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.