Anthony Masala, ZEC’s Fellowship of Youth co-ordinator, reports on the Young Peoples’ Easter Outreach in the Dedza rural area….. (copied exactly as received from Anthony)

Youth in Malawi are grateful for all your support. Your prayers during the Easter evangelism in Dedza helped us a lot. May the Lord secure your places at the right hand of His Christ. Praying for you.

FELLOWSHIP OF YOUTH EASTER OUTREACH TO MAYANI IN DEDZA

PREAMBLE
It has become a routine that every Easter fellowship of youth organizes outreach crusades. This year 2007 the Lord was pleased to open doors of ministry for the youth at Mayani in Dedza district. The Mayani evangelism was reminiscent of Paul’s call to preach the message to Macedonia. We have this testimony that

“During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (Acts 16:9-10).

One the students who comes from Mayani invited us. We therefore concluded that “God has called us to preach the gospel to Mayani”.

The primary mission of the outreach was evangelism. However since there is no ZEC congregation in the vicinity except one at Linthipe some 20KMs away, we planned to have a ZEC congregation planted.
This report covers our experiences from preparations for the trip up to our coming back. However we are grateful to the Almighty God who has called us the youth in the days of our youth to His abundant harvest (Jn4:34-38).

PREPARATIONS
The trip involved the youth from ZEC churches in Blantyre. The trip to Mayani is about 280KMs from Blantyre. Each youth was asked to contribute MK1800 for transport. Prior to our going a youth was sent to make a survey of the area. His report was that the place has a cluster of villages within a short radius. This encouraged us very much. We envisaged a big impact since we did not have problems with reaching out to all the villages.

FoY leaders from the Blantyre Churches meeting to plan the Easter Outreach events

THE TRIP
The whole week before the trip was committed to prayer and fasting. 54 youth from seven churches showed up for the trip. The devil opposed us quite a lot. Our plans to hire a bus failed for lack enough funds. Instead God was pleased to provide a 7tone truck we were able to hire. We had hiccups with the Police. The government requires traffic permits for trucks to carry passengers. To our surprise the traffic office refused to give us the permit until in the afternoon. We were supposed to leave at 8hours but we left at 15hours.
We traveled for about 250Kms to branch off from the bitumen road to Mayani. Mayani road is a dry weather road. We turned back for the first time since the road we took had a damaged bridge. We took a short cut. After traveling for about 10KMs we failed to proceed because the truck couldn’t cross a narrow bridge ahead. The capacity of the bridge is 5 tones. We turned back to the junction to take another road which is a longer one.

We arrived at Mayani trading centre at 23:30hours.we could not proceed to the villages because our truck damaged the bridge linking the trading centre with the villages. If it were not for the Lord we would have had a fatal accident. We would have plunged into the river. The Lord protected us. We remembered His promise “I will be with you to the end of this age”. Psalm 121 became real to us.

Some of us left the truck to trek on foot to the villages some 3Kms to our destination. We arrived at the one of the village at 1:00AM. We met the people and they escorted us back the truck to guide us through another road to the village.

We finally arrived at the village at 3:00AM weary and hungry. Indeed those that trust upon the Lord will renew their strength, they will mount on wing like eagles and never be weary. We traveled for 12hours. Very unusual. We praised the Lord for the protection during our long journey. The devil was serious in stopping us from going. The journey reminded us about Paul’s journey to Rome and all what he went through to get there. However this was to us God’s approval of the ministry at Mayani. Miracles awaited us.

GETTING STARTED
We had no time to sleep. We took tea at 5hours. At 11 hours all was set for ministry. If we had arrived the previous evening we would have had our first open air evangelism meeting as soon as we had arrived. However The Lord is not short of strategies of soul winning. He directed us to spend the whole day in door to door evangelism around in the villages we targeted. At the same time He told us to have full time intercessions as other youth go into the field.

Seven youth including myself volunteered to be intercessors. The rest divided into three groups. Each of these evangelized a village. At 15hours most of the youth were back for lunch laden with testimonies. Here are some of the testimonies from people;

“I go to church just because it is Sunday. In my life nobody has ever told me that I need Christ to get saved”

"I have never heard any challenging massage of salvation in my life”

“ Come and preach to us as well”

“ Two days ago I had a dream some one telling me that in a few days I will meet a preacher. The person told me to repent since the message to be shared was for my salvation”. (This was a testimony of one of the youth who met one of the girls on door to door. He came to the Lord after the testimony)

EVENING MEETING
Soon after late lunch the ground was set for open air meeting at one of the village grounds. The turn up for the meeting was very low. But we were grateful to the Lord that a handful responded to the massage. Even during this evening meeting the intercessors kept the fire burning. The meeting was covered in prayer. We went to sleep late in the night.

EASTER SUNDAY
We woke up very early in the morning for the resurrection match. It was a joyous morning and the community was taken by surprise. This has never happened in the community. Many flocked to the street to join us in the match.

After the match we dispersed to prepare for the Sunday service. This marked the first ZEC service at a Mayani. At 9:30 hours the service started. I preached from Isaiah53:1-12 and Mathew28:1-16. After the massage one person came to the Lord. All this happened amidst a rain storm. We had no shelter. It was a miracle that we were not soaked. There was a heavy storm a few meter away from the place of worship but only light showers came at our place of worship. This was a miracle. The Lord prevented the rains from disturbing the meeting. At the end of the meeting three people committed themselves to join ZEC.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON
God continued to lead us. In the afternoon we had a last door to door evangelism to finish the work left on Saturday. In the evening we had our last meeting at the same place on the previous day. Some youth with my wife volunteered for the intercessions. Heavenly Hosts visited us and multitudes came for the meeting. The wife to the chief and some leaders of Nyau secret society came for the meeting. We were warned about Nyau dancers during the survey. Nyau is a popular traditional dance and at the same time it is also regarded as a region. It is one of the opponents of Christianity. The members are deeply engaged in magic and witch craft. The Lord was with us and fought for us.

As the meeting was in progress three of us went to the chiefs’ house to witness to him and pray for his sick grandson. The session lasted for three hours. We also discussed with him on the issue of a place of worship. He assured us to find a place for the new members to start meeting. We left the place at 12mid-night. At the evening meeting many came to the LORD and it ended around the same time we left the chiefs’ house. The intercessors had a lot of work. Three children came for deliverance. These confessed practicing witchcraft. They came with their mothers and a grandmother. Here are some of their confessions:

“ We are being trained in witchcraft by one of our grandmothers. At night we turn into wild animals. One becomes an elephant, the other a monkey and the other one a lion”

“ I killed my uncle to eat his meat. Now it is finished and any time I will kill my mother”

“ We use our grandmothers’ back for a table when having our meals”

These confessions were made in the presence of the said mother to be bewitched and the granny whose back is used as a table. It was shocking to them. The intercessors ministered to them that the only way out for them was to commit their lives to the Lord. The children were delivered after much prayer and they accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. They clients were escorted to their homes the same night at around 3AM. We praised the Lord for using us in such a wonderful way.

DEPARTURE
We planned to depart on Monday morning. We left around 8hours without breakfast. Our journey back was not short of adventures. We got lost. We took a road to Salima in the north. The Lord was good to us that he intervened after traveling for several miles. We picked some ladies to show us our way back. We were back on track. After traveling for about two hours we run out of gas. We waited for about 2hours to set off again. We arrived in Blantyre around 19hours. Our way back took 11 hours.

A BRIEF ANALYSIS
We thank the Lord for all the successes and problems/challenges we encountered during the ministry. I hope a presentation of these will help.

SUCCESSES

• Many youth turned up for the trip though the contribution was high.
• Transport change was a breakthrough. If we had taken a bus we would have encountered greater problems.
• We preached Christ unhindered.
• Many came to the Lord (about 150)
• Deliverances and healings
• ZEC congregation planted
• Unity and commitment of the youth

PROBLEMS /CHALLENGES

• Some youths failed to go for lack of money
• Impassable roads
• We had no Jesus film since we had no LCD projector.
• We had no gospel tracts to distribute (Chichewa tracts are difficult to source)

WAY FORWARD
The pastor at Linthipe will be responsible for the follow up and shepherding the flock at Mayani. He lives some 15KMs from Mayani. However we are planning to launch a full time ministry at Mayani. The youth would like to continue evangelizing the place for the rest of the year. At the same time we would like to have full responsibility for the shepherding of the church. We are planning to organize teams of evangelism who will be sent to Mayani in turns to continue the work. When time comes for the Synod office to send a pastor FOY will commit itself to support him.

PRAISES

• All successes above
• Fruitful youth promotion Sunday on 22nd April 2007
• Gods providences to FOY

PRAYER POINTS

• New converts at Mayani for spiritual growth
• Open doors of ministry at Mayani and the surrounding communities.
• Pastor Chaperepetenga as he takes care of the new church. He is already busy at His Linthipe congregation. He has also been given the responsibility to take care of the congregation at Chimbiya whose pastor was transferred. He needs our prayers to do all this work.
• Plans of Blantyre youth to set up evangelism teams for Mayani.
• A Truck for field trips.
• A computer set for the publication of Chichewa Tratcs. An LCD projector for Jesus film.
• A public address system.( we use a borrowed one for our meetings)
• Bibles
• Involvement of youth from other congregations in the central and northern regions in evangelism.
• Youth from Mitsidi and Chilomoni have evangelism meetings at Kachere ZEC (Chabvala area) in June from 1st to 3rd.
• Prayer and evangelism youth seminars this year at Mitsidi, Lilongwe, Ntcheu, and Mzuzu.
• The Youth coordinators’ visits to the central and northern regions from may to august.
• Calling of more youth workers to help in the mobilization of the youth for ministry across Malawi.

Yours in His Majesties' service

Anthony