Today Janet gave me the go-ahead

Today Janet gave me the go-ahead: she said "If you want to go to Africa again to preach the gospel, if God shows you that is what he wants you to do I will back you".

"Do you really mean that" I asked. "Of course I really mean that" she replied. "If God makes it clear that it is what he wants you to do I'll back you to the hilt".

Tonight I lay awake thinking about it. When we returned from Africa in February 1995, we were brought home by 10 different reasons including having run out of money, God graciously gave us enough extra money to buy our present house and redo the wiring, plumbing and some re-decoration.

From experiences indelibly imprinted on my mind by our time in Africa I had considered putting razor wire round the garden only to discover it would be frowned upon by the law. It had taken many months to recover from the fear of dark nights and stories of hold-ups with AK47s with which we had lived in Malawi. Did I want to go through that again? I had forgotten how that felt.

Over the meal table we had discussed why I wanted to go. Statistics from World Outreach told us that in 1900 sub-saharan Africa was only 3% Christian, but is now 50% Christian with 25,000 new believers being added every day. Who is caring for them? Or are they being sidelined into cults and weird denominations rather than being liberated into the pure gospel of a loving God.

And how can we stay in the UK, growing old, knowing what gospel grace we know? when there could be opportunities to help in Africa.

Was our time in Malawi from January 1993 to February 1995 'unfinished business', or was it just an experience along the way?

Why did we both spent time most days reading the scriptures and asking the Lord to explain them to us if we weren't going to use all this knowledge somewhere?

"I didn't have a thyroid problem last time we were in Africa. Now my body can't control it's temperature properly and I can't handle hot weather, so God will need to do something if I am to cope" Janet commented.

"And I don't have any formal theological qualifications". It was Pippa who had reminded us the previous Sunday that the church group from which we came had regarded Bible school as superfluous once 'the Holy Ghost has come' and we 'have no need that any man teach us for when he is come he will lead us into all truth'.

And that is how it had been, except that graduation from a Bible School might (a) open doors and (b) provide confidence that we could accomplish what we had in our hearts to do.

But if God is putting into our hearts to return to Africa, surely he will open the way and take us where he wants us to go? "One thing is sure", I had said to Janet this afternoon, "If God does not open the way we are going nowhere. I don't have the energy any more to push doors open. By lunchtime every day I am exhausted and it's easy to get very little done in a day".

So I lay in my bed and thought about all this, and then got up to write it all down while it remained fresh in my mind.

"What timescale?" I had asked. Janet replied after some thought "August 2011 I should think. There is too much to do for it to happen any earlier, and that will give us time to get ready and put everything into place". I shall have been retired one year.

The days since I put down the work of the World Outreach office at the end of November 2009 have been thoroughly unsatisfactory. Motivating myself to do anything at all has been very difficult. Not that I have been sitting around doing nothing - far from it. But the jobs I have set myself: to clear the house of things we could manage without, and to redecorate very simply, were just not happening. It has been difficult to detach myself from the World Outreach work which I had eaten, drunk and slept since 2003 and even today I have been again adding entries to the Operations Guide in response to a request from the new Operations Director. The website is gradually dying although the design of the new one is still continuing to grow in my mind.

"Can I share our thoughts of returning to Africa with friends?" I had asked Janet. "Yes, with closer friends, but not everyone because it may cause them to become unsettled. You're going to have to begin to put out feelers and talk to people because things won't just happen by themselves. You will have to make them happen".

It was on Sunday morning that Graham and Lisa Stevenson had spoken at the morning church meeting we attend about the parable of the talents and I had felt strongly affected by his words not to bury what we had in the ground.

So after writing this, making a hot drink, and talking to the Lord about it, I returned to bed.

God's Golden Acre

2005 Heather Reynolds and Dale le Vack
ISBN 1 85424 706 9 (UK)

A biography of Heather Reynolds – the inspirational story on one woman's fight for some of the world's most vulnerable AIDS orphans.

At first sight, this is not a book that would have appealed to me. It is about a white lady who cared for orphans in the Valley of a Thousand Hills region of South Africa in KwaZulu Natal.

But from the start I found it intensely gripping, real, and personally very helpful. Heather was brought up in South Africa, the daughter of white people who ran a trading post. Her father was a drunk though she speaks very warmly of him, and she made a very bad marriage which her mother could have prevented but didn't. Her elder brother was handicapped and her life was a shambles until God got hold of her in her twenties. This book pulls no punches.

She met a man who really cared for her, and when her divorce came through, she married him and did not look back. This man, under God, enabled her to make a comeback as a person. Fluent in Zulu as well as English and Afrikaans, under God, she committed her life to the care of poor Zulu families. In human terms she had little going for her and few resources, and for years lived close to the breadline, fighting to help the poor people around her in the midst of opposition from her white neighbours who saw no reason to help 'black people'.

The hand of God is very clearly seen in the way that Heather was led, the people that God led to associate with her, and the amazing timing of supply that only God could provide.

This book has been of particular interest to me because of visits I made to All Africa Bible College when it was situated at Hillcrest overlooking the Valley of a Thousand Hills on the N3 motorway between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. The college has now closed and the premises bought by 'Focus on the Family, South Africa'.

I particularly remember a couple of incidents that occurred while Janet and I were staying at AABC with the boys, when intruders came up the very steep hill from the Valley of a Thousand Hills to the college at the top and attempted to break into staff houses. It was very frightening for all involved, and the electric fence and other defences did nothing to keep intruders out of the college premises.

Amazon.co.uk reviews of this book

It’s Our Turn to Eat: the story of a Kenyan whistleblower

2009, Michela Wong
ISBN-10: 0061346586
ISBN-13: 978-0061346583

If you have an interest in Africa and why most of the people of African continue in utmost destitution and poverty while their rulers drive around in luxury cars, you need to read this book.

It is the story of Kenya, and how since independence successive governments have succeeded in milking the system. Michela Wong writes brilliantly and with insight about the situation in Kenya, and about John Githongo who was appointed by the new Kenyan president in 2002 to expose corruption, and the process by which he realised that the president was running the corruption, and using John as a ‘clean’ front-man. The UN and the British government, as usual, come out of book as parts of the problem. Africans are rarely able to be really corrupt without the help of their foreign friends.

A review in the Economist (Feb 28, 2009) says 'This gripping saga is a down-to-earth yet sophisticated exposé of how an entire country can be munched in the clammy claws of corruption. It is also a devastating account of how corruption and tribalism reinforce each other, as clannish elites exploit collective feelings of jealousy or superiority in an effort to ensure that their lot wins a fat, or the fattest, share of the cake. Hence the book’s title: “It’s our turn to eat”'.

Amazon.co.uk reviews of this book

Gunfight at Mapanga

Yesterday, Saturday, we set of for Zomba, just over an hour away from Bvumbwe, for the All Africa Bible College (AABC) seminar to which pastors in the local Zomba area had been invited.

The previous evening, Friday, we had learnt both from BBC World Service, but also from an American missionary who had been telephoned by the US Embassy in Lilongwe, that the Malawi Army had launched a number of attacks against Malawi Young Pioneer bases in Malawi after two soldiers had been killed by Young Pioneers in Mzuzu, in northern region.

The problem is that the Young Pioneers, originally formed to learn Agriculture and other useful skills, had evolved into a para-military wing of the ruling Malawi Congress Party, and rather like Mao's Red Guards, strutted about doing what they liked, answerable only to the President and his aides.

They had stockpiled powerful rifles and ammunition, and rumour says, more besides.

The Malawi Congress Party (MCP), having lost the referendum, agreed to the disarming of the Young Pioneers, but did nothing to implement it, so the army were waiting for an opportunity to implement government policy for them.

This the army started in Mzuzu, where they also attacked two of the President's residences, and then moved onto Lilongwe where they destroyed the Young Pioneer centre in the town together with the M.C.P. offices. They reported discovering a cache of 2,000 high precision rifles and many boxes of ammunition in the process.

Some of the people in Lilongwe, waiting for such an opportunity, began to loot shops owned by the President, and 38 people were killed in the unrest. The army then moved into Blantyre, attacking a Young Pioneer base there, one at Mapanga on the Limbe-Zomba road, and the Young Pioneer base at Zomba.

Last night they moved on to Bvumbwe where there is a large base, and Janet heard gunfire in the distance as she was reading in bed. We believe that there are other bases to follow.

Last Saturday morning at 7.00am, because we did not want to disappoint any pastors who had determined to come to the seminar, we set off tentatively for Zomba in Alan Turnbull's pickup. As we neared Mapanga, we were flagged down by the driver of a black BMW who told us he had heard gunshots at Mapanga. He said "Follow me if you want another route."

We turned the vehicle round and followed him back into Limbe, and then out again along a road I had never travelled on, that went out towards Zomba along the edge of Ndirande mountain. After a while it degenerated into an earth track that the BMW moved over with some speed, while we travelled along in the red dust-cloud trying not to fall too far behind.

We came out finally onto the Zomba road, and continued along at some speed to get to Zomba by 8.30am when the seminar was due to start. As we approached Zomba itself, we began to see armed soldiers along the road-side, and passed a couple of army trucks filled with soldiers. Soon we also passed a green, Young Pioneer saloon car with all its glass missing, impaled on a lamp standard by the side of the road.

Coming into the shopping centre, all the shops were closed and the windows barred, and local people sat in the doorways tensely looking about them. We drove down past the market, which was very quiet, finally arriving at the Zomba Community Hall at 8.35am. There were no pastors there waiting for us.

As we stood there, wondering what to do, a couple of men came up and introduced themselves. And then three more arrived who had come earlier and then gone away again. By 9.00am we had about 8 people, some of whom had walked many miles to get there, so we decided to explain the AABC scheme to them and to give them books if we did nothing else. By 9.30am more had arrived so Alan gave the first lesson. By 10.00am we were up to 16, so we gave lesson 2. But at 11am we decided to stop and go home, promising to return in a few weeks’ time for a complete re-run of the day's seminars.

As we left by the main road, Zomba seemed quiet, but that could have been deceptive with the army invisible, but still in position. We took the main road straight through Mapanga and all appeared quiet. It was a relief to get home without further incident.

The Start of the Rainy Season

Today the rainy season began with a cloudburst that continued for an hour, with great bangs and flashes overhead! Rivers of water were running across the garden, some joining with the flood going down the drive to join the torrent running along the main road, and some running quietly down the slope at the back of the garden to disappear into the thick undergrowth and reappear in the foaming stream in the valley a distance away.

As I write, the rain is still pouring down outside, and will probably go on for a few more hours. Henry the dog is pacing up and down in the living room, trembling with fear, while Cara lies peacefully on the tiled floor in the kitchen. The wind is blowing the rain across our veranda so there is nowhere outside where the dogs can remain dry.

Alfred, our houseboy, tells us that the village people will begin to plant their maize; they are now sure that there will be a good rainy season.

It was two years ago that the rains never came, and people, already poor, became destitute as their crops shrivelled under the tropical sun.

Now that the rains have begun, the temperature has dropped to a cool 79ᵒF, very much more bearable than it has been.

In recent days, Janet or myself have returned like limp dish-rags from collecting the children from school in Blantyre. We have tried not to take a half-hour nap after lunch when the heat is greatest, because it is a chunk out of the day. But it seems that we haven't been able to get very much done whether we have rested or whether we haven't.

I was down at Nchalo in the Great Rift Valley for an AABC seminar for pastors and church leaders on Saturday 30th October. Being only about 300ft above sea level (if I read the contours on my map correctly), the temperature must have been about 100ᵒF. There was a good wind blowing which made it worse rather than better - rather like being in a fan-assisted oven - and by the end of the day my shirt contained folds of brown mud where dust carried by the wind had met up with the sweat running down my back.

We were invited to stay over on the Saturday night so that we could speak to another meeting of pastors, but by common consent we headed for home and cold showers.

Some weeks ago, when we were at Chikwawa, a few miles along the road from Nchalo, I asked a pastor "How do you manage with the heat." He replied "We are used to it; it is not a problem to us." But I don't think we would last very long if we had to live there; the heat is exhausting and we would soon be sick.

To date, there have been four AABC seminars for pastors and church leaders (both men and women) at Nsanje, down in the south of the country, Mulanje over to the south east, Thyolo just a few miles south of here, and Nchalo which is south-west from here as the vulture flies.

The first two seminars had attendances of about 40, but there were nearer 80 at Thyolo.

Although the letters to invite pastors to the Nchalo meeting had been sent out two weeks in advance of the meeting, only two people had received letters, and another 25 had been contacted by word of mouth, so turnout was poor.

There appears to be a real interest in the seminars which is very heartening. We do not provide transport to the meeting, or food during the lunch break, although we do provide a cup of sweet, milky tea - the way they like it! We have heard many say "We will not come unless you provide everything for us." We have felt, however, that this will only reinforce the "aid mentality" that is so prevalent in this country, and that even if we could afford to provide what is requested by many, it would be counter-productive.

Some people say "We are so poor in Malawi. We have so little. You must support our churches and pastors if people are to respond to the gospel."

It seems so plausible until you consider whether the early church during the Acts period were economically better off than the average Malawian is today. I think the converse was probably true, and yet the church expanded powerfully as the lives of the people were changed by the power and love of God and identification with the cross of Christ.

A year or two ago, Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM, came to Malawi and spoke at meetings in Blantyre. He told the church that the blessings of God were restricted here because the people had never been taught to give. I believe that this hits the nail right on the head.

When we first came to Malawi, it was in response to the words of the Lord Jesus "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel." After we had been here for a while, having to find our way in the things that relate to daily living - which seemed to take up so much of the time - I began to wonder if it might not be better to be resident in the UK, but making sorties a few times a year to Africa.

Now I am convinced that it would never work. It is only through daily contact with the local people, through actually living here and putting up with the inconveniences of life, that one can become really relevant to the local situation. There has to be a price to pay for relevance. The gospel of God is free to all, but there is always a price to be paid.

Our First AABC Teaching Seminar

On Saturday I took part in the first AABC teaching seminar for pastors and church leaders in Malawi.

On the Friday I had travelled with John Ronaldson, Deputy Principal of All Africa Bible College (based in Durban, South Africa) and Alan Turnbull, the 125 miles down through the Shire valley to Nsanje where we had arranged to hold the seminar in the Nsanje Community Hall.

Pastor Peter Makupe (associated with World Outreach) and Elias Chisale (recently at Ameva Bible College in Zimbabwe) came along to interpret.

I have explained about the AABC scheme previously, but in case you do not remember, the idea is to visit key centres within Malawi four times a year, and to hold seminars to which all the pastors and church leaders in that area are freely invited.

The material to be covered in the seminar is provided in book form to each leader in his or her local language, for a minimal charge, for him to take away, to study with his bible, and then to teach to his local congregation. We believe this will help leaders, many of whom have received no bible-based teaching at any time.

After a very warm 4-plus hour journey to within a few miles of the southernmost tip of Malawi, we came into Nsanje, a town only 300 feet above sea level and consequently very warm and humid. The town consisted of scattered dust-covered single-story buildings, and was criss-crossed by dirt roads that seemed to lead nowhere in particular, some of which were traversable only by high clearance vehicles. It conjured up in my mind a sleepy town in the US mid-west about a century ago. There was a general air of decay all around.

All the passengers dismounted from the pickup to allow Alan to drive up over the embankment carrying the single-track railway line, and then it was only a few yards to the house of Pastor Jonas Jack where we were to stay for the next two nights.

Jonas came out and welcomed us into cleanly-swept rooms, and we set up the portable gas stove and boxes of food in the front-room, and made our beds in the two other rooms allocated to us. The windows in the house were open to keep the warm air moving, though there was little remaining glass to impede the airflow.

Both John and Alan could eat little that night; they were suffering the effect of hot ham sandwiches they had shared together on the way down.

After a good wash by the light of the crescent moon in the bathroom enclosure a few yards from the back door we retired for the night, but not before I had eaten a good slice of Janet's pizza, supplied in her role as chuck wagon operator par excellence.

An hour or two later, we were all woken by sounds of a cat-fight in the next room, though by the time anyone had got up to investigate, there were no animals to be seen.

Next morning, I discovered that three of the five meat pies Janet had made so lovingly the previous morning had disappeared, though they had been under other things which were untouched. These African cats are very clever! Or perhaps just very hungry!

The next day, after an early breakfast we went over to the hall at 8.30am for the seminar. John was feeling much better, though Alan was still suffering.

The hall was a large building with a table on the stage, big window openings along each wall, a few upright chairs and plenty of benches. About 20 people were already waiting for us when we arrived, so we brought the table down from the stage and began immediately, John introducing the purpose of the seminars, "to equip pastors and church leaders with the word of God."

John asked "How many of you have the 7 kwacha to buy your book containing the lessons we are going to teach today?" Only 4 people had the money. So, after deliberation, we agreed to drop the price to 4 kwacha (which is about 64p for each book, with four books each year), with the first book free. This announcement was greeted with loud “Amens” of heart-felt appreciation!

After distributing a book to each person present, John began teaching the first lesson. The people obviously enjoyed the way he was putting things over with homely illustrations and plenty of involvement from them. I watched carefully, hoping to learn. There were eight lessons in total, and we aimed to take about half an hour to present each lesson, giving a few minutes for questions, and then taking a few more minutes to stretch legs and chat before the next session began.

We took the sessions in turn, with John teaching sessions 1,4 and 7, myself 2,5 and 8, and Alan 3 and 6 because he still wasn't very well. Within an hour, the attendance had risen to 42 and the sessions were going well. The people were attentive, and there were numbers of questions, including questions from two ladies. We had posted 37 invitations to the seminar, so we were very pleased with the attendance.

After the fifth session we broke for lunch, serving cups of hot tea, having previously warned the participants that it was beyond our power to provide food as well. This was a test of their interest and spiritual hunger, because in some areas where we had gone to tell pastors about the seminars, we had been told that they would not attend if food and transport were not provided.

After the third big pot of tea had been made and poured, I went out to sit under a tree, to drink my cup of tea and to eat my cheese and tomato sandwich out of sight.

The three sessions in the afternoon also went very well, and when we wound up proceedings just after 3pm, there appeared to be genuine widespread pleasure with the progress of the day. In addition, about 15 pastors were prayed with to receive salvation.

God is gracious, for I found particular freedom in speaking, on one occasion, for a few seconds, having to stop speaking because of the impact upon myself of what I was saying.

Tengani.

The next day, we travelled back northwards to Tengani village, the site of a large refugee camp where we had been invited to the Sunday morning meeting in the local Primary school. It was there that we discovered another 40 leaders and pastors who were expecting a complete re-run of the previous day's seminar. It was all a misunderstanding! How difficult it is when you're working across languages! Can you imagine how we felt when they told us that some pastors had walked 5 days through Mozambique to be at the seminar, and most of them could just as easily have attended on the Saturday in Nsanje!

So, with everyone packed into a large classroom, sitting at two-seater desks with integral seats, after some singing and praying, John began to explain the AABC scheme for teaching pastors and church leaders. He then taught one of the lessons to give them an insight of how to use the material. When all was over, we gave out copies of the books and noted names and addresses so that we can invite them all to the next seminar in Nsanje in 3 months’ time.

After a traditional meal of nsima (we were given rice which they know we prefer; they are very kind to us) and fried chicken, we changed into cooler clothes and continued northwards, stopping only to drink bottles of cold Fanta, and arriving back in Bvumbwe at about 5.30pm, just before darkness fell.

A weekend near Nsanje in the Shire Valley

Today I returned with Alan and Marion Turnbull from a weekend at a village near Nsanje in the far south of Malawi. We had left home on Friday morning for the journey south, first dropping almost three thousand feet as we negotiated the z-bends of the road that winds down the escarpment into the Great Rift Valley and then following the level main road for the remainder of the 125 miles, passing through the Sucoma sugar cane plantations beside the Shire river, and then the cotton plantations until eventually we arrived after a gruelling five hour journey at our destination in a village a few miles off the main road.

The main road had once been quite good, but now the surface had degenerated for much of the distance to a state only passable by commercial and other high-clearance vehicles. I travelled in the canopy at the back of Alan's Ford Courier pickup with Peter Makupe, a pastor and smallholder from Bvumbwe, and Elias Chisale who had recently returned from Ameva Bible School in Zimbabwe. They would be acting as interpreters at the meetings.

All around us were packed suitcases for the weekend, sleeping bags, a camping table and gas stove, a pressure lamp for light at night, bottles of drinking water, loaves of bread for us, and maize flour and cabbages for our hosts. As the pickup negotiated the bumps, with Alan steering from one side of the road to the other to miss the larger potholes, and even going off the road to miss particular trouble spots, we spent an appreciable proportion of our time suspended midway between our seat and the roof of the canopy.

We stopped for lunch and I sampled everyone else's since my contribution, lovingly prepared by Janet, was still in the fridge at home. At Bangula we stopped long enough to stretch our legs and to pour ice-cold drinks from the fridge at the petrol station down our parched throats. My current favourite is cherry-plum.

Mr Molensen, a pastor for the Independent Assemblies of God welcomed us when we arrived, and showed us to a dwelling just across from the church where we were to stay for the weekend. The house belonged to his son, who was away from home and very happy that we should use it. In the mud-brick dwelling which had an earth floor and thatched roof, there was a main room where we could cook and eat, and two adjoining bedrooms with "This is a gift from the people of the USA"  maize sacks over the doorways to provide privacy. The windows which were holes in the wall, could be covered with roll-down bamboo mats for privacy at night. Over some, the ancient mosquito netting was efficient in keeping the flies in. A layer of brown dust blown in by the warm breeze covered everything we touched.

In each bedroom there was a bamboo bed-base upon which we spread our blow-up mattresses and sleeping bags. Alan and Marion had one bedroom, and I the other, Elias sleeping in the main room, and Peter in the church with other visiting pastors. Alan's bed-base sloped to one side where the supports had sunk into the floor, but a few bricks found lying around outside corrected the list.

We made ourselves comfortable and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. By now it was 5pm and getting dark so Alan lit the Tilley paraffin lamp and hung it under the thatch. Janet had supplied a sponge cake, a large pizza and sauce, and some rock buns, to add to the things that Marion had provided, so we had a buffer from purely African fare during the weekend.

During the weekend, the ladies of the village fed us well with rice porridge for breakfast, and rice, nsima (a stodge made from maize flour much beloved by Malawians), stewed cabbage and a little beef, chicken or fish for the other meals. They were very generous to us, because they commonly live on only one meal a day.

We had a short meeting on the Friday night to which about 40 people came; Marion told a story using flannelgraph, and I spoke for a little while too.

At about 9pm we went to bed, the others lighting mosquito coils and I using my safari net. I woke up after a little while to discover a cockroach about three quarters of an inch across walking across my face. I removed it, tucked my net in better and went back to sleep. In the morning, as I surfaced, I became aware that the chicken noises that had been distant were now very loud. As I opened my eyes, the hen that had been been searching for a good place to lay it's egg, went scuttling past my bed and headed for the doorway, ducking under the sack on its way out.

Four goats had made their way in through the back door during the night and were polluting the atmosphere beside the sack that hung over the doorway into the room where Alan and Marion were ensconsed. The hen tried each room in turn, ending up on a old bookshelf next to the goats.

We rose to face the day, and one by one went out to the bamboo fenced cubicles in the open where a bucket of warm water and a tin mug had been made available for washing purposes. The water has to be carried from a well and heated over an open fire in a bucket, so we were very grateful for the luxury of a warm wash or shower.  During breakfast Alan remarked that a cockroach he had seen by the light of his torch in the toilet the previous night had been fully 2 inches long so I had got off lightly with such a small one. God is good!

Following breakfast, the cows that should have been overnight in the enclosure next to the house appeared with their flies, having spent the night by the Shire river a mile away because, after they had drunk from the river, it was too dark to bring them home. God's grace operates in wonderful and mysterious ways.

The meeting, scheduled for 9am began properly at about 10.30 with much joyful singing of hymns and choruses accompanied by a drum and other instruments of torture, and was followed by three other meetings that day. Alan spoke very clearly and well from Ephesians, bringing in relevant cross-references from other books, and the people, many of whom were pastors, scribbled furiously in their notebooks lest they miss any detail. The people listened attentively and seriously. Many were from Mozambique, just 15 miles further south, and at least one of them had walked 25 miles the previous day to be with us.

The Mozambicans in the refugee camps are beginning to return to their own country, and there are an increasing number of invitations to visit them once they are established.

Marion and I also contributed during the day. Her use of flannelgraph in telling old testament stories to put over the new testament message is graphic and very powerful, capturing the imagination and appealing to people of all ages.

About 4pm, we walked the mile or so to the Shire river, crossing the fields which until the last drought were marsh. The river, about 12 feet below us, 100 yards wide at this point and obviously very deep, flowed rapidly carrying numerous small islands of water hyacinth on its way to join the Zambezi. Over on the far bank there were a couple of small houses in use by the Renamo soldiers that occupy that part of Mozambique to guard the border with Malawi.

A dugout canoe plied across from one side to the other, the fare just 5 tambala (there are about 6 tambala to the penny), carrying local people with firewood, or baskets of tomatoes, or other crops on their way back to their villages. Peter and Elias had been across the ferry earlier in the day to talk to the soldiers about the Lord.

We watched the boatman make several journeys, going far upstream before crossing, because of the strength of the current, and then it was time to return for tea. The forty or so children and adults that had joined us by the river trailed along behind as we went back through the fields. It was just like a warm peaceful summer's afternoon in the south of England. I wished that Janet had been there to share it.

That evening we went to bed again at 9pm and slept better, although Alan was bitten twice by mosquitoes because his inferior mosquito coils had gone out during the night. However the goats didn't seem to smell so bad and the hen had turned her attentions elsewhere.

The next morning, Sunday morning, after a wash and breakfast, we packed our belongings and presented ourselves at 9am for the meeting. At 9.30 we went for a coffee and returned at 10am when the increased volume of the singing has signalled that everyone else were ready to begin. Marion spoke again, I continued with Ephesians 4 and the time disappeared. After the meeting we dined from a chicken to which we had been introduced the previous day as it walked around. We were told it was one of the progeny of a chicken that Alan and Marion had given Mr Molensen some months before. As Alan said "Cast your bread upon the waters..."

We left at 2pm for the long ride home, after much talking and hand-shaking, taking two of the ladies with children who had travelled down to the weekend from the Tengani refugee camp that lay close to the road on our way back, and arrived back in Bvumbwe four hours later after a good journey, the weather being pleasantly cooler.

My clothes smelt of wood smoke, and my pillow of smoke and paraffin, so everything went out for washing, and I enjoyed the civilisation of a comfortable bed again after a thoroughly profitable weekend.

A Change in the Weather

 Its now quite warm during the day, but not as hot or sticky as it was when we first arrived in January. At night the temperature is a constant 75 degrees, so we put a sheet and one or two blankets on the bed.

Sometimes, in the morning, there is a mist which lifts by 7.00 am or so. In a few weeks time the mist will become quite thick and may last for days. Its brought by the Chiperoni, a wind that blows from the Perone mountains on the border with Mozambique (if I've got that right)! So that'll be the time for wood fires in the lounge at night.

With the hot, rainy season over, we're now growing the vegetables which prefer the cooler weather. The carrots are coming along nicely; between planting and harvesting is only a few weeks; and the lettuce are enormous with one keeping us going for a few days. Janet has boiled our first beetroot and all but one are sitting in the deep freeze until we need them.

Some of our full-cream milk from the Satemwa Tea Estate near Thyolo (pronounced Chola) went off last week, so Janet read up how to convert it into cream cheese. Well, it tastes like a cross between brie and gorgonzola! A very powerful cross indeed. I'm the only person who will eat it in this household!

Because it is Easter and the boys are on holiday, we borrowed a couple of videos from the British Council library in Blantyre, one of them containing "Hancock's Half Hour" as put out by BBC television many years ago. We were surprised how much the boys enjoyed the three half-hour programs. I thought they would not understand the humour. If they didn't, they laughed all the way through anyway.

This morning I went back with Alan Turnbull to the church at Goliati we had visited the previous week, to take bibles and Christian books that Alan had promised to them. We didn't stay for the meeting which was in Chichewa but came straight home again.

We really enjoyed our visit last Friday to Likabula pools on Mulanje. The 10,000 foot mountain rises straight out of a plain lying at about 3,000 feet and is very impressive. The pools themselves are basins a little way up the mountainside that have been scooped out of the rock, one cascading into the next, fed by a cold stream that comes down from the mountain. We took a picnic and some iced drinks and were there for a few hours. The boys enjoyed it immensely. It was like bathing in one of the Dartmoor rivers on a warm summer's day.

Visiting the Customs, and Easter

Yesterday I returned to Customs House in Blantyre to pursue my long-running application to import our Nissan Bluebird at the concessionary rate of 15% normally allowed to church groups, instead of the normal rate of nearer 100%.

It had all been agreed with Customs during my visit a few days ago, but via a phone call to me that afternoon they reversed their decision on pressure from higher up.

Well today, they arranged for me to see the highest official in Blantyre, the Controller of Customs who has a large office in Plantation House in central Blantyre.

He was very courteous, as high-ranking officers are, and after very few words agreed to pass my letter to the Minister for Finance in Capital City, Lilongwe for his decision. In essence, if I associated closely with a denomination here, which would mean that I would have to give my time 100% to their churches, I could pay the lower rate of duty. But working inter-denominationally I do not appear to qualify, although doing the same things, but to my mind in a potentially more productive way.

We were not able to go ahead with plans to go to Nsanje in the far south of the country for the Easter Convention of the Independent Assemblies of God because of the state of the roads after the rains. I also declined an invitation to go north-west to Mwanza to speak at the Easter convention of the Elim Pentecostal Church, because I feel it is still early days for me in Malawi.

But on Good Friday and Easter Saturday I went with Alan Turnbull to Chingazi Evangelical Brethren Church, where there is also a health centre, some distance to the south where Mr Monjeza, the pastor, was holding meetings over the weekend.

The platform at the front had a 4'6" wooden rail all the way round with five lecterns spaced around it, and a baptismal pool at one end so I felt very cut off from the people.

We were welcomed very warmly by all, but the singing was a bit laboured as though it was all a bit of a struggle.

On Easter Sunday we attended the opening of a new church building at Goliati (the Malawian form of Goliath), not far from Chingazi and Alan spoke very clearly and well at the meeting that followed. They had people present from many places in Malawi, from the far north down to Mozambique, and the singing was very lively.

Nedson Milanzi, the leader hopes that his facilities will develop into a teaching centre for the area. I was invited to speak at the afternoon meeting and found it very hard going. But about 10 people came forward for salvation so perhaps God was able to apply what was said. I've started to film some of the proceedings, and hope eventually to produce a video for information.

The boys are on holiday from school, enjoying having free time and riding round the garden on Tim's bike - we still have not found the pump connector to pump up Ben's tyres!

Our dawg, Cara, has almost given up savaging the staff, saving her fiercest attentions for unsuspecting visitors.

We're intending to go to Mount Mulanje (10,000 ft) tomorrow to visit Likabula pools, where we can swim (if we dare) in the ice-cold streams coming down from the mountain.

Miles and Liz Thomas have taken their family to Lake Malawi for a few days break, but it’s generally a bit hot there and we're still acclimatising.

A dawg, a visit and St Andrews

We now have a dawg! I never thought the day would come that a dawg would cross the portals of my house!

Well, the truth is that it’s warm enough for the hound to live outside. And that's what she is doing. She is a beauty; a cross between a ridge-back and a who knows what, a very common breed around here.

We collected her from Mrs Fry's kennels at Ginnery Corner in Blantyre. Mrs Fry is an institution around these parts; what she doesn't know about dawgs isn't worth knowing. The dawg's name is Cara, the name she had before she came to us. She is very affectionate to Janet, myself and the boys.

But the chaps who work around the bungalow have to have a good turn of speed until she gets used to them. I have never seen Alfred move so fast as he did this morning when he tried to come in through the back door. She growled, and he disappeared round the corner of the house as though his life depended on it. I think we have a good watch-dog.

At present she lives on nsima (maize porridge) with chunks of meat and the odd avocado. We keep her chained up for some of the day, but let her off when we can watch her. Apart from the risk of her attacking people we don't want her to run out onto the road we front onto.

On Sunday I went the sixty or so miles up to Balaka with Binson Musongole, a Malawian pastor, and his wife, to be present at a large meeting he had arranged by letter with churches in the area.

When we arrived no-one met us and the venue for the meeting was deserted. We discovered that the letters had not arrived - a common problem in Africa. But the visit was not wasted. We visited two small meetings, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and there was opportunity to speak at both.

We were received very warmly, and I feel that the Lord provided the subjects on which to speak.

On the way back Binson collected two sacks of charcoal from sellers by the side of the road; it's cheaper there than in Blantyre; and a few giant melons.

Janet went along to St Andrews Secondary School where Tim will start in September. The school is British system with all-British teachers! and the headmaster describes it as Christian. Facilities are very good with excellent sports grounds and a near-Olympic swimming pool. It used to be the colonial school, and much resource has gone into it. The government have recognised its excellence, left it alone, and many Malawians benefit from going to it. Tim will enjoy it.

Grasshoppers, funerals and neighbours

We visited Phoenix school last evening to see Ben in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. Ben was cast as a boiled sweet! It was very well done with excellent music, and we enjoyed it along with another 200 ex-pats and Malawians who were also there to see it that night.

We were told that the previous night shooting had been heard in Blantyre. Apparently many people had come into Blantyre after dark to gather the big grasshoppers that were swarming through, coating buildings in the town centre with moving green carpets. They fry them; they're fatter and tastier than the big ants they also eat.

The police were scared that there might be a riot because of the numbers, so they fired into the air to disperse the crowds. No one was hurt. Of course, you will not read about it in the newspaper.

One of our Malawian friends has gone today to a funeral. Funerals are very common; sometimes people will be going to one every two weeks. He told me what had happened: his little niece was very ill and he mentioned to the parents that they should take her to see the doctor. I think they did on one occasion. But they also called in the traditional healer, a nice name for the local witch doctor. He will have mixed up potions from this and that with a bit of dirt thrown in, and leaped about muttering prayers and charging a fair bit for his services.

When the little girl refused all food or water, even when pushed between her teeth our friend, who is a Christian, insisted that they should see the doctor again, but they resented his 'interference'. They despise 'this English medicine'; "Our medicine is better!" they say. So after 4 days of no food or water, the little girl died. It is quite normal to put off seeking medical help until the time has passed that anything can be done. These people that live in great darkness are in great need.

Today we have met Ella Kamwana, the wife of the deceased Malawi Chief of Police. When we arrived home yesterday for lunch, her gardeners had just begun to cut down the ornamental trees that go around the edge of our garden adjacent to her boundary. They had panga'd about 30 feet of trees along our drive when I told them to stop! I think they were a bit surprised.

Anyway, I went to see her this morning after taking the boys to school and spent a pleasant hour walking around our garden with her and introducing Janet to her. She had not seen the boundary from our side and agreed not to cut any more trees down. For our part, we need to trim them so she gets more light.

She'd been told that the trees harboured snakes which then come into her house, but we feel that snakes come here because they like the climate in Bvumbwe, which, at 3,500 feet above sea level is comparatively wet.

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.