictures of Malawi on his site – click on the picture below to see more.

It’s not always green, but they do have a rainy season and the lake, so it’s a lot more green than I thought it would be. There’s plenty of browns and reds too, especially in the bricks of the mud huts.

It is poor. I was just looking online to make sure I had the right info. Matt and I had been telling everyone that we had heard it was the 4th poorest country in the world, so I figured I’d check the stats before making any declarations in writing. I found several sites that said that Malawi was the poorest country. And then several commentators who said that those sites were all wrong. One thing they agree on: at a GDP of $800 per person, Malawi is definitely in the bottom ten.

The people of Malawi are happy. Happiness has nothing to do with money. The country is stable, they are able to survive from day to day.

Matt was so struck by this that he took a series of pictures of the people of Malawi that he entitled African Joy. It’s a separate set of pictures from the ones we linked above, so click on this picture to see even more of Malawi!

The last thing I’ve learned about Malawi that I’ll mention here is that a lot of people have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, but there has been little training in what to do with the gospel – how to teach the Word of God to others, how to apply the gospel to their lives as growing and learning Christians. That is what pierces my heart. I want to go. I want to give my life and my energies to helping them learn what this precious gift of the gospel is, how it can give them true life, hope, and joy.

The gospel is there. This reminds me that we are stepping into a great heritage of those who love the gospel and love Africa. Our desire is to be good stewards of this gospel, to encourage the church in Malawi, and to be a faithful brother and sister to the believers there who desire to learn and grow in truth.

Thanks for reading through the first blog post. We’re excited to have you join us as we start out on this journey. The next six months will be full of getting things ready to go, and I hope to share with you the funny stories and the random deep thoughts that fill our days.

“I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages – villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.”
- Robert Moffat, Scottish missionary to South Africa, son-in-law of David Livingstone