Looking to the Lord for 2008

With the present situation in this country, we decided to go for grass roots ministry this year, rather than for big meetings or conferences.

This was at a Leaders’ Meeting, which we held on Monday evening, 17^th December, to discuss the coming year and try to get the beginnings of a Calendar for 2008. Not all were free to attend but we had Father Michael Hood, Mr Linus Nyakuhwa, Mrs Pelagia Masuku, Mrs Sesedzai Makaure, and Mrs Emma Muvirimi.

We will not exclude big meetings, especially Leaders’ Training Weekends, and perhaps a Community Day. However, there are many people with big needs these days, even in every family. We want to have Saturday training for point-of-need ministry, and we will encourage the Oldies, as well as the Newbies to be there.

We will have another Saturday afternoon session for Seminar training. It will help us to take a fresh look at the Seminar and share our experiences. Bringing people to baptism in the Spirit is something basic to which the Lord has called us and we want to see it happening all over Harare and Chitungwiza.

For a long time, we have neglected discipleship here in Harare, even though we give it when we go out to other areas. We decided to have discipleship at the Community House, every first Saturday of the month, for supportive group leaders, who can then give the same in their own areas. They can come with one or two others and work as a team. We will have to decide with those taking part whether once a month will be enough.

It will be good for supportive group leaders to meet regularly. Besides discipleship, there will be other topics, and they can share experiences and help one another.

People in supportive groups can contribute to transport costs of the leaders and to the cost of photocopying discipleship papers, (we need our own photocopier).

Next meeting will be with Mr Innocent Zininga in early January, on BLCC youth.

This was a good meeting with everyone showing leadership by sharing openly and in a good spirit. It set an example for the whole community. If we all pull together in this way, we will increase our effectiveness for the kingdom of God.

BLCC Calendar for 2008

First Saturday of the month, starting 2 February – Discipleship

Saturday 23 February, 1:30 p.m. – Point-of-need training

Saturday 15 March, 1:30 p.m. – Seminar Training

25–27 April – Leadership Training at Community House

29–31 August – Leadership Training at Community House

5–7 December – Leadership Training at Community House

That is what we have so far.

CHRISTMAS

See http://thegodbox.blogspot.com

Immanuel – God with us

Happy Christmas!

Learning from experience at Chikwaka

Visit to Chikwaka, 7th to 9th Dec. 2007; team: Liberty Zinhara (leader), Ms Viola Motsi, and Colin Makeche.

They say that it is hard for a man to cry, but in Chikwaka, when they gave a Seminar this weekend, they gave the teaching on repenting and believing in more of a preaching way, and men and women cried.

As God is touching people’s lives and meeting their needs, more people are coming to the BLCC Community at Chikwaka to ask about this Jesus.

Those who came at the start and then disappeared are coming back. They are admitting that they cheated us before and pretended to praise God but now they are repenting because they see God is answering the prayers of those who believe in Jesus.

At the last visit, the team prayed for one woman who was disabled and using crutches for eight years. This time they found she had put the crutches aside and she is walking normally.

They had also prayed for a broken marriage. The father had left, and for twelve years was not looking after his family. The team found this time that the man is providing clothing and school fees for the children.

There was also a woman with a hysterical pregnancy. She had consulted n’gangas (witchdoctors) and diviners and this had caused her stomach to swell as if she were pregnant. When she found she did not give birth to a baby, the doctors told her there was no foetus. Nevertheless, she remained with this swollen stomach for twenty-two years. After prayer, she returned to normal.

Recommendation: next time we need a team to continue with point-of-need ministry while others help the people at Chikwaka to give a Seminar.

Based on a report from Mr Liberty Zinhara

COMMENT

There seems to have been some superficiality in our ministry at Chikwaka, when we thought things were going on well, and we have to develop our approach.

Originally, we used to give a Seminar on a weekly basis with one teaching per week; that is probably the best way to give a Seminar. But it is difficult to do it this way with out-going ministry, and we rarely do it that way even in Harare.

Nevertheless, it might be better, especially in a new place, not to give the whole of a Seminar in a single weekend, but to give only two teachings in a weekend, on different evenings, while carrying on with point-of-need ministry during the day. In this way, we will complete a Seminar over three visits.

This will give time for the teachings to sink in, and it will give time for the people to adjust their lives and to grow. It will also encourage the people doing the Seminar if the team visits them in their homes and prays for their personal and family needs.

This could result in a deeper change in a person’s life and a better Seminar.

Discipleship at Fourwire

A team of three gave a discipleship weekend, from 7^th to 9^th December 2007, at Fourwire, in Hurungwe. (The name ‘Fourwire’ comes from when there used to be a game reserve in that area and part of it was fenced with eight wires while another part was fenced with four wires.) The team was Mr Shadreck Makore (leader), Manners Sheshe, and Catherine Maisiri.

Due to funerals in some places, a small group of just over 20 people attended, coming from seven different places. However, it was a Spirit-filled weekend with everyone very much involved. The team gave teachings on private, personal prayer, praise, nine ministerial gifts of the Holy Spirit, tongues, prophecy, and singing ministry.

Mr Makore reports that Manners is a good teacher who teaches with strength and authority; Catherine is also a good teacher though she moves into a preaching style when she gets going.

In discipleship, a practice session always follows the teachings, and we often find that the Lord works in the group according to the subject matter. Manners gave the teaching on the nine ministerial gifts of the Holy Spirit, and one of these gifts is the gift of miracles.

In the group, there was a woman with a problem. She had already shared with Catherine that for three years her breasts had been running continually with milk and even with blood, since the time she had weaned her child. She had been to clinics and to herbalists, to diviners and to independent apostolic churches but had found no help. She had also attended various Pentecostal churches, but her problem persisted.

In the practice session of this teaching, the discipleship group prayed for her as part of the practice. She then went outside with Catherine who confirmed that the flow of milk had dried up. In the evening of that day and at the end of the weekend, she testified again that she was having no problem at all.

There was also a man who had bought a car in the 1980s. The first time he had driven this car, he was suddenly afflicted with a pain in his leg, right up to the hip, and was unable to continue driving. He also had looked everywhere for help without finding any.

When the group prayed for him, he became possessed and began to contort his face, manifesting various creatures, which indicated a number of spirits within him. When the group prayed for deliverance and these evil spirits left him, he found that the problem he had borne all these years had disappeared.

At the house where they held the discipleship, one of the sons and his wife were sitting in the kitchen not taking part because they thought it was not for them since they attended an independent apostolic church. However, the ministry going on in the lounge affected this man and an evil spirit began to afflict him. Mr Makore said he must join the group, not sit in the kitchen. The group prayed for him and set him free. He stayed for the rest of the weekend and said afterwards that he wanted to be there next time they came.

The Lord’s work may sound good in the telling of it, but in the doing of it, it is hard work. Even afterwards, on the return journey, the team had to wait four hours in rainy weather for a bus without seeing one, and then had to take an expensive lift to Banket and boarded a bus for Harare from there, arriving late on Sunday evening. In spite of all this, we thank God for this good weekend.

Freeman Mupunga in Hurungwe

We are finding more and more that people from various churches are interested in what we have to offer in BLCC. It has always been a mark of the Renewal that the Holy Spirit is working in the whole of God’s church, wherever people are open and seeking God’s blessing. It is a simple exercise of discernment to see how the Spirit is working and from that, to find what seems to be God’s way.

When Mr Freeman Mupunga learnt about Jesus and witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the BLCC group at Marere, in Hurungwe, he said goodbye to Zion, an African Independent Church, to which he had belonged. He joined, instead, the AFM (African Faith Mission) because their way of praying was close to how he had learned to pray in the prayer group. He might even have become a Catholic, but his marriage situation made this difficult.

Soon after this, Freeman moved from Marere to Muzilawempi, an area where there is a big, new Seventh Day Adventist church and where most of the people are SDAs (Seventh Day Adventists).

Freeman is a member of BLCC and he felt within him that he wanted to do the Lord’s work, as he had seen people doing at Marere, so he wanted to start a BLCC group where he was living. The question was how to get these SDA people to listen to him. He found that they wanted to teach him their doctrines rather than to listen to him telling them about Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

He managed to start a small prayer group when the Lord healed a certain man there of a problem with his legs and he was then able to walk. Jesus healed the sick in the context of preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and it is the same today.

Freeman had many discussions with a woman living next door, but she only wanted to share the issues of her church and did not want to hear his message. One day, however, someone sent a malignant spirit against this woman, which caused her baby to become seriously sick. She had been to the n’ganga (witchdoctor) to no effect and the baby was in danger of dying.

When Freeman came home, he heard the noise going on next door and he started to pray. Eventually, they sent someone to call him to come and help, and he said to the woman, ‘How come you ask me to help? All this time you have been rejecting the Jesus that I pray to?’ The woman knew the baby was in a crisis and she said, ‘Please, pray for my child’.

Freeman went ahead and, in the name of Jesus, came against the spirit that was troubling the child. The child returned to normal, he gave it to the mother, and it started to breast-feed. The woman stood there and started to shake. From that time on, she began coming to the prayer meeting, and others came with her.

There are by now two BLCC prayer groups in that area with around 30 people in each. One of the groups has mainly SDA members while the other, in a different area has people of various churches. Freeman is working to strengthen them with Life in the Spirit Seminars and Discipleship Teachings.

As the prayer groups grew, the leaders of the SDA church came to Freeman with their questions. They especially wanted to know if he planned to take away the members of their church.

He assured them that it was not his plan to take people away from their particular churches, so long as they are good Christians. He explained that BLCC is not a church, it is a Community, and it holds prayer meetings to which any people can come. If this helps them to be more committed to Jesus and to value the work of the Holy Spirit, this can only improve their church.

It seems, then, BLCC includes a group, most of whom are Seventh Day Adventists, with a leader who belongs to African Faith Mission. I would never have planned or even imagined such a thing, but if this is the work of God, let it go ahead and let the gospel be a blessing in people’s lives. We are not trying to take over their church or to take over their people; when God works with people, they become God’s people, whatever church they attend.

It is good to see leadership in Hurungwe; the Holy Spirit and leadership go well together. We expect to hear more reports of how the Lord is using Freeman Mupunga to bring people deeper into God’s kingdom in the Hurungwe area.

The adventures of Sister Epi

From the time she first arrived at the Community House, it was plain that Sister Epiphania was very much a Sister. We used to joke with her and with one another that she saw all the young men in the community as fit material for the seminary, and she was never shy to tell them so. She had come to us in an emergency and we gave her refuge for two or three months while she sorted out her life.

She was the sort of Sister that, if she went to town by bus, in her grey habit and white veil, someone would always stop and give her a free lift. Even if she was accompanying another to the bus stop and was not going anywhere herself, cars would stop and people would try to insist that they give her a lift.

One day she went to town and this big posh car stopped for her. When she was inside, a man in the back spoke to her and said, ‘Are you not going to greet me, Sister?’ It was only then that she realized that Mr Gideon Gono, the governor of the Reserve Bank, was the one giving her a lift.

He joked with her on the way, asking her questions like what she thought was the solution for the economic situation, and what she thought of the President. Sister responded in a similar joking manner, ‘The President? Ah, yes. Who is the President, by the way?’ When she alighted, he said he would have liked to give her a gift but he did not have any money in his pocket, only foreign currency.

Sister had a great gift of ‘helper’, and this was very evident as she made herself useful in different ways in the house. What she lacked, however, was the gift of tongues, and this she very much wanted. We did try to help her with this but we could see she was not ready and so we decided not to hurry but to give her time.

Eventually, we were having a Seminar at the Community House and I said to her, ‘Sister, you are taking part in this together with everyone else.’ She did not seem too happy about that but seemed to think that, as a Sister, she should be helping to give it, not to take part. However, when the time came she was there, in humble obedience, sitting on the carpet together with the others.

When we reached the time of preparation for baptism in the Spirit and people were praising God aloud, Sister Epi was quiet and ‘in her place’. I started to move her around a bit and prevented her from returning to her usual place. I have to confess that I took her by the shoulders and shook her and shouted in her ear that she should forget for now that she is a Sister and open her heart up to the Lord and praise Him right out loud. Did I overdo it? I felt I had, but Sister accepted it and responded. Anyway, by the end, we were all happy that Sister was praying in tongues along with everyone else.

Sister Epi would go occasionally to Archbishop’s House seeking help for her problems. When she did this, she would always have two or even three bishops, as well as one or two priests, listening to her and giving her advice.

She was coming one day from such a visit and mulling over their advice as she walked through town when she suddenly realized she was in the midst of lots of expensive cars and police and soldiers. Sister Epi realized she was in the midst of government ministers and even the president, as she could hear the voice of president Mugabe calling out from his car, ‘This is my Sister; she is a Sister from my church’.

One big police officer, with buttons and badges on his uniform, came up to her and told her she was not supposed to be in this area. Sister began to apologise and wanted to leave but he said, ‘No, you must stay and say a prayer for us.’

She said she would pray for them as she went, but the officer said, ‘No, you must pray right here’. She was shaking as she prayed aloud there for all those big people, for wisdom for the President, and whatever else, but they were supporting her with big ‘Amens’ and other encouraging comments.

What plans does the Lord have for our Sister Epi’s life that He puts her through such experiences? Sisters and priests can be the most difficult people to help. Many of them seem so fixed in their way of life that they are not very sensitive to the wind of the Spirit. Yet they are God’s servants and the Lord is with them.

Anyway, Sister Epi is now in Zambia for a while. She was in tears when she left us, and I knew we would miss her too. We wait to hear what other tales she will have to tell us when she gets back.