In his last update, Blessings Ndhlovu shared the challenge of teaching sexual purity to teens in his church and community. Blessings is planting a church in Twatasha Township, a poorer section of Kitwe, Zambia.
“I must admit that Faith Baptist Church Twatasha is a small church with a lot of struggles in many areas. Since the time I started pastoring here, I have had many challenges that I didn’t know how to deal with, but in God’s grace, He gives me wisdom in dealing with each struggle. For now, let me share one of many – the struggle of fornication and adultery.
Just last Sunday I was dealing with a church discipline case of a young lady who committed fornication and now she is pregnant. The biggest challenge right now is the sin commonly committed in the community. Most young girls get pregnant as if it’s a competition. Most of them drop out of school in grade 9, and in one or two years’ time get pregnant with no future, no education, and no work, giving an extra load to the parents.
The community has nothing to offer the youth. The challenge I have is to find how we are going to keep the youth from the activity of fornication. The church plot is big and we are thinking of putting in a volleyball court. The community has a lot of youth that come and we want to be having games every weekday evening and sharing God’s word with them.”
While Blessings is trying to reach the young people of Twatasha, Zambia, Brother Mala is trying to educate the women of Blantyre, Malawi on biblical womanhood. Antioch Baptist Church hosted their first annual conference on
“The Excellent Woman.”
He shared about the conference in his last update:
“Our vision for this conference was birthed out of a desire to see the restoration of biblical womanhood in our society. This subject is not very popular in today’s church and no one wants to talk about it. The conference was well attended by both older and younger women. Most of the women were university students and young professionals. It was lovely to see some mothers attending with their daughters. Over 100 women registered and a little over 90 attended the whole conference.
My wife Rachel was the first speaker, giving a message from Proverbs 31,
“Who is an Excellent Woman?”
Rachel
Rachel challenged the women by walking through the text and giving seven characteristics of an excellent woman. The message was completely different from what we hear today about womanhood. Session two came from Mapendo Munthali, a member of our church. Mapendo gave a message titled
“A Woman of Faith.”
From various passages, she showed the ladies what faith looks like in a woman’s life. Her message ended at the cross – faith in Jesus Christ for the salvation of our souls.
The third session was done by Jimmy Lipunga, a brother from a Presbyterian church within the city of Blantyre. Jimmy spoke on the subject
“Raising Godly Children.”
Jimmy Lipunga
He spoke as an older father giving counsel to his daughter, which was just perfect for a conference like this one. The last session was given by Bayana Chunga from another Presbyterian church within the city. Bayana spoke on
“The Roles of Women in the Home and Church”.
His session invited a lot of questions during the question and answer session, as you might imagine. It was good to finish on that note. The ladies had all kinds of questions on parenting, marriage, family life, women in ministry, submission in marriage, etc.
The response from the attendees has been very encouraging. We heard a lot of ladies who attended saying that the conference is a first of its kind in Malawi. Many young women told us that they had never heard the things preached at the conference. Some of the ladies who attended the conference have visited our church on Sunday. This is very encouraging. There seems to be a hunger for reality among most of the women who came.”
Please pray for the women of Zambia and Malawi, young and old, that the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ would take root and transform their lives.