Christmas 2000 News

The time has come, (the walrus said), to write another Christmas newsletter. I had the misfortune to read an article recently in the Times, where an opinion was aired that Christmas newsletters were typically produced by the middle classes to tell everyone 'how well Johnny is doing in the orchestra', and that 'Celia has been presented to the Queen', not to mention that 'the holiday in the Bahamas was so relaxing'. I felt sorry that the writer had such 'friends'.

The letters we receive are full of real interest, and it with joy that we open and read each one, catching up on news we can get in no other way. We're all too busy! So, if you wrote, thank you for writing! Keep up the good work! And, if you didn't, we understand.

And so to our news. But let me first explain that, in the course of the year, we've experimented with sending some updates by email. So, if you're technologically enabled (i.e. you know the frustration of a computer), you may suffer a repeat of what you've heard before. Our apologies. Unlike historians, we do not rewrite history as the whim takes us.

Building work.

During May, a company of builders did a lightning assault on our house, in four days fitting a new bathroom, basins in each bedroom, a downstairs toilet, and pouring concrete bases for a greenhouse, an office and a shed! Phew! Tim studied for 'A' levels in our caravan in the front garden while Mike worked alongside the wreckers. Janet tried to keep her eyes and nose shut (to keep out the dust) and kept the chuck wagon rolling.

There are still many things to finish off in the house: cupboards to put up, shelving, papering, tiling, wiring, carpeting, in addition to daily working and living. For a time, Mike felt totally unable to make progress. Is it anno Domini catching up? But the situation is improving.

Tim's peregrinations.

In June, Tim (18) achieved sufficient grades to do English and Economics at a good University, but decided to have a gap year. He was taken on as a partner by the John Lewis store in Reading in September, and has been working very hard in the gift food department to earn money for a computer, and to prepare for university.

Ben's deliberations.

Ben (16) seems to have a gift for languages, and has done well in German and French at school. He's already been looking at Universities although he still has to take GCSEs. He has started a 12-hour a week job at ASDA superstore to finance strawberry laces and a projected visit to Tanzania.

A car accident.

At the start of August, travelling late at night in our Renault 21 with a caravan on tow, we had to swerve violently to avoid an articulated lorry that came out at speed into our path. Although we jack-knifed, by the grace of God rather than Mike's skill, the car ended up on the edge of the road with the caravan still attached. The vehicles were still upright, and although Ben had a scratch, we were otherwise unhurt. Tim had not been travelling with us. The vehicles were beyond economic repair. We were able to use our week-old cell-phone to call up the police and Automobile Association who sent out relay trucks. In a couple of hours all the mess was cleared up, and we were on our way home by chauffeur.

The next day, very compassionate friends, hearing of our accident, towed their own caravan to where we had intended to holiday, collecting it again after a week. So we had a week's break, but not quite as we had planned!

A replacement car.

We were able to replace the Renault with a Toyota Carina, which we are enjoying, money from a company merger unexpectedly arriving when we needed it. Amazing timing! But we failed to remove the removeable front of the CD player one evening when the car was parked in a dark spot. Although the thief did not get into the car, he left us with a large repair bill.

A new job for Mike?

Mike had been looking around for another computing job for some months, but younger management assumes that 55 implies obsolescence. But he is quite clear the new job will come at the right time. Meantime he plugs away, grateful for the job he has.

Janet presses on.

Janet continues to work for two mornings a week at the local Christian medical practice. She enjoys the contact and stimulation, but with the lads fast growing up, demands on her increase all the time.

For one reason or another, We have taken no real break of any length together for a number of years, and we probably need to make a real effort this coming year to correct the situation.

Church commitment.

We continue with a local fellowship, meeting on a Sunday when God habitually speaks through one and another, and where we also find warm friendship. On a Sunday evening we normally go to a Christian meeting for overseas students who mainly attend the University. We have enjoyed contact with families from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Mexico and other places. We cannot tell how much they understand, but we know they enjoy coming.

God continues to be faithful to us through the pressures of life. We are amazed at all the things that happen.

Christmas 1999 News

At this time of year our thoughts turn especially to our family and friends scattered throughout the world. Newsletters have been arriving at a steady trickle and we enjoy reading them so much! It's so good to hear what is happening to those we love.

Our year seems to have been "more of the same thing"! We're very happy with our situation in Reading: a pleasant and warm house, a stable environment for the boys and ourselves, a good employment market, good friends and neighbours, a slowly-expanding church scene, and warmer weather than many places in the UK!

Tim, now 17, is now in the second year of his A-level course and will leave school in June next year. He has applied for a place at University majoring in English, but deferring entry until October 2001. We see him increasingly coming to terms with the need for hard work as his exams draw closer. On Saturday mornings he plays football enthusiastically and well with friends of long-standing from the church we used to attend, and plays many other sports regularly at other times. Computer games still feature in his interests and more recently he's begun to make use of the internet at home as well as at school. Tim has recently signed up to work at ASDA supermarket on the checkouts on Saturdays from 1 till 9pm. This will be the fifth run of part-time employment he has undertaken and we're sure it will be beneficial.

Ben, now 15, and at 5'10" as tall as Tim, has begun his GCSE course at school. His interest in sports is more 'observational' than Tim, and altogether he is much less 'physical' in his interests. He does a paper round every week, which meets his small financial needs. We know that if we told him that we intended to return to Africa, he would go like a shot, something Tim would not.

Janet continues to work as a nurse at the local Christian surgery for 12 hours a week spread over 3 mornings. She is well-received and continues to enjoy the stimulation and interest of the work. More recently she's tried her hand at selling Avon cosmetic products to households locally. It's something she's always wanted to try, and she feels that it will be interesting to do it for a while.

Mike has completed over a year within the Information Services section of Hogg Robinson who sell healthcare and travel services to large corporations. His job involves sorting out problems with big databases as well as writing enhancements. Although his associates are friendly, as he gets older, he finds more difficulty in remembering the enormous detail and therefore is considering the way ahead.

In April, in response to the difficulty of finding holidays to suit the whole family, we decided to experiment by buying a second-hand caravan, and made a couple of excursions, one to the beautiful Thames Valley, quite close at hand, and one to the New Forest. We also used it for a week at Summer Conference in Devon in August, a great success. But, because it takes us away from the home at the weekend, and Mike presently has only the Saturday to catch up with himself and do jobs around the house, there is a conflict of interests, so we may not continue with it next year. The neighbours were very encouraging when the caravan appeared, despite the desecration of our front garden by this enormous white apparition, which says something for the excellent relationship we appear to enjoy with them.

In October, Mike went to Zimbabwe for three weeks to teach at Ameva Bible School, which operates from a farm run by dear friends of long standing near Chegutu on the Harare to Bulawayo Road. He enjoyed the contact with the students greatly, and also the company of his hosts and the others who were working there. But he returned immeasurably saddened by the very high incidence of Aids among the Africans, which may wipe out a generation. He was also affected deeply by the anti-white stance of government at the present time, just one of the factors contributing to the increasing economic chaos within the country.

So, for all its boring uniformity and copious weather, the UK is not such a bad place in which to live! To come down onto truth, it is where God would have us for the present, and we have daily opportunity to live for Him, and to build the personality and lifestyle that He desires to see. Wherever we live, we can do that.

We send you all our love, and whether you're going to spend Christmas "around the tree" or "on the beach", we hope you will enjoy the celebration of the coming of Christ.

Christmas 1998 News

“The time has come,” the walrus said, to write a Christmas letter to all our friends and family around the world. “A Christmas letter?” I hear you saying, “What is the man talking about? Christmas is long gone. Perhaps it’s a little like my 50^th birthday party, which we hope to hold before I reach the age of 55. Perhaps we’ll hold a joint one when Janet gets there.

The fact is, that Christmas came, and Christmas went, and we were busy. Too busy to add to the list tasks that could be done at some quieter time. I think that we are learning (i.e. I am learning) not to take on so much. Life is given to be lived, and enjoyed where possible, not to be spent chasing the ‘next thing’. We ignored the January sales. It was very nice. Perhaps our time in Africa has done us a bit of good in reinforcing real values, that “people matter more than things”, and “Who told you that you needed this or that?”

Anyway, in a Christmas letter, one traditionally goes through the events of the past year, highlighting achievements, explaining respectfully that our children are child prodigies scaling the giddy heights of human achievement with a humility that leaves us speechless. However it’s not exactly like that; they are grossly normal, and any parent living in our culture will not need to consult a textbook to discover what that means. Let me add that we rejoice that they are normal, because, we have reason then to believe that they will grow up to be an asset to the people around them.

So, what has been going on since we last wrote to you? Mike (the guy pressing the buttons, and pouring out his eloquence via this ‘ere letta’) has given up teaching. Following an unpleasant year at university studying for a PGCE (postgrad. cert. in education), which occupied every hour he was not actually sleeping, eating, washing or dressing and culminating in the reception of a sheet of paper from the university carrying the one-liner “M.Cross – PGCE – failed”, you will remember that, putting the course behind him, he plunged into a part-time job teaching Maths at a private school, Bearwood College, near Wokingham.

The year went well, he enjoyed it, got on well with the other staff, students and parents, and received a good reference from the headmaster. 

Notwithstanding he was re-examined and failed again by the same implacable female guru from the education department of the university who had decided to fail him before. Obviously he had failed to attain the astral plane required. 

[You may be aware that there's a lot more to this story than that which meets the eye, but I will not write it here.]

A letter to the Vice-Chancellor received the anticipated reply “I don’t believe there is anything you can get us on” (paraphrase). So, with the universities' credibility seriously holed, Mike decided that the other 400,000 or so teachers in the UK would just have to struggle on as best they could without him, and he made another change in direction.

He rewrote his CV, emphasising programming skills, visited a couple of employment agencies, rewrote his CV twice more, and then, using email, circulated it to 30 agencies within 10 miles, following up with phone calls. 

At the end of two weeks of intense activity, he had two interviews, one of which was at Hogg Robinson where he had worked 10 years before. They sell travel and healthcare services, plus a lot more, and following the interview by staff who remembered him positively, he was offered a job. Quite amazing. 

There’s a great skills shortage in programming, and he’s been taken on in a humble role, but the people are pleasant and respectful, and there’s very little pressure. HR is year 2000 compliant, and almost year 1999 compliant too, so no surprises there.

Janet continues to be her excellent self, continuing with her part-time job as a nurse at a local Christian practise, which we have discovered is the second largest group practice in the UK. Last year she stopped doing travel immunisations which were becoming too stressful, a typical 10-minute appointment beginning with the words: “Nurse, I am going to Tasmania and Penang, stopping off at Lusaka and Sao Paulo, and I’m leaving tomorrow. Can you tell me what injections I need?” 

In exchange for avoiding some of the more stressful parts of the job, she also took a cut in salary. Janet now does four mornings a week, with plans to reduce to three or less to give her more “free” time to do housework, the shopping, cooking, cleaning, ironing, gardening, buy petrol, and talk to the neighbours. Time hangs heavy on her hands as you can see.

Tim has now moved into the 6th form at school and has become involved in a Young Enterprise group, making videos of school dramatic productions and printing T-shirts, all at great profit – he hopes. Football and computer games still rank very highly in his consciousness, though the need to work for A-levels is beginning to knock on the door with more insistence. He is studying Economics and English, with Biology to make up the load. He attends a couple of school youth clubs in the area and delights in coming home covered in mud after matches with friends two days a week. You would say that he is socially adjusted. Over this last year he has worked Friday evenings and all Saturday at KwikSlave (Oh dear! Have I spelt that wrong?) a grocery store in town, rubbing shoulders with little old ladies and half-honest store managers, one of whom went on extended leave after they had to retrieve his keys from the local police station one morning before they could open the store. So Tim’s education moves ahead on all fronts.

Ben is a completely different character, now almost as tall as Tim, with the promise eventually to be well over 6 feet. He enjoys French and German at school, but half hopes they will clamber on board with not too much effort on his part. Very affectionate and amazingly independent at times, he has just decided to join the local Air Training Corps. Although we would not want him to be channelled into the armed forces, we are aware that the ATC provides opportunities for adventure and experiences that are woefully lacking here in an over-ordered UK. He continues with the keyboard and also has his own circle of friends.

During August, we went Eurocamping in France and Germany, covering too many miles in the car. The weather was disappointing, and, at times half of France seemed to be where we were. The boys seemed unimpressed by the cross-cultural experience although they have waxed lyrical about it since. But we were very glad of the opportunity to visit Mike’s Aunt Mabel living in retirement in Villingen in the Black Forest.

We are now committed members of a small house church that meets together on a Sunday morning, meets to pray midweek, and opens the door wide to overseas students on a Sunday evening. Presently we’re running an Alpha initiative, which is stimulating and enjoyable, and numbers are slowly growing. The sector of the Christian church that is currently growing the fastest is apparently those who do not go to church. We understand that many are fed up with being told what to do and how to do it, and are opting out. So it is good to be part of a caring fellowship with no controlling influence except the love of God.

We continue to remain outward-looking, particularly towards Africa, where we follow events in what was British East Africa and South Africa with great interest. However the Lord has put us here for the time being, and we have to get on with whatever comes to hand. That doesn’t stop the heart being almost continually exercised about involvement overseas, and the hope that one we shall return to where we know there are wide-open doors for the gospel.

We have received very many newsletters bringing us up to date on the exploits of friends and family, and have read them with great interest. One contained a brief book review, and we should like follow their example and recommend a book to you. “Adventures in Reconciliation” (ISBN 0-86347-215-X at £4-99 pub. Eagle) tells the stories of twenty-nine Catholic believers. Some came from active membership of the IRA, and some from crushing personal tragedy, to a personal experience of the indwelling Christ and new meaning in their lives. We seek oneness with all who confess the Lord Jesus, from whatever church group they come, and consequently found this book very interesting.

We appreciate your love and friendship over the years. We are grateful for genuine friends who do not fluctuate or change, and send you our loving greetings.

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.