September Update

It’s a while since our last update, mainly because we’ve been busy with some of Laura’s family visiting us. We had a lovely few weeks with them showing them our new home, and being treated to a few days away to show them further afield in Malawi. Once again reminded of what a beautiful country Malawi is, and thankfully (& unsurprisingly in our opinion) our family fell in love with Malawi as most first time visitors do….we thought our first visit in 2009 would be our one and only trip here….now look at us!

This month we want to focus on two areas of our work, one of which is a new development……

1:1 discipleship / mentoring

We both love our Malawian pastor, he is one of a team of leaders in our church, but he is the only one employed full time by the church. He is so hungry to learn and to grow in his intimacy with God. We’ve always thought what a privilege it would be to come alongside him and pour into him through discipleship, but left it to God to the open the door if it was ever what He wanted us to do.

Just after we returned from our trip to the UK during a discussion a friend was asking had he considered going to a bible college to obtain a qualification. He replied that he doesn’t want to do that but instead would really value someone coming alongside him journeying with him in his pursuit to get closer to God. We were both so impressed with his response because through attending a bible college, culturally he would gain prestige, power, & position, but he has rejected that possibility instead pursue something much more private.

So……I can guess you can imagine the outcome! Without hesitation we offered to meet with him regularly to disciple / mentor him and he gratefully accepted our offer. We’re not against bible colleges, we are both bible college graduates ourselves, but the reality of a Malawian bible college would most likely be a lot of religious ‘head’ knowledge. Instead we have the privilege of ministering to him, prophesying over him, & praying for him & his family. We’re starting with looking at what we believe is a central foundational truth that all Christians need a revelation of, that their heavenly Father is a wonderful good & perfect Father and that we are His children and all that means. It has been an honour to see in front of our eyes this wonderful pastor gain personal revelation in this fundamental truth & we know as he grows this area he will subsequently go on and share his testimony with other Malawians. We are so excited to see how God continues to move in his life! 

We have had some amazing sessions recently! We just love to watch and see how God ministers to people so uniquely. Here is a snippet of a testimony of a recent first time Sozo session:

“It was a warm time of closeness with Jesus which I find hard to encounter on my own…I  feel so empowered to do prayer times in this way on my own now. I felt the issues I prayed about are completely resolved and finalized in the Spirit! This type of prayer is powerful, directly engaging with my Saviour, Father, and friend in the Holy Spirit. I especially enjoyed the vision that I received from the Lord at the end - that when I face my day, I am surrounded by the Trinity, Jesus on my left, the Holy Spirit on my right and The Father behind me. And when I enter His Presence, Jesus and The Holy Spirit lift me up on each side and present me to the Father in the Heavenly Realms. What a privilege to interact with the Living God with such intimacy!!!!!!”

We wanted to end with sharing a story from a few weeks ago. We were having clutch problems & so were reluctant to take our car far until it had been checked out, so we decided to visit a church that meets much closer to our home.

It is pastored by friends of ours and the church was planted just over a year ago. Purposefully they had veered away from Holy Spirit ministry on Sunday mornings as a lot of their congregation sadly have had people use this kind of ministry in a negative way. However the pastors felt that God had given them the green light to start to teach and minister into this area and they were starting that the Sunday we visited.

After a great talk about the topic the pastor to our surprise asked us to lead the time of ministry at the end. Well……we had an amazing time, as He always does when any of His children ask Him, the manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit came and filled the room, people were baptised with the Holy Spirit for the first time, and we had a wonderful time praying & prophesying over individuals, we were so pleased to see that the church felt free and open with the physical manifestations of the Spirit too. Do you ever do something and think ‘I was born to do this kind of thing?’ that is how we both felt afterwards, & thanks to a clutch problem we ended up at the church on that morning and were given the privilege of seeing people encounter God in a new way!

We are currently preparing teaching to deliver to the village pastors tackling witchcraft and elements of Malawian cultural practices that are essentially demonic. Until now the topics we have talked about have been ‘safe’ topics, fundamentals of Christianity. We know that as we tackle this topic, it might not be as easy for the pastors to digest, so we’d appreciate prayers for wisdom as we prepare and deliver this teaching (we are seeking the assistance & input of Malawians in our prep) but most importantly that we see these wonderful pastors set free from any grip that the enemy may have on their personal lives and / or the lives of their congregations.   

 

Thank you and much love from us!