Our latest update video brings positive news about the reducing impact of coronavirus in Malawi, as well as the latest information about the Evangelical Bible College of Malawi.
Author: Mike Beresford
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A new base for gospel ministry at Nanlaku ZEC
In March 2019, a series of storms that became known as Cyclone Idai swept across Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Many lives were lost during this period. Churches, houses, animals, crops and possessions were swept away. Because of widespread poverty most houses in rural areas are constructed of earth bricks, which are often bonded together using mud instead of cement mortar. Pastor Kamwendo at Nanlaku ZEC lived in a house like this. During the Cyclone Idai storms his house was buffeted by days of torrential driving rain. One night the end wall of his house collapsed. In the video below he shares the story about how his children escaped in the night.
YouTube videoOver the past year, our staff in Malawi have been assisting the local church with funds, design assistance and project management.
Field Director Simon Chikwana works with the church members at Nanlaku to design the new pastor’s house. Earlier this month construction work on the house came to an end. Regional Superintendent Pastor Henry Muhiye paid a visit to inspect the completed house. We give thanks to God for the generosity of zm’s supporters, which made it possible for a new durable pastor’s house to be built at Nanlaku ZEC. This will now be a base for future gospel ministry in this area.
Pastor Henry Muhiye, ZEC’s Regional Superintendent for Eastern Malawi inspects the completed pastor’s house at Nanlaku. As you will read in our latest copy of Update, Pastor Kamwendo has recently become the new pastor at Zalewa ZEC, about 100 miles away. Soon Wilson Boti will move into the finished house and become the new pastor at Nanlaku ZEC. Wilson Boti is a recent graduate from the Evangelical Bible College of Malawi – this will be the first church where he will be pastor. Please pray for Pastor Kamwendo in his new church at Zalewa ZEC and Pastor Boti at Nanlaku ZEC. Please pray that God would enable them to preach the word, in season and out of season: and to correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.
Wilson Boti pictured whilst studying at EBCoM. He will soon become pastor at Nanlaku ZEC -
A Call to Prayer
We have just sent out a call to prayer for Malawi to all those who have signed up to receive urgent prayer requests from zm. It is outlined on the video below. If anyone would like to be added to our email list to receive occasional prayer requests in the future you can sign up at https://zambesimission.org/get-involved/sign-up/.
YouTube videoIt feels like Malawi is poised on a very fragile knife edge. Last week our Mission Director Mike Beresford attended a virtual meeting of the Scotland Malawi Partnership, which included many health leaders from Malawi. One shared something particularly alarming. They said: “We have a disaster in the making. Because people are just letting go of all the measures that were put in place and that have taken us this far with very few confirmed cases”.
This big change came about when Malawi’s Supreme Court confirmed that the rerun of the Presidential election should go ahead in July. On 12th May, the BBC reported: “Huge political rallies were held over the weekend that completely defied social-distancing and mask-wearing measures hours after the country reported its highest single-day spike in confirmed coronavirus cases. The rallies were held a day after 13 more coronavirus cases were reported, with five of the cases detected among health workers”.
In the video Field Director Simon Chikwana shares his concerns about the situation. Please will you pray about this situation. Please pray that the political leaders, the President and the opposition uphold the need for appropriate measures to continue to be practised to prevent the spread of coronavirus. And please pray that the Lord would protect the country of Malawi from the devastating potential of this virus. Only God can intervene and save them.
Please also pray for zm’s support for distribution of PPE to the health centres run by the Zambezi Evangelical Church – for supply of protective equipment and for God’s protection for ZEC’s healthcare workers at Matanda, Ntonda, Mitsidi, Nthorowa and Muluma.
Thank you for your prayers for Malawi and for the workers on the front line. May the Lord be our rock, our fortress and our deliverer. Amen. -
Mission Update – April 2020
Click here to see our latest editions of Update, In Prayer and CFCM News. We have also prepared the video below which gives all the latest news from zm.
YouTube videoReview of In Prayer
We are extremely thankful for the different ways people support zm. Some give financially, some pray and some are able to do both. We believe that prayer is vital for our work. We want our prayer diary to be effective at encouraging and enabling supporters to pray for the mission and our partners’ work. This explains why we are carrying out a review of In Prayer.
zm would like to speak with some of our supporters to learn about how they use In Prayer, and to hear their suggestions for making it a more helpful prayer guide. We’ll do this by phone and can call you during the day, evening or at the weekend, whatever is most convenient.
If you’d like to be involved in this review, please download the response form. Please then complete the form and return it in one of the ways outlined on the form.
We’ll then get in touch to arrange a time to speak with you. Thank you!
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Coronavirus Update – March 2020
Following release of the latest government guidance on Coronavirus and COVID-19, we wanted to update everyone about zm’s work in the UK and Malawi.
All our UK office staff are now working from home. We are checking the answerphone every day and visiting the office to collect any post at least twice per week. There may therefore be a slightly increased delay compared to usual in responding to your letters. I work full-time from home, so please contact me by phone (01904 634288 or 07788 763761) or email ([email protected]) if you need an urgent response. We won’t be visiting churches until restrictions on travel and church meetings are lifted. Our representatives will be in touch with you to seek to rearrange any meetings or services as soon as it is clear when these restrictions will be lifted. If you are holding virtual church services, they are happy to contribute to these if you wish. My forthcoming visit to Malawi in April/May will not be going ahead. We have also postponed Simon and Edna Chikwana’s planned visit to the UK in June.
Although Malawi has not yet had any confirmed cases of Coronavirus, at the end of last week Malawi’s President declared a state of disaster. The situation is made more complicated by some of the underlying political issues in Malawi – their constitutional court recently ordered a rerun of last year’s presidential election which was being contested by President Mutharika. The state of disaster has led to the closure of all schools and colleges from today onwards. All public gatherings have been restricted to less than 100 people. A travel ban on foreign nationals from countries highly affected by coronavirus has also been put in place. This has impacted on the Evangelical Bible College of Malawi, which sent all its students home with effect from Monday 23rd March. Malawi will be particularly susceptible to the virus due to its limited healthcare provision and the population’s vulnerability due to malnutrition and HIV. Please pray that the country is shielded from the impact of coronavirus.
We have pulled together a video summary of the latest news from the mission that you may wish to use in one of your virtual church services or share with those in your church. See below.
YouTube videoWe also have six editions of a children’s newspaper called Zambesi Times available. You can access the latest edition (ZT6) at our resources page and earlier editions (ZT 1-5) here. Alternatively please get in touch if you would like us to send you one or more copies of each edition to your home address. They are aimed at helping children to understand more about Malawi and zm’s work (and have fun!).
In this time of unprecedented uncertainty, those in our church and house group have found the words of Psalm 91 very reassuring at this time:
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust”.
Psalm 91: 1-2
May our mighty God, our fortress, shield and protect you (and those we love, care and pray for) under His wings at this difficult time.
With kind regards from,
Mike Beresford
Mission Director – zambesi mission -
“Let the little children come to me”
Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
(Matthew 19: 14)
Ruth MacBean, zm’s Representative and Children for Christ Ministry (CFCM) Specialist, returned to Malawi for a short visit last November. Her main aim was to work with and support CFCM, but she also wanted to help safeguarding training”. Here, Ruth shares some highlights:
The CFCM team in their new office at ECOM’s headquarters (left to right Elevate Mizinga, Lackson Makawa and Joseph Jeke)
Sunday school teacher training
I joined CFCM at the Mchinji teacher training seminar in western Malawi. Two new CFCM trainers had met with the local pastors’ fraternal to raise interest in the seminar. They had also planned all the logistics. 40 people, including the trainers, attended. One person had travelled across the border from Mozambique. Both of the new trainers were involved in the teaching sessions. They were good communicators, well capable of carrying on the work of training Sunday school teachers in Mchinji district. If this is the standard of the new trainers that CFCM has developed, their programme of Training the Trainers is proving successful.
Sunday school teacher training seminar at Mchinji
CFCM Bible Clubs
I also visited two Bible clubs with the team, at Namisu Aquaid and Chitakale Primary School. These are both established clubs that I knew well. I was encouraged by some of the new ideas the team are coming up with. Instead of the usual Christmas holiday club/party, they are taking some of the children from Chitakale Primary School to visit sick children in hospital. They were training the children to use the wordless book to share the Gospel message. They are also seeing the potential to start a new Bible club at ECOM’s headquarters (Evangelical Church of Malawi), where the new CFCM office is. They have observed lots of children hanging around after school waiting for their parents, so they are going to ask permission to gather the children for a club one day each week.
Elevate Mizinga teaching children at Aquaid Lifeline Bible club 
A boy teaching others the gospel using the wordless book
Safeguarding
The staff team were joined by three trustees and one Executive Committee member at the safeguarding training. There were some excellent contributions that helped me to understand the Malawian situation much better. They made me aware of the issues that might arise once they start adding safeguarding into their training. We worked on reshaping module one of the Sunday school teacher training seminars to include safeguarding. Elevate Mizinga is translating everything into Chichewa and CFCM hope to start including in their seminars from January 2020 onwards.
Ruth with the Safeguarding Training delegates
Did you know?
CFCM produces its own quarterly newsletter that provides more information about CFCM’s work – it is distributed by zm and is free of charge. If you would like a copy please contact us on 01904 674748, or by email at [email protected].
Please pray:
- Give thanks for CFCM’s work. Many children are being saved through CFCM’s Bible clubs or through the Sunday school teachers that CFCM train.
- Pray for the Sunday school teacher training seminars. The CFCM workers are planning to use their new volunteer trainers to help them complete two per month in 2020.
- Pray for a new Bible club to be established near CFCM’s new office at ECOM’s headquarters.
- Pray for the introduction of safeguarding as a topic within CFCM’s Sunday school teacher training programme and that it would lead to increased awareness of safeguarding issues and greater levels of protection for children.
