Grace Baptist Church, Zomba Malawi: June 2009 Update

By Percy Chisenga (Associate Member, Sola 5)

Dear friends,

Thanks be to God for his tender mercies in the second quarter of 2009. We have seen the hand of God at work in many ways and we are grateful to you all for upholding us in prayer.

A few Spot Lights on the Spiritual Environment in Zomba

Esther is a young widow in our neighbourhood. She is a member of an Assemblies of God Church in our residential area. In May she shared with her neighbour, a female member of our church, that her church had been praying with her for a husband and that God had answered her prayers. A married man from another church promised to divorce his wife and marry her so that he could have children with her. She agreed and the relationship was on with the man spending some nights at her house. We visited her to share the gospel with her and her neighbours for a few weeks and she attended our worship services on a number of times. But she became uncomfortable with the doctrine of evangelical repentance, she went back to her church and lost interest in the Bible studies we were having with her and her neighbours.
On Saturday June 13 my wife and I were invited guests at a wedding of Mr and Mrs Moveya. Mrs Moveya is the mother of Theresa, a young lady who has come to know and love the Lord and regularly attends our church. Her mother separated from her father when she was young and began to live with Mr Moveya. She is now married and has three children. Her mother and her “step father” finally decided to get married. What amazed my wife and I was to see the wedding of this couple that has been cohabiting for more than twenty years, and are grandparents, conducted in an evangelical church like that of young people.
Dave, my landlord, lives in open sin of drunkenness and other vices that go with it. We have shared the gospel with him on many occasions and invited him to church. He has attended our worship services a few times in the past, but he prefers to go to his family church, The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP). At his father's funeral service on Thursday June 25, the pastor of his church referred to the deceased man as “a committed Christian who had left behind a son who was also a good Christian and church member” (meaning Dave).
We recently heard of an elder a church in central town whose wife left him a few months ago, after being married for nearly twenty years. He now lives with another woman. He requested his pastor to solemnize a wedding between him and his new bride, but the pastor and the other elders told him that he could not wed another woman while his first wife was still alive. He, however, continues to serve as an elder.

Brethren, we are serving the Lord in an environment where supposedly Bible believing churches are indifferent to sin and consider a person a good Christian so long as he attends church and pays a prescribed monthly contribution to the church. How a person lives is, sadly, his own private affair. The message of repentance is therefore resisted and viewed as a new and strange teaching. To draw genuine attention to the faithful preaching of the Gospel is a real miracle of the grace of God. People love to hear about God's love and the Saviour’s sacrifice of His own life for sinners, but not about the application of this truth to the sinner's life. When you come to this point you part company. Yet God continues to prove that the Gospel is His power for salvation of all who believe.

The Power of the Gospel

Six months before Hopeson Mkandawire was confronted with the message of the Cross, his wife had run away from him. She had gone to live with her parents at the village because she could not bear with his reckless drinking and womanizing habits. But the lord opened his heart to receive the Gospel and his life was changed. He then went to the village to apologize to his wife and to bring her back, just in time to save her from giving herself to another man at the village who was proposing marriage to her. She would not believe the change that had taken place in her husband. Upon her return the Lord used the transformation in her husband to open her heart as well to give hid to the Gospel. We rejoice in the Lord as we help the young couple to grow in Christ.

Church Attendance

Attendance on the Lord's Day stabilized in the second quarter at the average of 30 people with visitors dropping in now and again. The midweek meetings for prayer and Bible study continued to be well attended. Among the attendees there has been growing interest in the Reformed Faith and three couples and two young men have expressed desire to attend this year's Zambia Reformed Conference in August. Only one couple may manage to their fares to Zambia and we hope to hope to give a lift to the rest in our vehicle. Pray with us that the vehicle may be in a fit condition to make the long journey in August.

Leadership Training

The training of five men for leadership has been going on well. The men are very keen to learn. We have a weekly two hour session on Sunday afternoon. In April we had a series of studies on Spiritual Leadership. From May to date we have been studying through the book of Revelation to give the men the nature of the spiritual battle we are engaged in. The monthly whole day leadership seminar, which we hold jointly with Antioch Baptist Church in Blantyre on the third Saturday of each month, has been encouraging. Each month we are joined with some fifteen young men in Blantyre to make a class of about twenty students. Between May and June, Pastor Frank Maxson taught on the Sufficiency of Scripture and on Church Membership, Victor Maxson covered Church History in the early and middle ages, and I gave an Introduction to Systematic Theology and made a start on Bibliology. Pray that the Lord may use our feeble efforts to equip these men for faithful service.

Couples Ministry

In light of the poor view that society has of marriage and how most marriages, including so called Christian marriages, generally start with sexual immorality, I began to hold special counselling sessions with individual couples among the church members. This is aimed at giving the couples a biblical view of marriage and helping them to be witnesses for Christ and to have a godly influence in their neighbourhoods.

Church Plot

The issue of the church plot has finally been settled in our favour at a meeting we had with the officials from the City Assembly and from the Town and Country Planning on Wednesday June 24, though the size has been slightly reduced. We praise the Lord for this as we can now start working on the construction of the church building. Pray with us for the needed resources for the building project.

Brethren pray for us that the Holy Spirit may open the hearts of many whom He gives us the privilege to share the Gospel with.