Teamwork...

We are grateful to have such a great team of prayer partners and connecting churches.  One of the churches that is helping us with our work with the Tumbuka people is First Baptist Church of Rock Hill, SC.  This church is just up the road from the church that I served at in Rock Hill before we came to the mission field.  The brought a team of 5 out recently and did a great job in Egichikeni.

Each morning the team did their individual devotions and then we got together for a quick team meeting and short devotion.

After that we would stop by the market to pick up some things for lunch that day.  I would coach the team member who was buying so they could ask for the items in the language:

Each day they would travel an hour and fifteen minutes from Lundazi to Egichikeni over a very rough road.  Although I know it was hard on them, they never complained once... in fact one of the team members even took the opportunity to take a nap each day!  

After praying with our translators we spent the mornings doing "door to door" evangelism.  Each day we visited the same houses telling a different story from the Bible that addressed cultural issues that we feel needed some attention so they could make a knowledgeable/informed decision to follow Christ.  

Sometimes the groups gathering were small, others were quite large!

In the afternoons we would gather for a time of discipleship.  We told stories from the Bible that taught us how to keep our eyes on Jesus.  The team did an awesome job in both the evangelism and discipleship time.  Although we didn't count people that came all of the days, we did the last two days.  During those two days 98 people heard a clear Gospel presentation and 20 people came to faith in Christ!!!  

On Sunday the visiting Pastor preached and one of the team members gave her testimony:

Our last day the team went to say their goodbyes to the people they had been visiting during the week as well as to their translators:

One of the side benefits to teams coming is the interaction it gives our kids with Americans and their culture... such as smores!  

We are so grateful for the team and the work they did in Egichikeni.  We will probably never know this side of eternity the impact that they had on that small community.  I do know that they were well prepared to share the stories and teach people there how they can follow Christ.  We know lives were changed, yet we know that there is still much work to be done.  We are thankful that Bethel Baptist, the mother church to the one in Egichikeni, had already planned a follow up weekend there when their members were going to go out and check on those who indicated they wanted to follow Christ!