March News From Malawi

Sunday was an exciting day.  We started our first church on Sunday out in the village where the preschool is located.  The name of the school and church is “New Beginnings Ministry”.  We made the suggestion of the name and they loved it right away.  We told them as they choose to serve Jesus Christ, they will experience a “new beginning” in their life and village. The Group Village Headman Sadjiwa (the head chief) and seven other chiefs attended along with about 100 villagers. The villagers requested we start a church there.  We have a young man who we’ve been working with for over a year who is stepping in as the pastor.  He has been the one doing all our interpreting and “foot work” out at the school so the villagers know him well.  They know he cares about them and he has a true servant’s heart.  He gave his heart to the Lord in 1989.  The Lord gave him a dream in 1995 and since then he has felt a call on his life to pastor a church. He is very excited for the opportunity.  He has a strong desire to attend Bible school so we are going to try to raise the money to send him.  There is a school here he can attend for about $50 per term.  There are four terms to graduate.  This cost includes the Bible training, room and board. 

A couple Saturdays ago we did a clothing distribution out at our preschool.  There are now 213 children registered at the school.  We gave each of them two pieces of clothing and we had some larger sized clothing left over so we distributed clothing to the primary school age children who were present.  We ended up giving clothing to about 500 children.  There were about 25 chiefs and several hundred people present to watch the distribution so we preached to them, too.  The Lord blessed us with a “no rain” day which made it much simpler to do the distribution.

We started a new chief ministry in an area about 50 miles from Lilongwe.  Twenty chiefs attended and some of their wives.  Colleen taught two sessions.  We held the meeting in a new CCAP church building.  The building will seat 3000 people.  The pastor also attended the meeting.  He says he has 6000 members.  The pastor pleaded with us to come and do leadership training with his pastors.

Colleen will be speaking at a Women’s Tea this coming Saturday.  Many people have purchased tickets to attend including the High Commissioner for Zimbabwe, the wives of all the Zambian Embassy leaders, the president’s daughter, and some members of parliament.  Please pray the Lord will fill her mouth with His Words.

We will both be speaking at a three day leadership conference on Easter weekend.  We treasure your prayers.

It costs us $7 per gallon for gas and our truck only gets about 12 miles per gallon.  Slowly the money is coming in toward another vehicle.  We are looking for a diesel SUV which will get better gas mileage.  We treasure your prayers in this.

We are returning home mid-April for our daughter’s graduation from college.  We promised our children when we left for the mission field, we will come home for their milestones.  I’ve been so busy that I haven’t given much thought to coming home.  My mom asked me yesterday how we are getting home from MPLS.  I hadn’t even thought about making those arrangements.  I’m not really comfortable with my dad traveling alone, yet, so I hate to ask him.  I asked my mom to do some checking for me.  I think my brother Steve will be in Haiti again when we return.

Our plans for Joshua’s schooling are falling into place.  There is still unknown things but I guess we will trust God.  He doesn’t want to go the Maranatha but I think it is just a case of not “knowing” how he will be accepted and all that.  I’m sure he will do fine.  He makes friends so easy.  He had 20 friends attend his birthday party here.

God bless

John, Colleen and Joshua Smith

Haiti Videos on YouTube

Pastor Brad, Dann, and John brought back a lot of video from their Haiti trip.  You’ve seen only a fraction of the video at church.  If you’d like to see more we will be posting video blogs on YouTube periodically.  Keep checking back on this post for the updates!

Enjoy the videos and please pray about how you can help New Life with outreach in Haiti in the future.

If you have a YouTube account, please subsribe to our channel and rate the videos!   Thank You!

Here is a small glimpse at what our group experienced:

Here is a list of the videos currently posted (more coming soon!):
Haiti Music Video  
Haiti Video Blog 1 – Traveling the Dominican Republic & Crossing Into Haiti
Haiti Video Blog 2 (Part 1) – Touring Port Au Prince
Haiti Video Blog 2 (Part 2) – Touring Port Au Prince
Haiti Video Blog 3 – Reflecting on the destruction and working in Port Au Prince 
Haiti Video Blog 4 – Finishing work in Port Au Prince, sharing with those in need, and moonwalking lessons with Dann!
Haiti Video Blog 5 – Rebuilding a damaged home in the mountains and Super Bowl Sunday in Haiti
Haiti Video Blog 6 – Continuing work in the mountains & looking forward to future projects

Also, you can view our YouTube Channel Page to sort through the videos yourself.

Here is Steve Tucker’s video from the trip!  This video features a look at some of the work that was finished after Pastor Brad, Dann, & John left.