We're Back

Hi from a very wet but green Blantyre! We’re well into the rainy season here and it’s a first for us living through a tropical wet season but we love it, it produces the most beautiful clouds and the thunder storms are brilliant, we had the windows in our house shake recently the thunder was so loud! Since returning from the UK in December we landed to a transformed landscape, the country has turned lush and green over the space of 3-4 weeks and we’re both struck again with how beautiful Malawi is.

We had a wonderful few weeks in England in December, it was so good to catch up with some friends & family and enjoy some the comforts of the western world; electricity, good internet, bacon and cheese! Although it was quite tiring and Laura was ill throughout most of the time, we both came away feeling refreshed; the main reason being we both felt we regained a bigger perspective of our reason for being in Malawi. During last year a lot of time, quite rightly, had to be spent on doing a lot of the day to day realities of starting a new life; finding a home then furnishing it from scratch, getting to grips with a totally different culture and language, and all of the many practicalities that come with relocating to a new country which in turn without us realising had kept our eyes slightly off the bigger picture, so thank you to all you during our trip who encouraged us, prayed for us and prophesised over us!

Enjoying Green Malawi

And……having just returned to the UK we are already well into the throws of planning our next trip in June/mid - July of this year. The main focus of this next trip will be connecting and sharing with people who would like to hear about our ministry here in Malawi. Whilst our diary is filling we would love you to get in touch if you would like us to come and share, whether that be at a small group, prayer group, church service, any kind of gathering! We’re in the UK from the 31^st May until the 17^th July.   

Sozo Prayer Ministry

We are so excited to have started doing Sozo ministry this month! One of our main passions is to see people connect more intimately with the Trinity and as such experience inner healing, wholeness and a renewed sense of identity, and Sozo is an amazing tool to see this happen literally in front of our eyes! We did one session with a Zimbabwean lady who was released from many lies she had been believing and she gained so much revelation of truth about herself and God. A few days after the session she shared with us how she now knows that she has God’s blood running through her veins and that she is experiencing intimate closer relationship with all 3 members of the Trinity whereas previously she had always connected with Jesus only. We love it!

Pastors Training  

We have re-started our pastors training in mid-January and it was so good to see them again! We have purposefully used our time with them in January to listen to their stories of the realities of life as a rural pastor in Malawi; this has helped us to build relationship with them but has also improved our understanding of their personal situations. Life as a rural pastor over here is so so different to life as a pastor in the west. In the West we have so many amazing books we can easily access, sermons to watch on Youtube, training events and conferences. In rural Malawi none of these resources really exist which is why it is such a privilege to be able to weekly sow into the lives of these pastors truths about God and His Kingdom.

Some of the Pastors we are training

Prayer points

1. Continued prayers for our visa would be highly appreciated! We resubmitted all of the documents Immigration had lost upon our return in the beginning of January. We checked the progress a week ago and once again they couldn’t find our file. We are not worried as we know we are meant to be here but it is time consuming having to camp out regularly at the Immigration office trying to move our application along.
2. That as we start 2017 that Father would continue to make it clear to us all that He wants to do in and through us.
3. The devaluation of the Pound has affected us along with other British missionaries, since our return in January. Whilst our financial support from the UK side hasn’t decreased, how much of the local money we now can get has. We are believing that Father God will meet this new financial need over the coming few months; we are able to cover the deficit for the next few months but not beyond.

Thank you all for your prayers, lots of love from Mark and Laura