In at the Deep End 

Andrew and Tryness are from Malawi, but live in South Africa in an area called Sweetwaters. They recently started opening up their home for prayer and worship, so a group quickly started gathering, mainly people from Malawi and Zimbabwe who are away from their families for work. Suddenly Andrew found himself in the spotlight, being asked to preach and teach his people! You can imagine how useful he has found the online theology videos - he’s been able to watch them over and over again and take notes. 

When asked what he’d learnt, he said, ‘so so much’. He feels more confident now as he understands about the different parts of the bible and how they hang together as a whole. And Tryness said she learned about the Roman Empire at school, just to pass exams, but now she realises that the bible is set in that time - the same Roman Empire! Suddenly her history lessons from long ago are useful. She used to read the bible ‘like a newspaper’ but now enjoys reading it in a deeper way, and it is bringing her life. 

She has started getting asked lots of questions - ‘where is that verse?’ and ‘what does this mean?’ So they are both really keen to learn as much as they can.

Andrew described how he and his wife used to preach most weeks, and the main message was, “Repent! Repent!” Now they are mixing things up a lot more and he says their little church is much more joyful and happy as a result! 

Let’s pray for these two - they are being so brave stepping out and leading their new flock.