Grace Baptist Church, Zomba, Malawi

SECOND ACTIVITY REPORT FOR THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER 2009

Building Project

The church building project is currently placing a high demand on my time. On Tuesday 10th November we worked all day to set the foundation of the sanctuary. On Wednesday we called in the building inspectors who were satisfied with what we had done and gave us the go ahead with digging the foundation. The digging of the foundation was completed in two days, Thursday and Friday. Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th were spent pegging the foundation concrete levels. Today, Wednesday 18th, we were procuring materials for the foundation concrete and reinforced columns. The Lord willing, the pouring of the foundation concrete may start tomorrow.

FIRST ACTIVITY REPORT FOR THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER 2009

My Busiest Period

The current period is the busiest I have had since coming to Zomba. I have been supervising the clearing of the church plot in readiness for setting the foundation, which is planned for Friday, November 6. I have also been house hunting. My landlord died early this year. While he was alive, one of his sons was responsible for collecting rentals, but he was not sharing the money with anyone else. After their father's death, the other children want to take over the house. They gave us notice to vacate by the end of October. So for the last two weeks we had intensified our search for a house to rent. By God's mercy, we managed to find a house on the last day of October in the area where the church plot is. The new house is more expensive than the one we had to leave, and it needs a few renovations before we can move in. Grace has been granted for us to remain in the current house up to the middle of November. We are therefore busy packing in preparation to move to the new residence.

In the midst of the above occupations, the care for precious souls has not been neglected. One example is Mr. J., who has been visiting our worship services regularly for about a month. He is always attentive to the teaching and preaching of the word of God. I visited his home on Friday evening, October 30th, to find out how he was benefiting from God's word. He was very happy for my visit and he gathered his family (a wife and two teenage daughters) to hear what I had to say. I thus took the opportunity to share the Gospel with them, and challenged them with the need to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They all seemed to appreciate the Good News and I extended an invitation to the lady of the house and her children to join us on the Lord's Day. The man has since professed faith and continues to come to church, but his family have not joined him yet. Pray for the man's spiritual growth and for the conversion of his family as well.

GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH, ZOMBA, MALAWI

JANUARY 2010 NEWS LETTER

By Percy C.

The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad (Psalm 126:3 NASB)

Dear praying friends and partners in the work of extending the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ,

We end the year 2009 rejoicing and giving glory to Him who works all things after the counsel of His will. As we look back we can see the outworking of His hand to fulfil His gracious purposes in this part of His vineyard.

Evangelism

In our door-to-door and street outreach efforts we found that people in Zomba are generally thirsty for biblical truth. When they are invited to come and hear the preaching of the gospel on the Lord's Day they ask the big question, "Where do you meet?" Most people find it below their dignity to meet in a classroom for worship. Many people we invited promised to come, but they never did. Among the few that visited us from time to time God granted us to see some remarkable conversions.

Another challenge we faced in our outreach was having suitable gospel tracts. The majority of people here prefer to be spoken to in Chichewa and to read Chichewa tracts. Our English tracts were not very effective in reaching the hearts of many.

We ended the year with great hope that our challenges in outreach will soon be overcome. The Lord led us to launch two projects by which we trust that our present obstacles will become history. The first project is that of developing bilingual Gospel tracts. These are tracts bear the same message in English and in Chichewa on either side of the same sheet of paper. The second project is that of construction of a Church building for which more details are given below.

Grace Baptist Church, Zomba, Malawi
November 2009 News Update
By Percy C.

Looking Four Months Back
The past four months seem to have flown away as on the wings of the wind. It feels like yesterday when in August I was privileged to take with me five Malawian brethren from Grace Baptist Church to the Reformed Conference in Lusaka Zambia. We came back challenged with the need to balance our church activities between evangelizing the lost and edifying believers if we are to be fully obedient to the Great Commission.

The month of September was my annual leave. My wife and I were able to take two weeks away from our mission station to visit relatives back home at the lake of Malawi and to see a little more of Malawi. It was quite refreshing for both of us. October and November were rather unsettling for us. My landlord died early this year. While he was alive one of his sons was responsible for collecting rentals, but he never shared the money with any of his relatives. After their father's death, his siblings wanted to take over the house and gave us notice to vacate by the end of October. So we spent the whole of October in search for a house to rent. By God's mercy we managed to find a house on the last day of October in the area where the church plot is. The new house is more expensive than the one we have left and it needed a few renovations before we could move in. We finally shifted to the new house by the middle of November.