A Tale of a Malawian Pastor

The Bible to be repaired; With our daughter Karen;

I am Kondwani Nyanda, the Preacher. For a long time i have had the desire the serve the Lord, and graciously the Lord has opened doors for me so that i can be throughly equiped to rightly handle the word of truth (2Timothy 2:15) i have learnt to preach the word, to be ready in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke exhort... 2Tim. 4:2. i am still being equiped. I have just realized that it is hard to plant a church in africa and expect the church to fully finacially support you, without putting a burden on the young church. There are few ways to get out of this finacial distress, you either should plead with you church to give more, of which in most cases its impossible without compromising your preaching, or you can fully rely on the support from overseas, this seems easy, most people want to support african pastors, nothing wrong with that. I came to the conclusion that i will not twist and turn the word of God and scare people to give more "if they want the Lord to bless them" so that i can put food on the table and send my children to school. I have few friends overseas, the question is how can they help me, giving me money is great but its not a long time thing, besides what happens when we have "economic melt down turn?" If you are helping an African pastor, don't stop, mainly of you are aware of what he is doing. For me, i have decided to work with my hands, to involve myself in "tent making ministry" Why? because of my testimony, it would be great to testify one day in church that i have worked with my hands to support my family. Right now, i am Binding both Old and new bibles with leather, Willie Van Raaij a friend from south Africa took His precious time to teach me this trade, and i am excited that i am doing this, and if one must help me, i would suggest that he does that by boosting my business, this will be the best help one can help me. i am working from home. I think teaching theology in Africa is great, but it will be lacking if the students were not taught some kind of skill, and as a result, friends from America, Europe and other first world countries, will continue receiving emails from their friends down in Africa here, begging them for money for food and other basic needs. My prayer is that the Lord will bless the work of my hands and that in all i do, He will be glorified.

Our Church is pretty small, but we desire to grow, and the only effective way of doing so is by remaining in His word, i dont want to do anything that is not biblical in order to register a huge number of people, regarding the money, eish!! its no secrete that we need support very much, we would like to trust the Lord even for this! thank YOU for taking time to read this!

Serving Christ!

Cool Karen!

Well, it has been a while since i last update this blogsite, a number of reasons for this really, first, and very important of all, ignorance, yeah! i didnt know how to update my blog, one good Samaritan showed me how easy it was! now i have no excuse, the other reason being family! when you have two children of five years and 6 weeks! life goes one quickly, but i am enjoying it so much!

This is our new Family Picture, i am holding Karen Kondwani Nyanda offcourse! and Karen Before she was born!

The Church is growing well, we have people coming and what is important is to see their growth in the word! Keep on praying for us, the area i am working in is a low class area, its so hard for the people in this area to find food for themselves let alone to give to their pastor( Me!) so My plan is to find money and start a business which in the long run will support me and others in the ministry! So help me in your prayers that i will be able to find Capital to start a small scale business, i mean Paul did it and He was successful in His ministry, i would do it too dont you think?

To God Be All The Glory!

Pray for us:

1. For Protection
2. For Good Health
3. For Growth in our Church
4. For Finacial Support
5. For God to raise godly men as leaders for our Church.

Service in 2009

The rains have taken a break, we hope not for a long time otherwise we will be faced with starvation! We are drawing towards the time of election here in Malawi, campaign will start in two days, more promises, its always the poor who are cheated, and these selfish politicians are always going to these vulnerable people, giving them sugar, salt and party clothes to persuade them to vote for them. please pray for us that whoever wins will not boast so much and whoever loses will accept defeat and go home! The Lord continues to protect us in our family, we live not far away from Lilongwe town in an area called 36, This is one of the areas that has been hit by the Cholera out break, this water borne disease has claimed the lives of over 65 people already, we happen to live in one of the areas that has been hit by this diesese, as i am writting this update, we have stayed without running water for 4 days, but the Lord is keeping us safe! The church is growing, i will be fully involved with a church in the nearby village, this is one of the poorest areas in Lilongwe, but the people are very eager to be taught, they are tired of the hearing preachers telling them lies, people go to these poor people and tell them that God doesnt want them to be poor, and that if they are poor its because they havent been faithful in their giving, they are more often told to "sow a seed" {whatever that means} if they want God to reach out to them, it is my heart desire to preach the word to people like these, empowering them so that when some people come with the false teaching, they will be able to biblically refute it. in few days i will post pictures of the area i will be working, and the homes of the people i will be visiting.

Pray for us;

• That the Lord will continue to grant us good health


• That the Lord will provide a car that we can use in our service to him and also for our own own use.


• That the Lord will help out during the elections in May.


• For the Lord to open more doors for me to preach.


• For Patricia during this time of pregnacy, for her safety as she travels in our public transport.

Serving

MY PRAYER FOR “CHISOMO BIBLE CHURCH”
Where is Chisomo Bible church? How long has this church been in existence? Who planted this church? These and many others would be the questions that could be acceptably asked by people. Chisomo is the Chichewa word for “Grace” It has been my desire for some time now to be a pastor of a church here in my home country, Malawi. The Lord paved the way for me to be equipped, and I am aware that, all these were happening so that I could be a tool that the Lord would use in strengthening the church in Malawi. I believe that the time is here now that I can be part of the laborers who are faithfully serving the church which the Lord died for. For some time now I have been meeting with a group of people from a very poor neighborhood, at first I had my doubts about this, I was afraid of the future because looking at the class for these people, I was convinced that there is no way I could be financially supported by this church, but then looking at the zeal and willingness to be taught of these people, I thought that this would be one way I would contribute to the strengthening of the church here in Malawi. As for the support, I decided that I would leave all that in the hands of the Lord. That’s how Chisomo Bible church was started, there are not a lot of people today, but there are ready people, eager people who are willing to learn from the word of the Lord, what else can I ask for? Like I have indicated above, there are a lot of churches here in Malawi, I mean almost every government, private school classroom is filled by churches on Sundays, but most of these churches are starving, almost every church is preaching the same message, of prosperity, good health for all, and God doesn’t want you to be poor kind of messages. My heart desire is to see this church being a model church, and I am sure that by the grace of God we will get there. I therefore would like to share with you a three phase plan for this church.
1. Short term Plans
2. Mid-term Plans
3. Long- term Plans

SHORT TERM PLANS
We are planning of renting a place in the location where most of our people are coming from, and for now we will be meeting in either classroom. My main job will be to preach and teach the word of God probably every Sunday. I would like for our people to know what our church believe, so that they will be equipped to refute the many heresies which are rampantly increasing in our country. During this time, it is my prayer to identify some capable men who would be willing to be trained into becoming leaders of this church so that before long we can have godly elders of this church, so far there are four men who will soon start studying with me. We would like also to see evangelism growing during this time, we will be doing door to door evangelism, which I believe is the sure way of getting the message across to people, it is my prayer that people will come to our church simply because they have heard the word, or they would like to hear the word. The most important thing that will be happening during this time will be evangelism and training of men who would be qualified biblically to be elders of Chisomo Bible Church.
MID TERM PLANS
During this period of time, we would like to move out of the classroom to our own place, we would like to see the church buying the property right in the village, and my heart desire is to moving in there even before finishing the building. In this way, the people will be motivated to see where they are meeting and would be willing to work hard in order that we have a better place. Since most people who live in this area doesn’t have much, I thought it would be helpful for us to build the church building ourselves, and this is how I thought we should do it;
1. We will ask the people to mould the bricks, and the church will pay them, in this way we will provide some sort of income to their families, because almost everyone will be involved in this project, for us to mould the bricks we will need women to be getting water and the men to be molding the bricks, all these will be paid for so that we are not only reaching out to their spiritual needs, but also their spiritual needs.
2. We will then burn the bricks, still using the man power from the brothers and sisters from the church.
3. This area has got skilled men who are good builders, we would like to reach out to them too, that’s why, we would like for this church to be built by the brothers and sisters, who will be paid as well, the reason for doing this is to create the sense of honor ship, once this church is built, it will not need any one to remind them to take good care of this building.
4. We will need help financially in this area. And if people want to financially assist and also come on a short term mission to help the brothers build this church that will be appreciated. I just don’t think it is a good idea for some people to send in their support and for us here to hire some people to build the church, rather, I think it is helpful for us to hire the brothers and sisters who are the members of
During this period, we would also like to identify those who are in need, and seek ways of how the church can be of assistance. This will be the beginning of our ministries; we have in mind some ways of how we can reach out in our ministries to the people of this area. There are few areas that our ministries can be developed in this area;
1. The needy children.
We are faced with this great deadly disease which has taken a lot of parents living behind a lot of children helpless and without any hope for the future, of H.I.V and Aids, everyone around the globe will be lying if he would say he hasn’t been touched by it, I believe that it is the opportunity for the church to serve these needy children, children who are intelligent in class, but have dropped out of school because no one is there to care for them, the church will make sure to adopt these children, making sure that they are attending school, and that they have parental care. We plan to look find people who would “adopt” not taking them away! But provide at least education for them. There are a lot of organizations around the world who are involved in this noble duty, at the end of the day, the venerable children are not even helped, the chairman’s children are the ones enjoying the support which is intended to go to these people, at Chisomo Bible Church, we will make this a ministry, and will try to appoint people who are trustworthy, and those who have got a burden for this ministry to be involved. Already we have a man who is willing to reach out to the children in this location with the word of God.
2. Farming Ministry
Most families here, have in some way or another been affects by hunger, when people somewhere here in Malawi have got a lot of food, some do not even know where their next meal will come from, this is why we would like to introduce the farming ministry. This is how it will work; the church will acquire a piece of land where people will be coming to cultivate maize “corn” we will divide this piece of land families, each family will look after their own garden, the church will help in providing the fertilizer, the seeds, and treatment for this garden, the families responsibility will be to till the land, look after it, so that it will give them food for the whole year.
These and many other ministries will help in building up the church.
LONG TERM PLANS
After the church has shown signs of growth, we would like to expand this ministry, we would like to plant a church that will be like ours, and how will we do that? The first thing we will do will be to make sure that we have well trained men, who will be able to look after other men, and help in planting health churches. We would like to be a place where men are trained to serve the Lord, like it has been indicated right at the beginning of this document, we have a lot of churches in Malawi that I don’t think it would be appropriate to plant any other church, so our main focus will be to help out in the churches that are not so health by sending in men who are equipped to serve. We would also like to be involved in conducting pastors and leader’s conferences, there are Pastors conferences in town, but not in the locations, we want to take the conference to them, so that they don’t have to travel long distances for a conference.

All these are Just plans, this is what we would like to see happening, we however are fully aware that the Lord is in full control, He knows what is best for us, he knows what the people are in need of. This is my heart desire, to see the Malawian church growing deeper in the word and practical Christianity. I need support for all this to happen, I need prayer support, which is very important, and I need financial support up until the church is able to support a pastor, which honestly speaking will not be soon. I will need help also in the form of partners, those who love to personally get involved in this work, be it building the church, evangelization of the lost and any other way the Lord would lead you to serve the Malawi church. Just across our border, in Zambia, they have some solid churches, we do not have more of those, this is the reason I would like to remain here and serve Him.
You can get involved.