MALAWI REPORT

Recent reporting via email from Dalitso in Malawi 2014

Dear Craig,

Pastors and their wives from Zambia have asked Flame of Fire Ministry to teach them during the Zambia Pastors Fraternity Retreat that they have organized. The retreat will be in Senga Bay on 26 - 28 June, next month.

70 pastors and their wives will come by buses from Zambia to Malawi for a special retreat. This has been organized by Zambia Baptist Convention. They heard about what we did during our conference in February in Chipata and they wanted us to be facilitators at this event.

I have been asked to facilitate on family issues, and pastor to pastor relationship.

They have asked us to show Jesus film in the evenings for two days.

The president of Zambia convention will be there and I will have chance to talk with him on a number of ministry issues.

On Thursday, a delegation of 3 pastors from Zambia came to Malawi to talk about this and I escorted them to Senga Bay for preparations.

We are leaving today for Kasungu district to Neneni's village for ministry.

I will send the whole report on Tuesday next week.

Dalitso

Dear Craig,

On 23rd and on 24th May Flame of Fire Ministry showed Jesus Film and preached the word in Santhe village, Kasungu. Many people came for the meetings and about 300 surrendered their lives to the Lord. We thought we would start a new church but we didn't because of other circumstances beyond our control. There was some political riots going on the day we thought to start a new church. The student pastor Ephram Maonga will be back to the same area to visit those who have surrendered their lives to start a bible study group with them.

Dalitso

Dear Craig,

I did report what happened in Flame of Fire Ministry in Malawi up to 21 April. Here is the current report.

On 23 April, Dalitso and Majidu left Lilongwe for Dowa to join with Mark and pastor Daniel for the ministry in Matekenya village. Before leaving for Matekenya, Dalitso witnessed to 4 men wearing masks as per Chewa culture. These 4 were saved. I have their names and I handed them over to pastor Daniel.

On 24 April early in the morning we went to Matekenya. As usual we went as missionaries under the authority of Dowa Baptist Church. When we got in Matekenya village we were well welcomed by chiefs and villagers.

Everyone was overwhelmed and commenting on what God did last time when Brother Craig, Pastor Steve Gallahger, Dalitso and Edingtone ministered in the village. One older person said and I quote " if Jesus were to come the days even two weeks later after you preached here, the whole village could have been in paradise with Him." I did agree with him just looking at the lives of people in the village and how they remembered the whole messages that Craig and Pastor Steve preached in February. This gave me an assurance that the first visit in February really made an impact in the lives of the people.

We did heart to heart during the day and showed Jesus film at night. More than 5000 people came to watch Jesus film. We were amazed seeing a lot of people like that. 360 people got saved after the Jesus film and preaching the word. The next day we taught some of those who were saved during the heart to heart and preaching of the word at the Jesus film. We taught them how to grow in the Lord and 6 more were saved during the teaching, making the whole number of saved to 370. Because there was no church in the whole village of Matekenya except Catholic Church, we started a Baptist church for these new believers. The church started with 34 members and 7 were baptized. The church is in Matekenya village and is named after the chains of the mountains surrounding the village. The name of the church is Kalawo Baptist Church. They did not want to name it after the name of Matekenya village which is the name of the person to avoid confusions. Mind you, Matekenya is a big community with small chiefs in it. The church is in Chikho village, this is one of the small chiefs under Senior Chief Matekenya. Chikho is close to the trading center where we showed Jesus film and some members of the church do come from the center.

We have prepared a starter pack for the church of 4 bibles and Sunday school books.

There was a challenge of water for baptism. We had to walk a long distance like 3 to 4 miles to get water for baptism. Although we found the place for baptism but the water was not good for baptism. It was a stagnant, bad smelling water with a lot of mud. Because of their faith, some people were baptized and some refused looking at how dirty the water was. Had it been that water was clean we could have baptized more than 20. Those who were baptized really had strong faith in The Lord; they insisted to get into the water by all means.

Another challenge, was the roads. Still the roads to Matekenya village are still in bad shape although it is the beginning of the dry season. The roads have not been repaired and it was still difficult for us to get there. We thank God that he has given us the spirit of moving forward always and backward never.

Evangelist Craig Hobbs

2145 North 330 Road

Haskell, OK 74436

(918) 752-7244

[email protected]