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 with one of the Children’s Choirs.
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.
Lackson teaching at a CFCM seminar
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.
Lackson, Joseph and Elevate – CFCM Staff
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”.
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
Please contact the office on 01904 674748 or via office@zambesimission.org 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.