News

General Life

We’ve been here over 8 months now; time flies! We’re beginning more and more to feel like our life is here now, as we continue to settle in and adapt to life in Malawi. It’s now summer in Malawi, late October and November has been unbearably hot, we never thought we’d pray for grey skies and rain but we have been! It was so hot getting any sleep was very difficult and moving of any kind resulted in constant sweating, even the locals really struggle with the summer heat. Thankfully now the rainy season has just started bringing much needed relief from the high temperatures; this is our first rainy season in Malawi, no one warned us that this is when all of the insects come out to play!

We’re also very much looking forward to our short trip to the UK in less than 2 weeks’ time!  

Ministry

His Presence Malawi

As we’ve shared in an earlier blog we felt led to encompass all of the varying work in Malawi in this initial season within the name ‘His Presence Malawi’ as we believe it is only as Malawi experiences His Presence and Kingdom that true change will come. Please have a look at the new page on this blog ‘Ministry’ for more information.

Beehive

We continue to serve the township of Chilomoni. Laura is enjoying seeing her team develop and support families in the community learn parenting skills, learn the harm of some cultural practices to children (e.g. raping girls when they begin menstruating and prolific child abuse) and working with the local Police to prosecute perpetrators of domestic violence. Laura’s team has last week launched a new parenting course in a new community and had the pleasure of seeing 80 parents sign up including the village Chief and around 20 men. Having men and a chief sign is a first for our children’s centre!  

Miqlat



We’re very excited about officially partnering with Miqlat! Miqlat is a Hebrew word meaning place of Hope and Refuge.

The ‘bread and butter’ of what they do is orphan care, through child sponsorship they provide orphans and vulnerable children and teenagers with school fees, 1 good meal a day, career guidance and discipleship.

Miqlat children

They desire not just to serve the orphans themselves but also the communities the orphans live in. Part of this includes a desire to train, equip and support the local pastors in these communities. We have been visiting this project for a while building relationships and 3 weeks ago launched weekly Pastors training. We have around 20 pastors coming from varying communities, some of whom cycle 1 hour just to get there (very humbling!). Our plan is to launch our teaching plan ‘proper’ in January encompassing some areas they have asked for teaching on as well as our passion to teach around identify as a child of God and supernatural Kingdom ministry.

Some of the Pastors we're training

However we recognise initially we will have to teach some basics of the faith first as these pastors have very little biblical knowledge and training, for example one question we received was ‘If someone wants to visit the Garden of Eden (as in the Genesis one!) how would I direct them to get there?’ We’re not sharing this question to mock them, just to demonstrate how very little biblical knowledge is around in the rural parts of the country.  

 

 

 

Sozo Prayer Ministry

The longer we’re here the more we see how much need there is for individuals to be have heart wounds healed, for lies of the enemy in people’s minds to be removed with the truths of Father God and how much deliverance is needed. As we’ve talked more to people about our passion to see people set free in this area the resounding response has been the need is great, when you are starting offering sessions? So……we hope to be able to start offering Sozo sessions early in 2017 and are very excited about seeing people set free.

Personal Ministry  

We are both continuing to grow so much in our own personal relationship with Father God as He continues to talk and minister to us; we’re already both very different than when we arrived (in a good way!). As we’re growing in Him we’re seeing an increase in Him using us, for example we love praying for physical healing and we’ve been seeing everyone we pray for either significantly or fully healed instantly. We’re both continuing to grow in the prophetic and having more visions from God about us personally. We’re excited to see what else will happen as we continue to grow in our personal understanding of our identity as a child of God as we’re convinced the reason for our growth is as the more our hearts are healed up, the continued greater revelation of the implications of being a child of God and greater understanding of who God is, leads to a growing confidence within ministry.  

Prayer Points

Thank you for your prayers, they are greatly appreciated:

1. Visa – our visa application was submitted in late October. We are currently experiencing some problems (very common!) with this and this is causing a potential problem with re-entering Malawi in January as our visa will not be in place by then. Please would you pray favour with Malawian Immigration, speed on the process that is linked to us getting back in in January and helpful members of staff and ultimately God’s will over it all!
    
2. Pastor’s Training – that the pastors will gain heart revelation of the truths about God and His Kingdom. The longer we’re here the more we’re learning about witchcraft and ancestral worship which is not necessarily seen as un-Christian but ‘cultural’ and therefore acceptable within Christianity and that the Pastors over time will be strong enough to walk away from these demonic cultural beliefs.  
    

Lots of love from Mark and Laura