Rolland & Heidi'sNewsletters

Tuesday, 3 June—Silver streaks of smoke lie painted over the marshy plain before us. They stream north against us from dozens of fires, held low by strong winds. We descend through hazy, gray skies in the sunset, straining to see our dirt airstrip ahead. The headwind slows us down, and we will barely make it to our unlit field before Malawi's official last light.

We sink still lower, and in the dim light we can see canoes floating on the small ponds and streams of the lower Shire River basin, which drains clear, pristine Lake Malawi. Here, though, the water is shallow, muddy—and full of crocodiles. There is greenery even with drought all around, and desperate, hungry villagers search for water lily bulbs and anything else edible, in spite of the danger. Crocodiles use their noses to flip canoes, and then many times have dragged victims away in their jaws.

It's our third flight of the day. We started this morning from Maputo, Mozambique, our Cessna 206 loaded to full gross weight with sound equipment for our largest bush conference yet. Five hundred miles further north we clear customs and immigration in Beira and head for Blantyre, Malawi, and now we are almost to Bangula, where we will feed and minister to more than ten thousand people who have streamed in from village churches all over southern Malawi.

We are ten thousand miles from southern California, where my wife Heidi and I were married twenty-three years ago. Two weeks after our wedding we were off to foreign countries, searching for the poor and lost, and we have never looked back. Now we are in Africa, immersed in a movement toward God so intense that we can hardly take time to report on it. The numbers increase, the challenges mount, and many tell us to scale back. But this revival is not too big; it is only beginning, and we are just now learning how to minister to the poor...

Beside me I have Surpresa Sithole, our African co-director of Iris Ministries. He was born in a little town in a remote province of Mozambique. Both his parents were powerful, well-known witch doctors. He knew nothing about Jesus when one day the Holy Spirit spoke to him in a loud voice, so powerful that his bed shook. "Get out of your house or you will die!" He got out, and in a week his parents were dead. Surpresa survived in the bush for weeks more, and in time found a Christian pastor who told him about Jesus. God turned him into a flaming evangelist, supernaturally gave him many languages, and steered him to us in 1998. By now Surpresa has received thousands of vivid visions from God that have encouraged and sustained our work together.

Now we are facing the poor again. The runway is in clear view, but covered with people. A team has already cleared it of weeds, stones, goats and cows. We float down and skim over the crowds, letting them know we are here. From the plane we can see their rags and bare feet, and their wildly excited expressions. We circle around for a final approach, and this time everyone is out of the way. We land on the dirt, very rough this time from footpaths and all the weeding that was done, with just enough twilight not to need landing lights. People stream toward us, laughing and dancing. Jesus, after all you have done in our lives, do we have enough from you for this multitude? They are so expectant, so hungry...

There is history behind this gathering. For more than a year Malawi has suffered severe food shortage from both floods and drought. Many of our own people in our remote Iris Africa/Partners in Harvest churches were down to eating bugs, worms, grass, leaves and roots. Surpresa and I kept preaching everywhere we went, in the dark and rain, under trees and dripping thatch roofs, without electricity and lights, to all who would listen. "Nothing can separate us from the love of God! Not floods and famine, disease and death, nor anything in all creation!" And we cried for His help and presence. Our churches kept growing, in spite of tears and hardship.

We invested in more bush conferences, each very expensive because the people are penniless and most are unable to journey to our meetings unless we provide transport. Georgian Banov came to Bangula with offerings for one thousand chickens, which we boiled in open pots over firewood. That was such an unusual display of the love of God to the people that two hundred churches were added to Iris Africa in Malawi as a result. Then Todd Bentley and Fresh Fire Ministries responded fervently to the Holy Spirit. For months they planned large meetings, food distribution and outreaches in the poorest areas of Malawi's capital city of Lilongwe. Tomorrow I fly back to Beira to pick up Heidi and Guy Chevreau and take them to Lilongwe for the start of that campaign. Our pastors and churches in central Malawi will be deeply involved.

But Fresh Fire went further and contributed huge support for food distribution in Bangula, our working headquarters in southern Malawi. Bangula is a tiny town on a rough road between Malawi and Mozambique, once supported by cotton plantations, now long gone. It's a destitute place, and fiercely hot most of the year. But it has a runway, unused for years until we cleared it off ourselves, and now we own property right alongside the runway where we can hold large outdoor meetings and build housing. For us it has become a focal point for ministry to isolated rural villagers in this whole region, communities that rarely benefit from humanitarian aid efforts at larger centers.

Our meetings here don't start for a few days, but the people and food are ready. All has been organized by a leadership commission from thirty denominations, an amazing, encouraging display of unity. We have a welcome committee that registers every person and family. We bought forty large cooking pots and put together a cooking team of eighty men from many churches. Another team of twenty pastors serve the people as they are grouped by zone into five lines. We truck in all the firewood. More teams built shelters of tree branches, bamboo and plastic, and a simple stage. We announce over the radio that all are welcome. Our ten hired trucks come and go, bringing in load after load of singing, clapping people until eight thousand have been trucked "African-style." Two or three thousand more come by foot and bicycle. It is such a spectacle, to many the greatest thing that ever happened in Bangula.

There is such order in the camp that our hired security guards marvel. We watch as ten thousand hungry Malawians wait patiently for their corn mush, beans, cabbage and lentils. Angels must be guarding too. Town authorities were afraid there would be riots, but the Holy Spirit keeps supernatural control as yet another team maintains an intercessory prayer vigil.

I fly Heidi and Guy to Lilongwe, then bring Guy back to Bangula the next day to start our meetings with Surpresa. Pastor Rego from Mozambique has already been preaching. We all teach what God has given each of us. The people respond with one huge cry. They have spiritual hunger. They have faith. They will receive. It seems all we have to do to see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit is say, "Let's pray!" As we have seen so many times in the African bush, the Holy Spirit falls on the entire crowd, even in the hot sun and blowing dust. People are intensely hit; they shout, cry and shake with perspiration pouring down their faces. They weep, they hug, they fall to the ground and worship with fiery intensity. They pray in tongues. Sometimes they laugh ecstatically with unrestrained joy. Some are in visions. A number are healed. All want Jesus. All want to be saved. All want to give their lives to Him as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Him.

One night a spirit of worship rises spontaneously. Hundreds move toward our rough, wooden platform and kneel in the dirt, softly weeping and worshiping into the night, no one wanting to leave. Our worship team is on their faces. We have been speaking of the excellencies of Christ, the One who amazingly is our all-powerful King and Judge, and yet also our Savior and humble friend, if we will have Him. I am in tears again to see our God so loved...

I fly Heidi and Michael Ellis in from Lilongwe, and we continue. At night the emphasis is healing as we remain in His Presence, and at least seven receive their sight. We cannot take time for all the healing testimonies. We lead children off in groups for special teaching. We speak specially to pastors. We do everything we can to deliver the whole counsel of God in the short time we have together.

Malawi's hunger crisis has subsided. The rains are returning, crops are growing again, and wide-scale disaster has been averted. Help has come from many quarters. God is merciful, and answers the prayers of a nation turning to Him. We still have our part to play in southern Malawi, where extreme poverty and isolation leave great need. On the last day of our conference we distribute food to six thousand families as they return home on our trucks. Each family receives a 10 kg. sack of corn and a 5 kg. sack of beans, practical evidence of God's love that will stir greater faith in the future.

I fly Heidi, Guy and Michael to Pemba in Mozambique and return for Surpresa and the sound equipment in a few days. Surpresa has a chance to meet with our Malawi leadership commission and consolidate all that has been taught for six days. Our Bible school is starting up in Bangula. Long-term missionaries are on their way. All involved with this conference are encouraged beyond measure. May all who helped and contributed enjoy rich blessing in Jesus as a result!

Revival in Two Moslem Provinces

Sunday, 22 June 2003—Just over one year ago we began to preach publicly in Pemba, a city on the coast a thousand miles north of Maputo in the almost entirely Moslem province of Cabo Delgado. We started with one mud-and-stick church of fifteen adults, and held night meetings beside it on a hill near a marketplace among the huts of the town. Persecution was strong and few listened. But the Holy Spirit fell on our little band of believers, and our Pastor Jos