Civil unrest and school trips

I was in Ndirande township near Blantyre yesterday evening for a weekly bible study with local pastors.

Having covered the 'Fatherhood of God', we are moving on to subject of the 'Holy Spirit'.

The pastors requested that we finish early, and also bring next week's study forward to 5.30pm so that they could get home earlier.

Apparently the civil unrest in Ndirande is continuing and becoming worse, with gangs of armed men roving around killing and robbing. It is not possible to be sure whether the unrest is politically motivated or just taking advantage of political change, but these events are certainly connected to a general upsurge of violence within the country.

In Bvumbwe near where we live, two people have been killed in the last week, and it is unsafe to be out at night. It is quite impossible to fortify our house without massive expense but we are gradually doing what we can to prevent trouble: buying a dog, fitting gates across the drive and repairing the fence.

Having done what we can do, we are looking to God to install His peace in our hearts and to be our protection. We have never been in a situation like this before but we do understand that the essential thing is to listen to God and to do to the letter anything He tells us. May He have His way in everything.

On Sunday I travel north from Blantyre with a Malawian pastor, Binson Musongole, and his wife Selina, for the one-hour drive to Balaka. We are going to spend the day with a group of churches with which he has contact. He has asked me to be prepared to do a short teaching session. This is really an introductory visit to the pastors in that area and I'm looking forward to it.

At Easter I am considering travelling down south to Nsanje, which is in the lower Shire, with Alan and Marion Turnbull, who have an invitation to speak at a convention down there from the Friday through to the Sunday.

At present we are considering hiring a Landcruiser or similar, with good ground clearance, because we hear that the roads may be impassable to conventional cars. Normally the roads are not repaired until well after the rainy season which may not be until about June. I have to decide as well whether it is sensible to leave Janet and the children at home for 4 to 5 days at the present time.

Tim has been at Lake Malawi for a school trip since yesterday, and will return tomorrow. They will be visiting places of historic and geographic interest, but also doing scuba diving in the lake.

I confessed to Janet, "I wouldn't mind going myself!"

Ben is taking part in some sort on Concert at Phoenix school from tonight for three nights. He is going to be very tired when it is all over.

The weekend after next he has been invited to his friend Sam's birthday party along with 3 or 4 other little boys! They are starting off on the Friday afternoon with games on the lawn followed by a barbecue. Then they are sleeping the night in the family tent. Following breakfast they go swimming in Limbe Club, and finish off with lunch at the Hong Kong restaurant in town.

I don't think I can keep up with this sort of thing!

Our telephone was connected two days ago and now functions.

Fear, and an introduction to AABC

We had a conversation with Marko the watchman this evening via Elias Pharoah our interpreter, and learnt that he feels frightened when he's guarding the place at night.

Apparently last December 25th, while there was a party going on down the road, a group of thieves tried to break into this house, although it was empty at the time. He was on guard and fought them off, but not before they'd hurt him with a knife.

He was requesting we put a better fence around the boundary with iron gates across the drive, buy guard dogs and lock the car in the garage.

For himself, he had seen snakes coming out at night, and requested wellington boots and an overall for protection against them and the mosquitoes. We will try to implement all his suggestions because it’s not the first time he's raised these matters.

This morning we spent several hours together with Alan and Marion Turnbull talking to a couple of men from an inter-denominational Bible College near Durban in South Africa. They call it the 'All Africa Bible College' (AABC), and their desire is to make simple teaching material available to pastors of churches within the different countries in Africa, so that they, in turn, can teach their own congregations.

They are not trying to set up churches, but to supplement or provide teaching to churches. Within a particular district they will visit all the church leaders, Pentecostal, Baptist, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, present their material, that is their teaching books, and ask if they may invite their church leaders to seminars in that district. They tell me that no one has ever refused them.

One Roman Catholic bishop said "If only you could do that! It’s a crying need in our churches! But I am so busy with other things, I can find no one to do it!"

By way of explanation, we are told that the people here will follow anyone who has something going for them. Church groups include Seventh Day Adventists, Seventh Day Baptists, Pentecostals, Pentecostal Holiness, Catholics - but they could easily be anything else because they don't know what the church is all about anyway. They could just as easily attach to one church as to another.

But the thing that is common among them is that they are hungry people, hungry for God.

It appears that Africans experience great difficulty with teaching; they find it very hard to get things together, and to maintain a steady teaching program.

Many pastors have had no teaching themselves so they are turning out the same 'sermon' week after week till the people are bored with it.

To maintain impetus, the AABC teaching scheme visits a local district on a Saturday once every 13 weeks for a seminar lasting the whole Saturday, to which all the local pastors on the mailing list are invited.

During teaching sessions on that Saturday, they will be taught enough material for the next 13 weeks at their church, and also will be sold, at low cost, a booklet containing the same material.

Although teachings will concentrate on the central truth of Christ, they will certainly not be ecumenical. There will also be plenty of opportunity to expand the programme, and it should be possible to make many fruitful contacts.

Alan and Marion suggested that we might like to talk to these people because they are considering becoming involved themselves. I think they have given a great deal of thought to it.

You see, one of the great difficulties here is getting teaching across to the churches. I have now gone to three Sunday morning meetings at different churches and, along with Alan and Marion, spoken at each meeting. But you wonder how much goes in.

In general, the people are not westernised, and have as much in common with you as they would have in common with Martians. They live lives completely different from yours, and it is impossible to assess one's success in communicating with them. I feel as though I am striking at an unknown target.

Perhaps as I spend more time with the Lord things will become clearer - that is clearly the greatest need among all the demands on time - but I feel that more people can be reached if the pastors are the ones who are taught, rather than the congregations directly.

Its normal to be robbed

We have discovered that Malawi is very different from the UK.

Yesterday, Janet and I went shopping in Limbe, the nearest town about 6 miles away. We went to the bank and drew out about £70 in cash and then parked the car a little way up the main street so that we could buy some sugar from a wholesaler there.

We left my briefcase in the boot (surreptitiously so I thought), took Janet's handbag, and were away about 30 minutes. When we returned the car was open and the briefcase gone. With the case, a new one brought from the UK for us by Alan Turnbull, we lost about £50, 2 cheque books, my calculator and pen and a notebook I kept all our local information in - telephone numbers, contacts, engagements, accounts, staff rota and payments, places to buy things, customs details, etc.

The robbery took place in broad daylight and was watched by bystanders who took no action because they could be attacked then or later by the thieves. We told the police and stopped the cheques. But now we hear that this is going on all the time; nobody thought to mention it to us. We regard it as a shot across the bows, and thank God that we lost so little.

Miles Thomas lost about £300 worth of stuff when his Land Rover was attacked some time ago, and he has had three attempts made on his cars. We have been advised never to leave a car unattended.

Lesley Evans had her handbag removed from her car while her son Jonathan was in it. We've also been advised not to stop at the scene of an accident but, if necessary, to drive directly to the nearest police station.

Sometimes a body lies in the road, so that when a car stops to help, the driver can be robbed. In addition, if you stop, you can be accused of causing the accident, and attacked by local people. Either way you have to drive on. So we have learnt that the surface courtesy of the people can cover dark goings on underneath.

In our dealings, it is hard to tell if you are being helped, because a smile and the words "Sorry we cannot help" may cover up laziness or worse.

We still cannot get the landline telephone to our house working after two months. It is the law that all outstanding bills must be paid before the telephone will be reconnected for a new customer, even if the unpaid bills pertain to a previous tenant. But it is difficult to know if the bill has been paid because the local telephone office have printouts that are two months old. Meanwhile we are expected to pay the rental for a telephone that doesn't work, otherwise it will remain cut off even after the earlier bill has been paid.

So there are inconveniences all around.

When we get over one thing, something else strikes.

Life is the UK is so structured and organised, but it's not at all like that here. I'm having to cope with fear and upset and, I hope, learning to trust the Lord more.

When we first arrived, several times a night I would jump out of bed reaching for the torch, being convinced that there were intruders in the house; sleep was very interrupted until I began to settle a bit.

The bungalow where we now live is normally staffed during the day, and guarded at night by a watchman with a club! Armed robberies are more likely in town, but we are on the M2 trunk road going south to Mozambique, (seven foot wide for much of its way with earth shoulders!) and the property is very open to the road.

Having said that, the house is in a beautiful setting with a lovely garden. Palm trees and blue gums, pawpaw, bananas, guavas, loquat, pomegranate, avocado (I don't like them!) are all around us.

The gardener is importing flowers from friendly gardeners in the area! Every morning something new appears.

The vegetable garden is growing well with beetroot, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, turnips, lettuce, peas, beans, cucumber all starting to come.

Please pray for us! We are so grateful for a supportive church, and also for all the ex-patriate missionaries we know who continue to be kind to us.

We were in Blantyre a few days ago and met up with Jim and Helen Lapka, Canadian missionaries who've been here for 20 years. As we talked with them, an old women came up to us and began to beg for money in a very persistent way. I turned to Jim and said "How does this fit in with the Lord's words to give to those who ask?"

He replied "She's the richest women in Blantyre. When she's not begging she drives a Mercedes. If you see a Malawian give to a beggar you know that's a real beggar. Most of the rest are not." Amazing. I think we have a lot to learn.

The boys are settling into school and Ben has now stopped saying "When are we going back, Mummy?" and "I want to go back now". He had his shoes stolen at school a few days ago, so to make the point he's wearing plimsolls for the next few weeks.