Wonderful closing

Again, this training week was very fruitful. This time we held it on top of the mountain in the little church next to Byson’s house. Once again, we had 12 men who were eager to learn and very grateful for everything they heard.
This time, we drew the three circles with a nail in the floor of the church. No fancy vinyl or carpet, just trampled earth. The exercises caused a lot of laughter.
When people sing and dance in this church on Sundays, it sometimes causes quite a bit of dust. No smoke machine is needed here. We just dance for the Lord.

With a received pen and notebook, the men sat ready every day to take notes on the lessons from the Bible and the videos of Farming God’s Way. Next month is sowing season, so the lessons come just in time.
There was even one pastor who does not own any land himself, but became so enthusiastic about the videos that he decided to start farming a small piece of land.

Once again, the Bible Society saw us return this week for the second batch of Bibles. This time, 14 heavy boxes, songbooks, and children’s Bibles. In an old rattling van, we drove up the bumpy, unpaved rocky “road” to the mountain where Byson lives. The men were already waiting to carry the boxes on their heads along the goat path to the church of Byson.

The students were so enthusiastic that they collectively decided that Saturday would be the last day of training instead of the planned Sunday. They were eager to be in their churches on Sunday to share what they had learned with the believers and distribute the Bibles.
So, after many words of gratitude, this group also returned to their villages, and we said goodbye to our last training group.

Byson also learned many new things! That’s not surprising when you spend two and a half months with azungu. For the first time, he ate pasta, a hamburger, pizza, and Dutch licorice. He learned how to set up his business and how to manage money. He learned how to explain the good news to someone using the handy circles. He learned to overcome the African dependency syndrome. And so on.
He is already enthusiastically building up a stock of soap from what he has earned, so that his family can sell it when he is teaching somewhere in the country.
In a while, he wants to visit all the churches again and continue to teach the Bible and practical lessons that he has learned from us during this time.

With a big African smile, he says: God has given me now a lot of work to do through you.
God knows what He is doing. Byson is a serious man of integrity who likes to help and teach others. We were able to sow the seeds, and God is the Lord of the harvest.

But we discovered that God’s work was not yet completely finished in Malawi. He had one more surprise in store for us.
Whenever we were in the city of Blantyre, we stayed at the same hotel. We found the hotel to be on the pricey side, but each time we didn’t get around to moving to a cheaper place to stay. But God had a purpose for this. In the hotel there was also a businessman, a white Namibian, who is doing business in Malawi and has been staying there for a year. We occasionally had a short conversation with him at breakfast. We noticed that he appeared more and more often at breakfast when we were there. And we asked God what He wanted to do for him.

A few days later, he suddenly started asking questions. He told us that he had a lot of trouble in his life and wondered if it could have something to do with his ex-girlfriend who is doing occult practices. We were able to explain to him that curses had probably been placed on his life, causing him to experience these problems. He said that he should have died several times, but had escaped death each time. He also said that he has been more involved with God for the past six months.

Here was a person who was open to God. The Spirit was clearly working on him, and we were now able to help him further. We explained that God certainly wanted to set him free from these things, but also invited him to surrender his whole life to Jesus so that he himself could experience peace with God. We were able to explain the good news of Jesus to him using the three circles.
Afterwards, he said that he understood and that he was ready to leave his old sinful life behind. He said, now I’m going to my room kneel down to surrender my life to Jesus. Praise God! How wonderful it is to be able to work together with God so that people who are searching can receive His life! God has an eye for the one.

These have been tropical months, literally and figuratively, but what amazing things God has done in people’s lives!
This Thursday, this mission will come to an end and we will set foot on Dutch soil again.
How we will enjoy cheese, milk, vegetables, brown bread, family, and friends after eating a very carbohydrate-rich diet of rice, fries, nsima, and very few vegetables.