2. 2022

Malawi

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Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.
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Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.

2022MalawiLilongweRay Muetz

  • Ray and Tracy prepared Mexican tacos for the Malawians, who had never heard of them.
  • Tracy loved getting the opportunity to get into the kitchen with the sisters here. These ladies have been tirelessly taking care of us from morning to evening, and if there is any success in missionary efforts like ours it rides heavily on this support. It doesn't end for them when we go home either, whenever a minister is found riding a bicycle or motorcycle hundreds of kilometers to reach out and help others, he is backed by both a family and a church holding the fort at home without him. These sisters do their best to stay invisible in their work, but we see them, and we couldn't do anything without them!
  • Ray and Tracy prepared Mexican tacos for the Malawians, who had never heard of them.
  • Ray and Tracy prepared Mexican tacos for the Malawians, who had never heard of them.
  • Ray and Tracy prepared Mexican tacos for the Malawians, who had never heard of them.
  • Tracy and Bro. Ray spent a day and change prepping and then fed something like sixty Malawians Mexican tacos. Malawians have never heard of tacos before, so here's Bro. Ray describing how to fill and eat a taco. He and Tracy then personally built the tacos so nobody could get it wrong. We can't say this is the first time anyone has had tacos in Mzuzu, but it could be... 🤣
  • Bro. Michael Phiri holds a few of the bibles we have purchased for local believers. He has an outreach church that he travels to and helps periodically, and he wanted to make sure he got ahold of a few bibles to bring there next Sunday. We had a conversation about relative costs for things between Malawi and the U.S. Bro. Phiri is renting a 3-bedroom house in town currently for 37,000 kwacha per month - that's about $45 USD. Each of these bibles costs us 9,000 kwacha ($11) which is one fourth of his monthly rent. Where I currently have my bus parked near Portland, Oregon, a 3-bed house is renting for roughly $2500 USD, which means for a bible to cost the same proportionate to rent alone, it would cost a Portlandian $625. With people here making so little that they don't always eat, it's no wonder so many families here have been unable to afford a Bible.
  • This is Bro. Michael Tshilumba from Uganda. One afternoon here in Malawi he told me a story of when he was returning from a missionary trip to Tanzania and the boat he was crossing Lake Victoria on was attacked and sustained a two hour firefight with rockets and gunfire, which only ceased when he made his way to the common area where dozens of people were huddled crying, and stood and said a prayer for the attackers to go away. But that is another story; this one is about what happened that night after he got off the boat. In his own words: <br /> <br /> "I got in an accident in 2000 we were just preparing the communion toward the end of the year. that night I got in a very terrible accident so that this eye was almost gone. It was bleeding down, up. I found myself in the ICU for the whole night unconscious. So out of the hospital I could not see the eye. All the doctors could say “nothing to do for you”. I traveled to Equator in just the Congo following a doctor who could work on the eye. Unfortunately he was not there. So a brother took me deep in the forest, initially he told me it was a walk for one day, and we found ourselves in the forest for three days. Deep there I'd been meditating on the message, the present duty of my ministry, and I could not read, I could not sleep, the eye it was red. I could put these (gestures as if donning sunglasses) sometimes to hide it, for almost four months. Then that day after reading the Message I told God, “If you remove this eye I will also close the Bible. I will preach no more. I will not be preaching with one eye.” And that was all. And that very night I found myself in the hospital and they were operating the eye. Just after some minutes I came out from the room with a testimony that this man, this specialist, he just touched the eye and it looked how it looks right now. So for me, I thought that when I came back to town they would operate and it would be okay, because it was deep in the forest, no mirror, I could not see anything. One week later I came back to town and the first person to meet me was my wife. After looking at me she cried and ran back in the house, “Honey what happened?” I said “What?” “But your eye!” “What” “Let me bring you the mirror.” She came with the mirror, and the eye was just the way it is. So I discovered, that very night it was finished. When I was thinking that I would meet the doctor, that everything was completely done that very night. So with this eye I went deep in the forest, I preached for years and years, because I told God, if you heal it I'm going to continue preaching. I preached all kinds of nights even oil... the small cloth put in oil, I could read the Message using it. I've never put on glass. The first glass I've put on was yesterday when Brother Ray gave me his glass when I was complaining of not seeing well. Now that I am passing fifty it is normal. I can't take off that, but the eye is okay."
  • Believers in one of the churches we visited in Lilongwe.
  • Believers in one of the churches we visited in Lilongwe.
  • Believers in one of the churches we visited in Lilongwe.
  • Church members' transports staged outside the church as we have service.
  • Believers in one of the churches we visited in Lilongwe.
  • Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.
  • Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.
  • Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.
  • Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.
  • Saturday afternoon service in Lilongwe.
  • After service on Saturday night we were able to distribute 40 new bibles donated by friends back home to the members of this church here in Lilongwe.
  • After service on Saturday night we were able to distribute 40 new bibles donated by friends back home to the members of this church here in Lilongwe.
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