On 17 July a team of 11 people headed by Colin Stonelake left England for a 2 week visit to Malawi to work with the Zambezi Evangelical Church. The visit was organised through Connex Ijalasi, pastor at Chilomoni ZEC in Blantyre and former General Secretary of ZEC.

A packed programme had been organised and, following our arrival in Blantyre late on Saturday night, it started with preaching a 5 different ZEC churches on the Sunday morning – Ndirande, Chipata, Limbe, Mitsidi and South Lunzu. This was followed by a youth get together at Chilomoni ZEC in the afternoon where we joined with the local Fellowship of Youth in a variety of activities including games, drama, songs and teaching. It was great to see David, Kirsty and Ethan Kanyumi of Zambesi Mission at this event and to renew contact with them.

Football match at Mulunguzi

Monday saw a visit to ZEC headquarters, ZACOM and EBCOM followed by an afternoon of sports evangelism at a place called Mulunguzi, near Chilomoni. Here we drew in the local youth into football, netball and even cricket, using the half time break to share the Gospel to around 150 young people.

On Tuesday the team travelled to Namisu Orphan Village for a day of sports, songs and bible stories. This was followed in the evening by a meeting of the Blantyre Youth Development Ministry Network, a multidenominational group of young Christians where we shared fellowship, worship and prayer.

Malcolm shows the children what they look like on camera!

A bush camp had been organised by the FOY on Wednesday which saw 2 teams competing to complete a David Livingstone themed trek up Michiru Mountain with a barbecue and sports afternoon awaiting us at the summit. These activities drew in children and their parents from the local forestry commission village and created another opportunity to share the Gospel.

Trekking through the bush up Mt Michiru, Blantyre

Thursday was spent with CFCM, helping to prepare visual aids in the morning and running a Bible club in the afternoon with Amos Nyambo, Saul Mateyu and Elevate Chadzera. Elevate also kindly invited us into her home for a delicious lunch of chicken, rice and nsima.

Lunch at the home of Elevate Chadzera

In parallel to these activities, one of the team members, Joyce Dean was able to visit a number of prisons and share the Gospel with the prisoners as well as providing some much needed supplies of soap and food.

On Friday we left for Lilongwe, stopping off at Dedza Pottery for a spot of souvenir shopping. We were accommodated in pairs at the homes of various families from the local churches in Lilongwe and were overwhelmed at the warmth of the welcome we received and the generosity shown to us.

Micklas and Caroline Reuben with whom Colin and Malcolm stayed in Lilongwe

Saturday saw a youth get together followed by sports evangelism where, again there was an opportunity to share the Gospel with the local youngsters.

Riding through the streets of Lilongwe

On Sunday we again visited and preached at 5 ZEC churches, one of which, included a service of baptism for 66 people!

From Lilongwe we moved on to Ntonda and Nthorowa orphan day care centres where we packed a range of activities into 2 days by dividing the team into 2. We were supported by the local FOY at both places, which included kindnesses such as getting up at 5.30am to heat water for us to wash, gathering firewood and cooking our meals.  We enjoyed an evening of fellowship with the FOY around a campfire and were able to marvel at the wonder of God’s creation as we gazed up at a starlit sky such as is never seen in the UK.

Colin hands out letters to the children at Ntonda written by Pocklington school children

Having by now been constantly on the go for 10 days, we took the opportunity for a short break and visited Lake Malawi where again we were left amazed at the unspoilt beauty of God’s creation. We then returned to Blantyre for a farewell dinner at the home of Connex Ijalasi and his wife Sinolia before heading to Lilongwe for the flight home.

We were joined for the whole 2 weeks by Connex, his brother Praise and by Anthony Masala, formerly ZEC’s Youth co-ordinator. We have been challenged, encouraged and overwhelmed by the privilege of working and spending time with these three men of God. They went to great lengths to help us relate to the people of Malawi and have forged such strong relationships with the whole team which will continue long after the euphoria of the trip has faded. We have had an enormous amount of fun with the three of them as well as sharing some wonderful times of worship and testimony. Now that we are back in the UK we miss them all!

It has been wonderful to see how God has worked in the hearts of each team member while we were in Malawi. Although with the exception of Colin and Joyce, none of the team had ever been to Africa before, they all adapted well to the environment and have all been challenged to step out of their comfort zone in the way they have participated in the activities. Even so soon after the trip, team members have been sharing with each other how God has challenged them about their work and service in the UK through their experiences in Malawi. God has indeed worked in unexpected and awesome ways during this visit. We all remained (mostly) healthy with only one member of the team succumbing to a mild stomach upset for a couple of days and with Colin breaking a finger trying to catch a football at Ntonda! However, even this provided an experience to visit the local casualty department at Balaka Hospital and see at first hand what a
Government hospital is like. It also provided an opportunity to talk to the staff about the work we were doing in Malawi.

We give thanks to God for the opportunity to spend this time in Malawi and to cement further the links between York Baptist Church and ZEC and we look forward to further opportunities to work together. At the moment the people of Malawi are extremely receptive to the Gospel. Connex commented that “winning souls for Christ is not difficult; the challenge is to disciple them effectively.” We look forward to helping him with this.