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Farming God’s Way Malawi October 2005 |
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Objectives
1. To build into the COTN Mozambican pastors 2. To do the second repeat of FGW training in Mozambique 3. Roll out third phase repeats of FGW in 4 zones in Malawi 4. Break into a new area in the Eastern region with Miqlat 5. Train & release 3 FGW trainers – Dixon, Elias, Henry Increase advocacy through significant influential spiritual leaders
The program was action packed from start to finish, which was wonderfully exciting nevertheless challenging.
The team consisted of: 1. Andrew Liebenberg – from PE RSA – he is a medical doctor who has given up 2005 to serve the Lord in the church but especially missions. 2. Elias Chunga – from Livingstone Zambia – COTN under Dyason – I trained him in FGW in Aug last year used the training in MOZ & Malawi to equip him fully so that he can take FGW into the 32 COTN Zambian churches, besides care for the 3 WWG’s existing in Livingstone, Zima & Simwami. Henry Malili- Healing Hope – I trained him in April & he has planted maize, beans, cabbages, spinach & tomatoes with wonderful yields. He has grasped FGW deeply & has now completed 3 WWG’s.
4. Dixon Shuwali – New Life Malawi – He serves as a full time pastor under Lloyd Chizenga & has become a well grounded in FGW both through the Well Watered Gardens & implementation of FGW himself. Lloyd Chizenga- New Life Malawi – Family of churches relating into COTN through Louis Els – He has over 300 churches that relate to him in Malawi & Mozambique, predominantly in the rural areas. Lloyd has really embraced FGW & besides his advocacy has also committed Farming a Hectare himself this season.
The challenges began after a full day of meeting arrangements & ministering to 120 Gogos at Healing Hope, whereafter I got a terrible stomach bug which wiped me out for 36 hours of sleep. I was literally too weak to get off my bed. Andrew caught the bug 24 hours after me & he was down for 3 days. It was quite a tough call, but after a long (gentle) walk in prayer I felt God give a major “GO” command, & so with a very ill Andrew, cuddled up under a blanket in 30 degree heat I left for Mozambique.
Mozambique Leadership input
Henry Malili from Healing Hope kindly dropped us at Nsanje, from where we left at 5.00am the next morning. The team consisted of Lloyd Chizenga, Elias Chunga, an interpreter, a driver who carried Lloyd, & myself. It was an extremely tough ride again as I had literally not eaten for 3 days & had only been able to drink game. The “border check points” (grass lean to) & crossing of the Shire river went smoothly & only the last hour of 40+ degree heat got me sideways holding down waves of nausea. We arrived in Megaza at 11.30 & I felt at least a touch better than I did the last time when I was completely dehydrated. I was far too weak to minister that evening & slept from 6.30pm thru the night. The following day I felt really fresh in the spirit & had at least 2,5 hours of preaching (Redemption through the blood of the Lamb) & thereafter put in a full Well watered garden for another 2 hours. The FGW adoption seems to be slow at this stage, but I am not concerned as it took at least 2 hits in each other area. However this year the reception by the 23 pastors & 50 odd congregants was very special & I am trusting God for real significant breakthrough. Elias spoke very well & carried himself with a real dignity & honour, & he is a real tribute to Dyason Sichabalala’s fathering. He was such a blessing to me for the duration of our time together, & it gave me so much hope to see what must be one of the first real black COTN missionaries in another country. He was radically impacted by the experience & I look forward to the fruit thereof.
On the Sunday I had an awesome time of sharing heart with the pastors concerning the heart of the Shepherd & other apostolic inputs. I just feel that something has broken in the heavenlies from last year to this & I am really excited about this. The window is wide open for us to minister there. Quick calculations of the 23 pastors I spent time with, indicate at least 900 people are under their care & yet they don’t have any “food” to feed them. I am trusting God that we will get 3 faithful men to commit to building & equipping the pastors in Moz on at least a yearly basis. We can get over 75 pastors if it is planned in advance as the balance will come from Reise & the Tete province. The access can be comfortably done by 4*4 from the Zambezi crossing & this means only this kippie without transport would have had to do the cycle – TWICE!!! To me it equates to having a discipleship of over 2000 people in the long run which would be a great privilege to be a part of.
There are many pressing matters in Mozambique at the moment one of which is the severe shortage of food. I looked at the store which was full last year & it had only 6 weeks of maize left in it. People all over are eating “Nyika”, which is a bulb which grows in the Shire river & flood plains. The women where telling us of how women & children have lost there lives collecting this bulb because of crocodiles. It grows deep in the mud with it leaves sticking out of the water, & so they have to dig it out with their hands & they make easy prey for the crocodiles. We were told of women who had lost their breasts, arms & had chunks taken out of there legs. Besides the obvious dangers, Nyika has no nutritional value & is very bitter. It really makes me wild to see men debased to living at these standards in today’s day & age, where children get single meals a day & rejoice with singing over a bowl of Ntsima (pap). Life is really tough in the drought & I saw countless bicycles with loads of Nyika being taken back to the villages. The maize price is much higher to that in Malawi & so the import from Malawi is oppressing the poor even more.
The significance of the presence we have had in amongst the COTN Mozambique pastors is really beginning to show with a real sense of building & the opening of the heavens. I just rejoice in the Word to go because I know if I hadn’t they would’ve gone for a whole 2 years with no “food”, so despite the situation God really turned the tide there significantly. I could almost feel the presence of God there & I heard later that the whole body had been praying for us. It certainly bore fruit as I didn’t eat (bar provitas) for 4 days & yet was really on eagles wings.
We really put foot, on the Sun evening return journey & made up an hour i.e. 5 hours return. It was such a joy to find Andrew waiting with Henry at Nsanje as you have no idea what it is like to be in such remote locations without a peer, besides Lloyd & Elias that is, who can speak English. I gave the bicycle to Pastor Rhoda who is about 55 now & who has served Lloyd faithfully for 11 years. His old bicycle was really well looked after & God was faithful to his word – he blesses faithful men. He was absolutely delighted & is looking forward to riding into Mozambique & serving his district with enthusiasm on his new bike. The idea of giving the bike to a Mozambican was avoided due the fact that spares are not available for mountain bikes there.
The training began early at Ngabu the following morning & Andrew preached a really powerful word which set a very ripe platform for the whole days training. I trained the 3 trainers during the WWG whilst doing training & it went very well. We had at least 60 people in attendance as well as the team from Miqlat which came down from Blantyre for the day. The WWG is in excellent condition & the healing of the soil is quite advanced after only one year, with significant insect channels, soil aggregates & organic matter accumulations.
Henry & Elias preached very powerfully & then I got Dixon to put the WWG in. It was a really special day all round with lots of mistakes & corrections & coaching going on & the whole team thoroughly enjoyed the hands on application & discipleship. The WWG is also in an excellent condition & what was once a slab of rock like sandstone is now soft & well structured with the signs of life returning in wonderful ways.
Wednesday we held a meeting at Amalika which was supposed to be a technical meeting but which ended up with 66 people from Zambia, RSA, USA, Canada & Malawi. A fair estimate would be to say that more than 12 church flows & organizations where represented. The meeting was held in Thyolo at Amalika, which is a self sustaining orphanage with over 120 orphans. Johan van der Ham, a South African, who oversees Amalika, very kindly hosted us. It really is an incredible place & a wonderful place for teams to come & serve orphans hands on. Johan has been FGW for 2 seasons now & has trained 15 young men who are all doing very well. He has become a friend this year & he is really passionate about becoming more involved in the roll-out of FGW. Some of the testimonies of his FGW farmers are really astounding & he has been very successful in mentoring these men to a high standard in the Lord.
I trained for over 3.5 hours that day & enjoyed a good sleep that night needless to say. There was a real sense of excitement especially amongst those I had selected & invited for reasons of “advocacy”. The follow up to this was them sending a huge delegation to the Goliyat training on Friday, so it certainly did a great job.
Thursday was a day of great rejoicing at Tsapa where over 15 farmers are FGW. We heard many testimonies of people who had made sufficient profits to buys bicycles, iron roof sheets etc. The Kingdom of God is coming to Tsapa!!! Even a non believer did FGW & made a roaring success – the Lord’s rain falls on both the righteous & the unrighteous, yet it was also an opportunity to share Jesus with him & I am trusting for his salvation. Yield testimonies streamed in & we were all very excited to go & see the lands. We were richly rewarded & I estimated yields comfortably reaching 6 tons/ha on 2 farm lands which is really awesome. There is also a beautiful beginning of sharing of FGW amongst the church & the breakdown of barriers between them through FGW. The church told me than more than 100 farmers would be FGW this year which is really exciting.
I had a very good time with Dan Gillespie from Miqlat & shared a lot of the heart of FGW with him & he is totally sold out on utilising FGW in the Eastern regions they are working into. I did a full days training in Goliyat with at least 300 people in attendance. This was a first time training for them & it was very well received. One of the young men that Johan has trained, Gracious, spent 3 days with us catching more of the heart & he has committed to oversee the WWG & ensure that there is follow up training at each critical stage. The Seedsowers trust, Miqlat, & James Lapka’s representative pastors were also there & they all embraced FGW with a real vigour & desire to be advocates & motivate the church in Malawi to get more involved.
Andrew & Dixon unfortunately found that the message had not gotten through to the pastor at Fatima & so they couldn’t do the WWG there. However Henry & Elias had an awesome time with the 25 pastors & congregants they trained at Mithondo which is 20 min from Fatima. Henry is by far the most advanced FGW trainer & he is very eager to take the good news into the central region where he comes from.
On Sunday I preached & Andrew brought a very powerful testimony which lead to many salvations & recommitments to the Lord which was very special. The synergy of a good team was clearly evident with the fruit of working together in the Spirit to great effect. There were around 90 people under a plastic sheet suspended by bamboo poles alongside a busy road, & they are planning to build shortly, however it doesn’t get much more rustic than that.
I took the team to Mt Mulanje on the Monday for the day & it was the first time any of them had been on the mountain. We had a really fun time & got the non swimmers into the pool – I did threaten them that I wouldn’t give them a certificate if they didn’t!!! We had a special time of debriefing & getting a view of their ideas for the near future & their involvement with FGW.
Henry’s Plans: - to train & help the 14 Gogo’s who have committed to FGW with their farms - to organize the villages around Bvumbwe to start FGW farms for orphans provisioning & to utilize these for discipling of orphans to help in following up the advocates of FGW to pair up more with Lloyd, Dixon, Bheema & others to take FGW in the central region Henry has put in a WWG in the prison & will continue to teach prisoners FGW
Elias’ Plans - to take FGW into Zambia to add to their apostollic team’s arsenal into the 32 churches of Future Hope (COTN Zambia) to put in the 3 WWG & FGW training before the end November for me to train his church in FGW & although they are peri-urban they all have land in the rural areas
Lloyd’s Plans - to start training the best of the farmers in the churches relating to him to start 1 ha of FGW himself to step up the advocacy of FGW into Malawi through the media of Radio & TV
Dixon’s Plans – to continue with FGW in his family lands He spent the whole of Sunday preaching about FGW in his own church & is going to use it as a discipleship tool he has indicated he will go into Reise in Mozambique to put in the FGW again on my behalf as I was unable to personally get there.
Summary of FGW Attendance excluding ministry:
I really appreciate the covering & support that my sending church Harvest, COTN, HHMI & friends & family have given into the serving of the poor in the domain of agriculture & I trust that you feel as much a part of the Kingdom of God coming to the poor as I have been privileged to.
Yours sincerely in His service, Grant Dryden
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