Happy New Year from the both
of us and we trust you had a wonderful Christmas time!
Unlike the UK we’re in the middle of the hot, humid rainy
season here and we’ve seen the mountainous countryside literally transform in
front of our eyes from a dry, dusty rather dead looking landscape to a lush, green
beautiful panorama, it’s truly beautiful. As we drive out of the city to teach
we are saying ‘wow’ all of the time, it’s a truly beautiful time of the year.
We’ve been asked a few times recently by friends in the
UK the question “what does your typical week look like?” so we thought others
may be wondering the same thing, so here’s what a ‘typical’ week looks like for
us:
MONDAY: is
spent planning and writing the pastor’s training material, as well as planning
/ preparing our training for the Hope Centre staff. Mark also serves Miqlat by
overseeing their accounts, and he uses Mondays to do that work.
TUESDAY: is
Sozo day, we love Sozo day! We love seeing God move powerfully yet intimately
in these times, it’s a privilege to watch people interact with Father, Son
& Holy Spirit & receive healing, freedom, & deeper revelation of
His love for them, His children. It’s one of our favourite things we do! We are
currently the only people in Malawi offering Sozo, so as well as primarily
serving people in our city in this way, we’ve had people travel from the capital
city (5 hours away), as well as some staff from the Iris Ministries base a few
hours away. We are excited to learn that a couple from South Africa recently
trained in Sozo are relocating to Blantyre at the end of 2019.
WEDNESDAY: is
church day. We serve on the leadership team of our church, so we attend a
weekly leadership meeting & do 1:1 mentoring / discipleship of our Malawian
pastor colleague (Jonah). We also lead a home group which meets on Wednesdays. We
use this day to also prepare for preaches and home group material. Our favourite
part of our day is our 1:1 with our friend Jonah, it has been our pleasure to
watch him grow & blossom in front of our eyes over these last 2.5 years as
he has grown in his revelation of his good Heavenly Father and in his own
Sonship, and we now have the pleasure of him sharing this with other Malawian
pastors and also the people he disciples.
THURSDAY
& FRIDAY: We drive an hour out of the city to the
rural communities where the Thucila Hope Centre & Kogoya Hope Centres are based.
We start by spending time with their Facilitators (staff members) delivering
teaching / training. The types of topics we have covered included spiritual
gifts, Father Heart & renewing our minds. We then spend the afternoon with
the local pastors delivering teaching / training to them. It has again been our
pleasure to watch these pastors grow in their understanding of who God is and
they regularly share our teaching in their own churches on the Sunday mornings.
SATURDAY: In
theory is a day off! One evening a month we hold our Encounter Evenings (see
our previous blog for more info about them) which are usually the highlight of
our month.
SUNDAY: Mornings are spent serving at church, Mark
leads the majority of the Sunday services, we both regularly preach but you’ll
also find us setting up before the service, serving teas and coffees or washing
up afterwards.
As you are aware we are not paid for any of our work so
we trust in Father as our provider and He has never let us down. Mark felt
prompted that we should share a recent testimony of His provision in this
update, we hope it encourages you if you are in a situation of trusting in Him
as your provider.
Have you ever had a number of things all break at the
same time or a number of big bills arrive at the same time?
Towards the end of
last year we had 3 things all need replacing around the same time. We’ve been truly
blessed by people giving us their old mobile phones since we have moved here as
we have been unable to purchase new ones but Laura’s mobile eventually died a
death and she felt, rather than be given another 2nd or 3rd
hand phone from someone, to ask Father for a brand new one that would last a
few years at the very least. At this same time Laura’s (fairly old) laptop was
infected by a serious virus and the conclusion was it would be cheaper to buy a
new one than to fix it, and another old piece of IT equipment we have was also
reaching the end of its life…………..but we didn’t have any £ to replace these
much needed IT equipment, so we asked Father that He would meet these needs…..and
He did!
We managed to get the virus on Laura’s laptop removed with no cost, so
we hope it’ll last another 6-12 months. Laura was sharing with someone in
England about the fact her mobile had died and was getting advice about an Android
phone, when this person offered to pay in full for the Android Laura was
looking at! And finally we received a one off gift from some friends which
enabled us to replace, brand new, the other piece of equipment that had come to
the end of its life!
Our Hilux is a huge part of our ministry, allowing us to
go out to remote communities to teach, but insuring it isn’t cheap and we knew
we were facing our annual international insurance renewal for it in January but
again not knowing where this money was going to come from, but we believed that
having seen Father meet this need for the last 2-3 years He would meet it again…….and
He did, we received an unexpected and significant financial gift in December
that pays the car insurance in full!
There is power in sharing testimony, if He can do it for
us, He will do it again in our future, but He can and will also meet your
needs, so as you read our testimony we declare through it that your abundantly
generous Heavenly Father already knows and has already met your needs! And those
of you that partnered with Father and blessed us may well be reading this and
we thank you for your generous obedience to Father’s leading.
Lots
of love to you all!
Financial support: https://www.give.net/20189271
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