2004-January-Malawi

0

By Randy in : Foreign Missions // Jul 29 2010

Acts III Mission #2 to Malawi, Africa: 01/09 – 1/18/2004
Team: Randy McEwen, Michael Dant & Jay Sipes

**********************************************************

The first trip to Malawi ended with Randy McEwen falling into a prideful trap and choosing in his spiritual immaturity and ignorance to cast off the original purpose of going to Malawi, being a helpmeet to Wood World Missions, and to instead establish a ‘permanent’ base of operations for Acts III Global Ministries in Malawi. Ambition, glory-seeking, tower-of-Babel-building, are all very subtle ploys of the enemy. Take heed.

The planned purpose of this trip was to further establish the work that Acts III had begun just two months earlier in Malawi. The goals were to develop the leaders, preach, evangelize, disciple and to minister, and to seek other avenues to fulfilling what we thought were God’s purposes in Malawi for Acts III.

**********************************************************

THURSDAY – JAN 8
The journey began with the three of us going to Atlanta and spending the night so we could arrive at the Atlanta airport early in the morning. Friday night we ended up at a restaurant for dinner. While there we were able to minister both to the waitress and the hostess (Rachel & Tricia). Rachel made a profession of faith but said she was trying to minister to Tricia. Eventually, Tricia came and sat down with us. It was a true Divine Appointment. The Lord was drawing her, but her flesh was in the way. She had a live in boyfriend whose wife had passed away about a year prior. He was wrestling with committing to another woman, and she was wrestling with making a commitment to God. Both had anger issues with God, although neither truly believed in Him…He just seemed to get the blame. She sat with us for over an hour…listening, opening up and weeping, but we were never able to stay in touch with her. Nevertheless, it encouraged us as a team that the Lord was with us and had great things planned for us on this trip.

FRIDAY – JAN 9
While in the Atlanta airport, we were able to meet up with and speak to three different missionary teams going to three different areas of Africa. Again, it was great encouragement as all of us shared testimonies, praises and struggles.

On the plane we were all in separate areas, but it was OK as we could do more ministering that way. Jay and I got a lot of studying and witnessing done, and Michael put his puppets to good use. He was very effective at sharing the Gospel on the plane with his puppets. We had nearly 250+ people on the plane for 18+ hours, not going anywhere, so we were afforded many opportunities.

SATURDAY – JAN 10
Well after 2 planes, 30+ hours of airports and airplanes in 3 different countries, we finally arrived in Blantyre, Malawi at the Chileka airport. We were greeted by Pastor’s Felix Banda, Frank Maini, Frank Gama, and Grey Mnunkha. We then began our long trek, 2 hours away, through the towns and villages on our way to Zomba. We had some problems with the van in Ndirande, so while it was being repaired, Michael used his puppets to share a wordless tract that we had he had made up.

Once at our ‘hotel,’ we had some minor catching up to do with Felix and then a small meeting outlining the basics of our itinerary for the next several days. One thing we noticed was that there seemed to be an overwhelming demand for money for a lot of suspect things. So we just put off the discussion until the next day. We all then went to our rooms and crashed.

SUNDAY – JAN 11
We left early, about 7 am, for our first service was in a small village out about 40 min North of Zomba called Chapola. The Pastor there was Justice Chapola, his uncle is the village chief in that area. That Church had the sweetest spirit about it. There must have been 75-100 people gathered around sitting on a dirt floor and some straw mats in a bamboo walled and thatched roof structure. We were very late getting there, yet the people were all gathered together singing quietly when we arrived 90 minutes late. I thought to myself, how many churches in America would have been emptied out after 10 minutes if the pastor / speaker had not showing up?! These people were truly hungry for the word. The crowd had come from up to 8 miles away by foot and bicycle because they heard that white men from America were coming to teach about God. They had never seen any white people in that village.  We saw 15 people in that church accept the Lord.

From there, we took the bumpy dirt path back to Zomba for a 1pm service. Michael started out at the Zomba church by sharing the wordless tract through his puppet ministry. Afterwards, I preached on Victory in Faith from 1 Jn 5:4 “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” After the invitation, another 15 came forward for salvation and then many more came forward for prayer for various needs.  Preaching in this church was tough because it was raining heavily and the metal roof sounded like a stampede of buffalo were racing overhead.

We quickly packed up there and went to Ndirande / Blantyre to an open air crusade in the village of Ndirande. Michael again started out with the puppet drama with a pop-up tent he brought. The Lord had it on my heart to share about Martha and Mary. Martha was busy about doing so many things FOR the Lord, but Mary was just spending time with Jesus. Martha was rebuked and Mary praised. Working religious works trying to earn God’s favor is meaningless. We must have a relationship with Christ, not simply use works as a substitute. I also showed how Martha’s hard heart in John 11 actually stopped Jesus from doing what He intended to do. (See Discipleship). There were several hundred people at the parade ground where we were high on the mountain plateau, and more than a hundred responded to the invitation of the Gospel.

Here I need to point out that Jay, although silent before the people, offered a great service of prayer and discernment each and every day, as well as some one on one sharing.

That night all three of us stayed up and talked and prayed and shared until about 1am.  Specifically where things were heading with Felix. He was asking for money to pay singers, musicians, travel expenses, decorations for the church, posters, etc, etc, etc. we decided to confront him the next morning and give him an opportunity to repent and confess.

That night, I learned another lesson the hard way. All of these ‘hotels’ have mosquito netting over the beds for a very good reason…Malaria is a very real threat in Malawi, it is one of the worst places in the world for Malaria. Knowing this, I still laid down at night with no net, not even under the covers (it was summer in Malawi-hot!), and when I awoke in the middle of the night, I was covered head to toe in mosquito whelps! And my blood was itching it felt like. I had to go and get a shower with just cold water to get the itching relieved. Needless to say, after that I used my mosquito net the rest of the night.

So what was the lesson? Well, while I was in Ghana, I used no bug spray and no mosquito net (none available) and I watched the entire trip as mosquito after mosquito would land on me and fly away without biting. My first trip to Malawi, I would be around others getting tore up by insects, I would not even get bit once. So by this trip, my pride got the best of me and I began presuming upon God’s protection…essentially testing Him. So…I learned my lesson the hard way, but the Lord taught me a great lesson through that…but…I was praying hard that I did not have Malaria because of my stupidity.

When the Holy Spirit convicted about the presumption upon God, He brought to memory of several stories in the Bible:

1. Adam & Eve – When Satan tempted Eve, she just presumed that God didn’t mean what He said. Adam may have let her do it because he presumed, ‘Hey…I’ve got more ribs left. If she eats it and dies, God can make me another woman.’ (Read the lesson under the Discipleship category for more)
2. Moses – He presumed that he could use God’s power and command to glorify himself without consequence…He was wrong! It cost him entry into the promised land. (Numbers 20:6-13)
3. Elijah – Elijah, one of the greatest and mightiest prophets in the entire history of the world, did not presume to know what God wanted without seeking Him. In 1 Kings 17:17-24, Elijah raised a dead young man to life. But he did in alone, and after praying and crying out to God. He did not act presumptuously.  Peter followed the same example in Acts 9:40.
4. Jesus – The Person to whom we should model our life after, He Himself did nothing without seeking the Father first.  John 5:19 “Then Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.’”

The Lord also reminded me of a valuable lesson He taught me and was trying to reinforce in my walk with Him: ‘When the Lord gives us a word or a lesson, we need to ALWAYS apply it to ourselves before preaching it to anyone else.’ The verses that bring that painfully to light comes from Matthew 7:1-5, the infamous ‘Plank-eye’ lesson. So with that said, here are some puzzle pieces that I have preached on that need to desperately be applied internally:

• Presumption – do not presume upon God. Seek Him. Ask Him. Search the Scripture. Pray. And don’t move until you get His answer. If you assume you know what He wants and what is important to Him, you may end up just like King Saul (1 Samuel 13).
• Works of your hands – God wants obedience and a relationship, not just doing things for Him. I know my wife wants me to love her. If I neglect my relationship with my wife and never communicate with her, but I do chores around the house…that’s not a marriage. The works are great, but they cannot serve as a substitute for the relationship.
• Stopping the hand of God – If I am not careful, I could actually stop the Lord from moving if I rebel against Him, harden my heart to Him, think He owes me something as Martha did in John 11, or if I begin doing my will instead of His.

Taking these planks out of my eye first allowed me to see clearly the specks in Felix’s eye for example.

MONDAY – JAN 12
We started off this morning by sharing with each other if and how the Lord had spoken to us the night before regarding confronting Felix.  Michael and I both had similar dreams about Felix. I dreamed that a snake crawled under my door. In the dream it was a cobra and the marking on its hood was a golden color like the color of the 1 Kwacha coin here in Malawi, but the face was the face of Felix. Michael had journaled that his dream was that a snake crawled under his door and its scales were made out of the Kwacha coins, and once it slithered under the door it raised up and took the form of a human and it was Felix. Jay was confident this morning as well that we needed to confront him. So we did.

The more we confronted him in love with the evidence and discernment, the more he denied it and refused to give account. I could feel a swelling up inside me to rebuke him sternly, to put it mildly…whether it was ‘righteous indignation’ or the ‘wrath of man,’ I will have to defer to the Lord to judge. Nevertheless, we issued him an ultimatum. (1) He could confess and repent what was blatant thievery and be restored, or (2) not confess and repent, and we would cut him off and go our own way. We gave him 24 hours to think and pray over it.

In the mean time, we went back to my room and had a discussion that basically centered around, ‘What in the world are 3 white guys from south Georgia going to do in Malawi Africa with no guide, no interpreter, not really knowing our way around, etc.’ After all, I had only been there once before for a few days and Michael and Jay had only been in country for a couple of days.  In the end, we decided to trust the Lord and walk by faith.

So we went to where the minivans park. We got on a van headed for Limbe (about 1 hr and 45 min away.)  Our plan was to head to Limbe and change vans going into Blantyre so we could buy the Bibles that we promised pastor Frank and Chapola…if I could just remember how to get there.

So while on the 1 hr. 45 min crammed in with 19 other passengers plus a conductor (guy that takes money and solicits new passengers at each stop along the way) and driver, we decided to share the Gospel with the entire bus. Several folks accepted the Lord, but that was not all. There was a man sitting next to Michael that was a village chief. His name was Kingsley.  Kingsley had been having a desire to start a church in his village but did not know how. His village was half way between Zomba and Limbe a couple fo miles walking off the main road at the Njuli bus stop.

He accompanied us to Blantyre as we discussed it further. After a few hours, we all felt like the Lord’s hand was in this so we released him and told him to have his people gathered together Wednesday morning and we would have a service. That would give him a full day to get the word out. We also committed to bring some Bibles and Discipleship books.

So we continued on our journey to the Bible Society in Blantyre and purchased 4 cases of Bibles and some training manuals and study aids for Pastor Kingsley.  We then went back to Zomba the way we had came, once again sharing the Gospel on the bus on the way back. Several more accepted the Lord.

When we arrived back at the hotel in Zomba, Felix was waiting outside the rooms but did not speak to us. I really think he was surprised that we survived by ourselves on the whole day journey to Blantyre, the Bible Society, and back. We spent much of the evening in our rooms folding, cutting & stamping the wordless tracts Michael had designed and discussing all the great things the Lord had done since we started this journey.

TUESDAY – JAN 13
Tuesday we spent the day checking out of the hotel in Zomba and traveling to Grace Bandawe Hotel and Conference Centre in B;antyre. We would spend our remaining days there. We went into town for supplies and met up with Jere & Darius, two of our good friends that are taxi drivers. We shopped around town for some Christian books and discipleship materials as the Bible Society did not have much to offer.  Felix was not open to repentance yet, so we told him to take the day and continue to think about it and we would meet the next morning early.  Meanwhile the three of us had a great time of fellowshipping and planning out the service at the Mwaleja village of Kingsley’s.

WEDNESDAY – JAN 14
After breakfast, we had a conversation with Pastor Felix. After wrestling with the issues for a few moments, he finally blurted out that he felt nothing and, his ‘conscience was dead!’  It made me think of, 1 Timothy 4:2 when Paul warns of people that, ‘Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared as with a hot iron.’ How could this professing man of God, that knew so much of God’s Word, have a dead conscience…a conscience void of feeling and conviction for sin? What a terribly sad thought…. All we could do after that was to go home and continue to pray and we would pray for him and we would talk the next day.

Around 10am or so we walked into town and did the puppet ministry. Jay helped Michael with the sharing of the wordless tract and 50+ individuals made a profession of faith right on the sidewalk in downtown Blantyre. While Michael & Jay were sharing with the crowd, I ran down to Mormon missionaries and was able to share with them. One was from South Africa and the other from Utah. Once I chased them down, the Lord just burdened me to tell them something strange. I told them, ‘The Lord had me chase you down because He knows you were praying James 1:5 about whether or not the Book of Mormon was really God’s Word. Right?’ To which they blankly nodded their heads in a combination agreement and disbelief. I continued, ‘Well, He wanted me to tell you it is not.’  Then I walked off.  They chased me down with a thousand questions and we spoke for 30 minutes on side of the road with a large audience listening in. They then decided it would be safer to come to our hotel to talk more later, but we never saw them again.

I gotta mention here that in the dozens of times that we shared on the street or in buses, that the Lord always provided an interpreter for us. And each time, the interpreter was also one of the ones that accepted the Lord. God’s Provisions…how awesome!

So we finally met up with Pastor Kingsley and went to his village out in the bush with all of the Bibles and supplies. When we got to where we were going, we arrived at Kingsley’s house in the middle of a cornfield. There were no church buildings, pews or air conditioning. There was just a few tattered tarps and straw mats for people to sit on. The musical instruments were a metal can with bicycle cables that were fashioned into a guitar and some upside down, cut open cans for drums with flattened bottle tops on a wire hanger as cymbals, and no electricity.  Yet the music was some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. It sounded like what you might expect to hear in the Caribbean. We were told yet again that we were the only whites to ever visit this village.

There may have been 10 people there when we arrived and started to set up. By the time they sang 2 or 3 songs, Michael had his tent and puppets set up for his ministry to the people. Grey assisted him. When he started, there was maybe 100-150 people there. Next, we sang a couple more songs and then I was afforded the opportunity to preach. By then, more than 500 people had showed up and were crammed in on every side. What makes tis so amazing is that Kingsely said that only 211 people lived in his village. He did not know the rest or where they came from or how they knew. I spoke on the choice between God’s wrath and God’s gift. At the end, well over 400 people professed to make a decision for Jesus. It brought tears to all of us. What an amazing move of God that day. All I can say is that this is what Church was meant to be!

[In retrospect, here is where I took my next great turn of rebellion towards God and let pride get the best of me.]

After we finished up there giving instruction and encouragement to the people, we prayed over them and begin the long trek back to the bus stop. While walking back, we gave suggestions to Kingsley as well as the materials and Bibles and showed them how to use the training tools. We ended with an open invitation to communicate with us if he needed advice on running his church.  It was then he insisted / pleaded that this was to be an Acts III Church. With my own mouth, I told him that, “Acts III is not called to Malawi to oversee churches.”  But he was relentless in telling me that it had to be an Acts III church and how he had dreams of a white man from America running his church, etc.

Again, my true pridefully immature flesh trumped the small voice of wisdom that had just uttered the words, ‘Acts III is not called to Malawi to oversee churches.’  I convinced myself, this would be the next phase of Acts III GLOBAL ministries.  This would turn out to be the second biggest mistake in Malawi (and there are many to choose from).  The first was letting Felix and flesh talk me into keeping the money that was suppose to go to WWM from the first trip in November 2003. That decision laid the foundation stone for what would ultimately become the Acts III version of the Tower of Babel, while this decision was the first building block.

Pastor Kingsley had other friends that were present at the church, other local village leaders, that wanted us to help them start churches and oversee them as well. We said we would pray over it and departed.

THURSDAY – JAN 15
Today we walked into the Ndirande village with Grey and Maini to do street ministry. Again Michael opened up with his puppets performing the story of the Catbird and Toucan. He did a beautiful job sharing. There was really no need to preach afterward. But Grey prompted me to give a simple Gospel message and do an invitation. I spoke of Rahab the harlot in Jericho and ended with the parallels of the Passover and the cross. The Lord saved 250-300 people that day.

We left there and visited Grey’s house as we walked through the village. It is a big deal for Malawians to show hospitality to guests. It is a great honor to them. After a short visit and getting to meet his wife Caroline and sister Tendai, we left for town to buy more Bibles for the people of Ndirande.

We took a small back road to the Bible Society and as we did, we passed by two Malawi Muslims sitting under a shade tree on the other side of the road. We waved and greeted them, and they made a comment wanting to know why we did not dress like Jesus if we believed in Him?  This is why you see most traditional Muslims dressing in the way they do as they believe they are suppose to dress like Muhammad.

So we took their query as an open door to share the Gospel with them.  So as we made a right turn toward them, it was as if Muslims came out from behind every door, building, tree, etc., and we quickly had a loud debate going on. There were Arabic Muslims speaking some language I could not identify. There were Malawians speaking Chichewa, and the three of us and a few others were speaking English. It was a nightmare.  The Muslims had effectively separated Michael, Jay and I as well as Grey from each other.

There was a drainage ditch on the edge of the road. I was standing on the road on the edge of it, and there was one Malawian Muslim on the other side of the ditch directly across from me. We agreed to have a conversation in which he could ask me a question, and let me answer for us. I then would ask him a question, and let him answer for the Muslims. That only lasted 1 question each.

He asked me the original question about why we don’t dress like Jesus.  I gave a Biblical answer. I then asked him a question he could not answer regarding forgiveness of sin for a Muslim. It was then I felt the Spirit of the Lord come over me and held up my Bible and began quoting John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me,”  and other similar verses.

While I am doing this in a crowd of around 75-100 Muslims, Grey is interpreting. I turn back to look at my counterpart across the ditch and he has a fire of hate glaring at me through his eyes, and he gets this look on his face like he has gone mad. Then as if in slow motion, he leaps right at me from across the ditch with arms outstretched like he wants to attack me.  All the while, the Lord has given me peace to keep preaching without skipping a beat. [I am a coward, so this was not me.]  He then lands right in front of me toe to toe, and as he does, he instantly turns ghost white with a look of sheer horror on his face and falls back in the ditch in the fetal position convulsing, rocking and speaking gibberish. What an amazing peace to feel God’s presence and protection that strongly. I imagine that must have been what Daniel’s three friends felt in the furnace. I believe I could have survived a nuclear explosion that day.  It is truly indescribable.

It was as if the Lord let him see the Angels of God that were watching over us and he fell back into the ditch terrified. It was then that Michael and Jay made their way back to me and pulled Grey and I out of the crowd and we continued our journey to the Bible Society.

Guess what, we get there and it was CLOSED for a government holiday.  So what do you think we did?  We walked right back down that same street, only this time it was a ghost town.  All that was missing was a tumbleweed.  The obvious danger is the whole ‘presuming upon God,’ lesson though.  God’s protection that day doesn’t give me license to act stupid and assume He will always do that, especially if I am out of His will.

Back at the hotel, we received a letter from Felix brought by one of his pastors. There was no change.

FRIDAY – JAN 16
This was a day that we really hoped to rest, relax, catch our breath and take care of some administration, but the Lord had other plans…more divine appointments.

We started out in Blantyre purchasing Malaria medicine for the villages, more Bibles, food, etc to distribute to the churches. Some of the supplies were in Limbe [the next big city from Blantyre.]  While there, we stopped by the post office to mail a letter. While I was inside, Michael and Jay started a conversation with a lady and a small child sitting outside the post office.

It turns out that the lady’s child had malaria and she had no way to get to the hospital or get the medicine.  So we were able to give the child the malaria medicine that he needed as well as the medicine for pain and fever.  She testified that she did not know why she came to the post office, but that was where she felt a burden to come to. And we had just bought the medicine and we passed by another Post Office that was a lot more convenient in town, but it was a Divine Appointment.

We then rented a truck to deliver the food and supplies to the villages.  The three of us sat in the back of the truck and threw out tracks to individuals all along the 2 hour journey. We passed out around 300 tracts all together.

It was a true blessing to get to see the faces of the people in the villages when they received the food, supplies and the medicines. It really broke us and blessed us. We got no rest this day, but we would do it all over again!  To see and feel the Lord work like this is truly life changing.

That night, as I laid down to rest with my headphones on and my sleep mask (the thing that covers your eyes so its dark?), the Lord gave me a vision of a perfect sermon of revival for our church back in the US. I didn’t want to move or open my eyes to look for a pen, so I just felt around on the bed and found what I thought was one. So I began taking notes on my hand, wrist & arm of the points & verses. After a few minutes of that I took off the mask so I could write in detail on paper and fill in the gaps, but I got a couple of surprises. (1) I had grabbed a pink highlighter and not a pen. It didn’t show up well on my arm. (2) Jay was sitting on his bed watching me and laughing, not sure why I was coloring on my arm in my sleep?  That was a nice humbling end to the day.

SATURDAY – JAN 17
Today we got up early and had times of planning with Frank, Frank & Grey.  They were all afraid that Felix would fire them and they would have no jobs after we left.  We also had three churches that wanted to be Acts III churches. We had a lot to talk about before leaving for the airport at 11.

We had a good time with the guys and met a lot of other missionaries on the plane and in the airports.

About the Author