Category: 2017

April 2017.

Is it the sense of adventure; new places to see; different foods to taste; or cultures to understand…?
For us it is all of the above, and a whole lot more…

God has a desire that “all men everywhere should be saved”
…. and He wants us to be part of that!

He’s given a picture of how it is going to be one day when people of every tribe, tongue and nation stand before His throne ….and He wants us to be a part of that!

World Mission – God’s Mission to the World – is not just something Jesus introduced to His disciples before He went back to Heaven, it has been God’s plan throughout history and has been being worked out around the world daily since creation

….and He wants us to be a part of that!

In zm we are privileged to be involved in seeing God’s kingdom grow among people in Malawi and Northern Mozambique. zm is an “enabling” organisation, not a “doing” one. This means that we work solely through partnership with national organisations. These partners are churches or Christian organisations who share zm’s primary objective – to preach the gospel and extend and strengthen the Church of Jesus Christ. We seek to encourage and equip our partners in evangelism, discipleship, church-planting, community care and development in this small area of God’s big world.

zm is keen to see individuals and churches not only excited about mission, but equipped for mission. We would be very happy to have one of our staff or honorary reps visit you or your church to talk more with you about how you can be involved in God’s mission to the world.

In October we are planning to lead 2 mission trips to Malawi for church groups – maybe your church could consider this for 2018?

zm representatives can be found at GOfest, Word Alive, Keswick and Aberystwyth conferences.

There’s a big, needy, world out there with plenty of scope for us all to be involved in one way or another.

GOfest is an inter-mission organisation with the following aims:

We want to see whole life disciples leading the whole church to be involved in God’s mission across the whole world, bringing transformation, hope, salvation and joy through the Gospel of Jesus.

We are a growing movement of churches and mission agencies who are partnering together to declare God’s heart for the nations and inspire global vision among UK church.

GOfest gives you the opportunity to explore and celebrate what God is doing worldwide, and discover how you can play your part.

zm is pleased to be involved at GOfest 2017 – May 13th at Moorlands College, near Christchurch, Dorset. See www.gofest.global for details and to book in to what should be an encouraging, challenging and informative day.

Not that it is all about “going”…….

Not everyone can go into all the world… but everyone can be involved in world-mission.

There are many godly, gifted and committed men and women in Malawi. They speak the language, know the culture and have respect in their communities. Often all that is lacking are the resources to make their vision a reality and the encouragement to keep on keeping on.

YOU could be involved in the UK in equipping and encouraging the church in Malawi and Mozambique

• • through informed prayer
  • by championing mission in your church and/or other local churches
  • through representing the work of zm in the UK, building meaningful partnerships in the gospel
  • by providing specialist support to the church in Malawi
    through giving

I hope you are as excited about world mission and your role in it as we are!

March 2017.

In their latest newsletter zambesi mission’s Church Development Partners Myles and Ruth MacBean reflected on some different aspects of their very varied work and ministry based in Blantyre:

“Myles’s semester of lecturing at EBCoM finished in January, with hours spent in his study watching video footage of 28 students preaching for 15 minutes each, and then marking them. The experience of teaching “Preach the Word” to the college students has been beneficial and fed in to the new, 2 module, preacher training course he is developing with the Zambezi Evangelical Church (ZEC).

Ruth has almost finished preparing the book of children’s songs “Ananu Ziimbani” to hand over to the publishers. It has proved to be a massive task, especially formatting the scores for 160 songs. Calum [Myles and Ruth’s son] visited earlier this month, and recorded each of the 10 children’s choirs who have been learning the new songs and newly-translated songs so that a CD can be available when the book is launched later in the year. In fact, it will probably have to be a double-CD – there are 71 songs recorded! Calum’s visit was indeed a working holiday for him. Besides the children’s choirs, he recorded Echoes of Grace singing some of their own compositions, and the instrumentalists playing some of their instrumental music.

Since Christmas, Children for Christ Ministry (CFCM) have taken on a new administrative officer who is fitting in to the team marvellously. Ruth is able to hand over things she has been taking responsibility for. Lackson Makawa is not only administratively minded, but a keen children’s worker himself. And last weekend at Dedza Sunday School teachers’ seminar, he looked after all the registration and money, and also led a couple of the sessions, so it is good to have another trainer on board. This is a good sign, especially as we count down the days we have remaining in Malawi. Myles too is encouraged that his hours of coaching and mentoring among the leadership of ZEC are starting to bear fruit and people are starting to drive forward the new strategy without so much of his input. The new preacher training programme will be piloted in April, and a plan is in place for rolling it out across all regions of Malawi over coming months and years.

Accompanying the ZEC’s General Secretary Luckwell Mtima, Myles has also had several interesting preaching engagements on Sundays over the last few months; going to some very remote locations which even the GS had not visited before. For example, two weeks ago they had a real adventure struggling over flooded dirt roads to encourage (and be encouraged by) the lively church at Chilipa which, since its inception in 1945, had never had a Synod Office visit”.

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Myles and Ruth MacBean are going to be back in the UK this month, and will be travelling around to talk about their work at some of the zambesi mission(zm) supporting churches. They hope that as many zm supporters as possible will be able to make it to one of the events so that they can see their presentation and hear about their future plans. Their meeting dates/times are as follows:
 
Saturday 4th March.  Great Blakenham Baptist Church. 4pm
Sunday 5th March. Grange Baptist Church, Letchworth. 10.30am
Sunday 5th March. Soham Baptist Church. 6.30pm
Tuesday 7th March. High Street Church, Isleham. 3pm
Tuesday 7th March. Stoke Ash Baptist Church. 7.30pm
Wednesday 8th March. West Row Baptist Church, Suffolk. 7.30pm
Thursday 9th March. Debenham United Reformed Church. 2.15pm
Friday 10th March. Cliff Walk Evangelical Church, Canning Town. 8pm
Sunday 19th March. Bothwell Evangelical Church (Myles preaching). 10.30am
Sunday 19th March. Bothwell Evangelical Church (presentation about their work). 6.30pm
Tuesday 21st March. Cupar Baptist Church. 2pm
Wednesday 22nd March. Crieff Baptist Church House Group. 9.30am
Friday 24th March. Cupar Baptist – Angela Lynsey Macdonald Trust Concert. 7.30pm
Sunday 26th March. Alfreton Christian Fellowship. 10.30am
Sunday 26th March. York Baptist Church. 6.30pm
Wednesday 29th March. Doncaster Evangelical Church. 7.30pm

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Please contact the office on 01904 674748 or via [email protected] for further details of any of these meetings, or if you would like to be added to the mailing list for Myles and Ruth MacBean’s regular newsletters.

February 2017.

Mike Beresford,  zm Director,  reports on the encouragements coming from a long standing project.

Following the floods and drought that affected Malawi in 2015, zm sought ways to help the most vulnerable amongst our church partners. In conjunction with our partner the Zambezi Evangelical Church (ZEC), zm runs a very effective scheme called “Kids for Kids” at ZEC’s Orphan Daycare Centres. Goat kids are given to orphan headed households. These children can then rely on the goats for a long term source of income. When the goats grow up and give birth, the first kids are then handed on to more children. After this, any further offspring can be kept by the child.

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zambesi mission (zm) seeks to foster “partnerships in the gospel” between Christians and churches in the UK and their counterparts in Malawi and northern Mozambique. zm regards our African partners as equally valuable parts of the body of Christ; we recognise that our partnership is not just a one-way relationship. We are actually inter-dependent: this means that here in the UK we need the church in Malawi and northern Mozambique just as much as they need us. As part of this ethos we try to help the church in a way that avoids unhelpful dependency. As Christians, we should depend upon God and not on other men (although of course, God works through His servants).

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This project was extended recently, with many goats being donated to churches in the Lower Shire valley, an area badly affected the previous year by both floods and drought. During November and December 2016, Projects Officer Rose Chirwa and Church Development Partner Myles MacBean visited a number of churches across the Lower Shire valley. Their aim was to distribute more goats, and also to visit churches which had received goats previously to see how they were getting on.

At Chapananga ZEC, an elderly lady was so happy and thankful for the goat that she received that she called it “Zambezi”! She is a widow and all her children have died. She said that she felt very alone and was overjoyed at how much this goat would bring her comfort in her remaining years.

Myles MacBean described how they distributed goats at nearby Kubalalika ZEC: “All went well, but the closer we got to the Mozambique border the clearer it was that people – if not starving – are certainly getting very hungry. And in such a situation the ‘loan’ of a goat can make all the difference to the livelihood of a family“.

From the 20 goats provided to Bangula ZEC, ten had given birth. Sadly four of these had died from disease, and a further four goats had been stolen – a goat is worth about £15 – £20, so they are a valuable commodity. Myles and Rose were present when one of the “second-generation” goats was handed on to a new beneficiary.

The day before Rose and Myles visited Muona ZEC one goat had given birth to twins. The picture (right) shows ZEC’s Regional Superintendent for the South region of Malawi, Isaac Mpanga, with Pastor Cheza from Muona ZEC with the two goat twins.

The project has also been used as an income-generating scheme in churches outside the Lower Shire area. At Namulu ZEC, seven of the 10 goats originally given have now given birth. Rose Chirwa wrote, “This represents a return of 70% and it is so encouraging!”

Myles MacBean commented about the programme after the visits: “The beauty of this project is that in Malawi almost everyone knows how to keep a goat, the goat will eat almost anything, the young females are very quickly reproductive, and the gestation period is short. So rapid multiplication quickly pays back the initial investment. And the recipients ‘repay’ the initial gift by passing on their first-born kid – through the local church – to another needy neighbour”.

We are very thankful that the rains during this year’s growing season appear in most areas, so far at least, to have been more consistent and widespread compared to the last two years. Most people’s crops are growing well.

 

January 2017.  

Gift Mphongolo, FOY National Coordinator, reports on the 2016 National Youth Conference.

The 2016 National Youth Conference, organised by ZEC’s Fellowship of Youth (FoY) was based in Salima Secondary School last October. It was a follow up to a number of regional conferences held in Mzuzu, Namitete, Blantyre and Balaka.

The theme of the conference was ‘Unless the Lord builds the house’

The objectives of the conference were as follows:

• To help the youth to recommit their lives to Christ and to know that success comes from God.
• To help have a positive change on the preparations and view of marriage among the youth.
• To help the youth to make decisions that will bring personal development and to trust God for personal development.
• To help the youth to fellowship with each other and show their musical talents and gifts.
• To help the youth to use their time to achieve both spiritual and academic excellence

 

In this conference we used preaching and presentation in groups arranged according to topics and age. We had sessions for youth from 12 years to 17, from 18 upwards and for married people. In these groups we discussed issues according to the needs and challenges of the young people.

We also enjoyed recreation and took the youth to our beautiful Lake Malawi where we had some games and swimming just to help them to relax, enjoy and learn.

Challenges

The conference was very successful but we had some challenges! The main one was that the venue was too small; considering the distance some had to travel, we were expecting about 1700 youths but we were overwhelmed that the number was about 3000. This crowded the building and a lot of people slept outside for the whole conference.

The other challenge was on registration; the participants were to look for their own food and transport, and also contribute a registration fee of K1000 to subsidize the administration costs. A lot of people came without the registration fee and some paid only half the cost. This caused us to incur some debts as the cash sourced was not now enough and by the end of the conference we had a debt amounting to 450,000.00 Kwacha.

The other challenge was the public addressing system and music equipment as the amplifiers were burnt out. That was difficult because these days the youth are fond of having nice music and a good P/A system!

Also there was not enough time for everything!

Recommendations

As reported above we had an overwhelming attendance and the venue was not large enough. With many sessions having to be held outside, it was hard for the participants to keep focussed at times. As we plan ahead and anticipate even larger attendances, we really need our own conference centre where youths can receive ministry on a regular basis.

The time given was not enough for the speakers, teachers and even for reporting the progress of the ministry and testimonies from different youth groups. We recommend having a more realistic number of topics and more days for future conferences.

We lacked adequate sporting materials to help the youth to relax and it was a challenge to hold the sporting activities we had indicated on our programme.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the members of the National Executive Committee for their commitment and financial support ensuring the conference was a success. Also Zambezi Mission (ZM) for the financial support it provided towards this conference and JLife ministries for the food items that helped the youth so much. Finally the ZEC Mitsidi Synod Office for being behind us in all the preparations and for attending the conference. That was an encouragement to the youth. May God bless you indeed.