Two of the major ministries we do in missions are Visitation and Evangelism, which are really two of the major pillars in church planting. While they are so effective in receiving and retaining new visitors, they are met with intense opposition from our own self life and the other kingdom.
A great example of these two ministries is our church member named Maria. On Saturdays we take half of our Bible school students and fan out over the entire our community. As a group of students and I was walking through the community we ran into a group of ladies. We asked them if they were Christians to which they replied yes, then we asked them if they went to church. One of the ladies honestly said she hadn’t been to church in 3 years. Lovingly we explained to her the importance of church fellowship in her life and invited her to our church. Amazingly, the next day she came and put up her hand for salvation. You could see on her face that she had been touched. It was incredible to see how all the ladies in the church ministered to her. We sat down with her after the service in our New Visitors table and encouraged her further. Every new visitor gets a packet and in it is a translated copy of Pr. Steven’s booklet: Just Let God Love You in Chewa. Also there is a coupon for a free Coke. It’s our version of the Café. Maria has been coming since for the past 3 weeks, there we saw the results of evangelism in action.
The other edge of the sword is Visitation. In Africa visitation is huge and Maria again is a great example. We told Maria that we would love to visit her home. The first week we weren’t able to trace her house, the next week we tried again. This time we met her at a market near her house: Peter, one of our leaders, Poema, and I were all together. As we met in the market, her face bore a beautiful smile, ear to ear, as if she couldn’t believe we actually made it. She lives about a 15 minute walk from the church, down dusty roads in a house built on the outskirts of the community our church is in. When we arrived at her house, we were touched to see the condition she lives in and her story. She is a middle aged widow that is living with her son and two grandchildren. The grandchildren are children of her older son who also passed away. She doesn’t have a job but just washes clothes on the weekends to raise money for rent in her 1 bedroom dirt floored house. When we came to visit her, she was overwhelmed that we would take the time to come and see her in her home. This is the value of visitation.
We also just came back from bringing 3 of our leaders to a conference in Zambia. It was so encouraging to see all our brothers in Zambia and spend 3 days with the as we see the church in Southern Africa continue to grow. It was 12 short years ago when we spoke of branching out from Zambia into the surrounding countries. Now that is a reality. God is amazing.
Please pray for us as we:
1. Prepare for Christmas Banquet at the Church – We are praying for 30 new visitors
2. Our Church Picnic and Baptism in December
3. Our 3rd Malacon April 15-16, 2017 as we have over 50 graduating
4. Our Trip to Zambia on April 21-23, we are believing God for big things: that we could rent the whole bus to bring 70 people to Zamcon
Some pictures of this past month:
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| Ladies tea fellowship at our house |
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| Noah's 1st birthday |
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| GG Chisapo Church |
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| Outreach at the Post Office |
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