After almost 48 hours of travel time to Malawi, we found a beautiful country full of awe-inspiring scenery and millions of wonderfully friendly people who always wear a smile on their faces. Malawi is a small peaceful country in the southern region of Africa bordered by Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.
We enjoyed the opportunity to partner with some new friends to train leaders of many different churches. Our first training took place in Blantyre, a city of almost 1 million people. We were at the Mbayani New Christian Church in the city region called Mbayani. Each day, the driver took us on the blacktop road to a market area located on a dirt road and then, he dropped us off when he could drive no further. We walked along the road, down a hill and up the next hill for about 10 minutes to get to our training site. Over the next four days, we saw about 80 people representing 25 churches from the region (including some in Mozambique). Some people traveled as far as 180km to be with us. (While traveling about 112 miles is easy in the USA, it takes a lot more effort in Malawi as we would find out.)
All of the trainees enjoyed our time together and learned a lot during our training sessions. We heard lots of laughs and saw lots of times when people experienced a stark eye-opening moment upon learning something new that applies to their specific situation. On the first day, Bishop Frank remarked, "You sound like you have been in Malawi for five years and know all about our churches... The people are going to think I told you what to say." At Mbayani, we covered topics such as:
Leading in challenging times
Character traits of a leader
Levels of leadership
Effectively studying the Bible
Resolving conflicts for good results
Developing leaders
Preparing sermons
Operating by priorities
We visited several other churches one afternoon to pray with and encourage the pastors and get a better feel for the areas the churches reach. Each church is located in areas surrounded by thousands of people and no cars (the pathways are fine for walking but not for driving). Some people walk for hours to attend church services.
We traveled to several other locations to provide training for groups of leaders who could not travel to Blantyre. We experienced one adventure after another as we traveled to places never before visited by Americans (or any Caucasians for that matter). We were at the base of a famous mountain, Mulanje, one day and well off the beaten path in an area called Nazilingo the next. We even took a three hour boat ride on Lake Chilwa to the island of Ngotangota. For our last day of training, we traveled back to the capital city of Lilongwe.
At the end of our last day of training, Pastor David said, "You have created a very practical training that everyone can understand and use... Many times people teach seminars using language that is hard to understand and teaching many principles that are hard to apply. The information you taught us is good for churches and could also be used in a business situation. This has been wonderful."
Almost all of the pastors we met never experienced any type of formal training before our time together. Some pastors started churches 15-20 years ago because God directed them to do so in their neighborhoods. The church planters we met had simply started churches in their homes in their hometowns and the churches grew over time. These pastors have prayed for years to receive some type of education. Everyone is eager to learn and apply new skills if someone will teach them.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect is our training will be translated into Chewa and Pastor Peace Pound will travel from place to place reviewing the training with the leaders to make sure they understand and apply all they learned. All-in-all, we taught over 200 leaders and ministered to well over a thousand people. We are so thankful for the opportunity to help these pastors and churches. Thank you for your prayers and financial support to help these churches in Malawi!
