2023 Update Letters

3 March 2023~Progress of the Plants

Valdezia—our second church plant, since August 2015

Sunday’s Attendance: 3 women; 4 young women; 11 young men; gaggle of children

Our family arrived on the Lord’s Day to find the church windows open and half dozen believers waiting for us. Thabiso, a 21-year old, leads the services while I play the guitar. He has started a prayer meeting every Wednesday at a church member’s house for about 10 people who come from the east side of the village. For the west side, he meets with them on Thursday at the church building.

One of the women who was baptized last September, asked me in tears 10 days ago what to do since her husband of perhaps 20 years has another wife and is indifferent to her feelings. Since her husband’s son is now threatening her, she has moved away. We hope to see her once per month now, but she should be able to attend Trinity Baptist in Mbhokota.

The prayer times have been growing in maturity. I see serious attitudes and hear spiritual requests from the young people. Meshach asked us to pray for him that he would learn how to pray. Often when one person offers a good request, like fighting with evil thoughts, then I will ask the rest of the group who else would like to be included in that request. Usually 4-6 different people join in different requests. If we hope our church will be spiritual in the future, it must have spiritual youth now.

For years on Friday afternoon we had been meeting for a youth service, but with pressure from two of the strongest young men, we exchanged the youth service for evangelism. Now on Friday’s 12-15 go with me to a new preaching point in the village. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest would give these young evangelists something for their baskets.

Sunday as Themba read Psalm 24 before the sermon, he came to, “lift up your heads, oh ye gates…”. And who could blame him for mistaking tinyangwa (gates) for tingwenya (crocodiles). As a church we have been reading the Psalms and then using them as a guide for prayer. I hope this discipline will form their habits of prayer until they meet the Good Shepherd.

After the service in Valdezia, our family heads to the village of Makhasa for the churchplant there. Members from Valdezia ask to go with us, so we had to cap the extras at 5 in order to have space in the bakkie for people from other villages. That means we now eat Sunday dinner at the stone church building without running water. Amy prepares a simple meal that can easily be expanded to include our 5 children plus 5 or 10 more people as the case may be. Don’t read that sentence too fast—there’s a lot of work in it.

Valdezia Baptist Church is slowly joining Trinity Baptist and Elim Baptist on the road to maturity.

Makhasa—the newest churchplant, since February 2023
This churchplant gathers people from 5 villages: N’wamatatani, Majosi, Madobi, Makhasa, and Sundani. We actually started evangelizing in N’wamatatani back in 2021 adding Sunday services in 2022. But in February, we moved the Sunday services 8 kilometers away to the village of Makhasa where people could hopefully join us from all the places.

Two days ago 13 adults (including 5 men) from the 5 targeted villages showed up. But that baker’s dozen was enhanced by a large group of Christians who came with us from Valdezia and with Pastor Nyalungu from Elim Baptist.

Having given away 200 Bibles in those villages, we had been hoping that more would come. But at least we have some confidence that those who are coming are committed. They have been forced to choose between the social clubs they previously had patronized on the first day of the week or a New Testament church. So far, it looks like roughly 10% of those who receive Bibles want the Author of the Book as well.

The families are in such disarray, and most of those who come are older, very few in their 20’s or 30’s. One woman from Madobi has 3 children with different men and was never married. She does not see the fathers, and she is trying to raise the kids who are messing up their lives at the same speed that the mother did. As gently as I could, I tried to tell them that if they want to be Christians, then they must repent of having these children outside of marriage. I wondered as I spoke if this will be a dividing line.  

Our current schedule of preaching points and Sunday services is tiring, but if His eye would diffuse a quickening ray to some poor Tsonga hearts, we would find more than enough strength.

If you would help us, then please do pray with us to this end for if we have conversions then nothing else matters. And if we don’t have conversions nothing else matters.

In Christ,

Seth and Amy

23 April 2023~Baptism Class

The Joy of Combined Services

When believers from 5 churchplants met for a service last Friday to remember our Lord’s Passion, empty chairs were surprises among the full rows in the 24 by 30 foot building. This weekend saw two more baptisms bringing the membership to 15 with an average Sunday attendance including teens and adults of 20.

As Passion Week rose to its glorious crescendo on the Lord’s Day, we gathered all the believers and interested visitors in Mbhokota at Trinity Baptist Church. If I counted correctly, 4 churches and 3 churchplants from 11 villages were represented including a dozen adults from the churchplant in Makhasa that I have referenced over the last few prayer letters.

Lively singing, encouraging choirs, and prepared prayers marked the first half of the service before an instructive and stirring sermon that 3 different Tsonga men have spoken to me about since it was preached last week. Then we heard testimonies from three young people ages 16-20 before they were buried and raised with Him by immersion in water.

These combined services are a lot of work in prayer and transport, but those who come are consistently surprised by a living vibrant church. On the way home in my vehicle, several from Makhasa spoke of their need to follow the example set by Elim, Mbhokota, and Valdezia.

Baptism Class

After that Lord’s Day meeting, I counted up more than a dozen adults from the 25 or so who are consistently attending the churchplant in Makhasa. Thursday, I asked them if we could begin a baptism class to meet for 4-6 weeks every Thursday in order to answer questions and prepare new believers for baptism and church membership. So far, we have 6 adults who have signed up for the baptism class and I hope another half dozen will commit to come tomorrow.

The lessons will follow What is a church member? What is a church? What are the duties of a church member? and How can I give a salvation testimony? As I have mentioned before, we are developing a plan that might be reproduced in other villages for gathering adults and planting a church. This baptism class may serve a crucial transitional step between interested listeners and committed members. Roughly outlined the process is: Preach on the streets, give free Bibles, begin Sunday meetings, and now lead a baptism class. The classes will meet, Lord-willing, each Thursday at 2:00 PM for the next few weeks.

I feel at times a great weakness in my stomach at the thought that we may move forward in the flesh with only the results that personality and charisma can bring. Certainly such power should expect a group to dissolve in a short time. But we have hope that their faith would stand not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Pray that divine grace and power would be the magnet that attracts, and that New Covenant love would be the cement that bonds this little band of attendees. “All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down.”

Plastic Surgery

Two days ago on Thursday, as I was leaving the preaching point in Sundani where about 25 adults had gathered, my Toyota bakkie had a close introduction to another truck who boldly thought to try driving in my lane. We thank the Lord that none of the 6 occupants of the 2 vehicles were hurt, but my ride was damaged badly. We thank the Lord for so many safe miles driven, and for taking away some metal, but not any lives. Now unable to transport anyone to church, perhaps some great good will come from this accident as the men and women must walk if they want to come to the churchplant.

If you could give us one thing right now, we ask for regular prayers that the preaching might have unusual power, that our lives might be free from even the scent of sin, and that sinners would learn to fear and then smile at the mere thought of our soon coming King.

Grateful and Hopeful,

Seth and Amy

6 June 2023~Highlights from Sunday’s Baptism

Sunday Matimba Siweya gave a testimony of his salvation of which I relate the most salient points.

  • Today I want to tell what God has done for my soul, not my body.
  • I had thought I was converted back in 1992, but I never learned Christ.
  • Though I had been baptized, I see now that I was just bathing at church because I had not been born again.
  • As the Scripture says, “I am a worm.”
  • Now I see that Christ is my prophet, priest, and king. He is my prophet because he teaches me. He is my priest because He died for my sins and prays to God for me. He is my king because He rules over me and defends me.
  • I know that I am born again because I want to read the Bible, and I hate my sin, and my love for Christ is growing.
  • Jesus chose me before I chose Him. He knew me before I knew Him. He prayed for me before I prayed to Him.
  • My name is in the book of life because Jesus died for me.

After speaking about 10 minutes, he sat down, and Grandma Baloyi began.

  • I too grew up in this village at the same time as Matimba and in the same church.
  • When I was a little girl, they talked to us about God, but they never told us about believing in Christ.
  • We learned the rules such as don’t steal or lie or do bad things.
  • But then last year a neighbor invited me to come hear the pastor preach on the streets. She said I would hear lessons that I had never heard before.
  • I have now learned what Christ Alone means. With my whole heart, I trust in Christ to save me.
  • I cannot read because of my eyes, but I will not stop coming on Sundays so that I can learn the Bible.

A mile away, we baptized 4 new members bringing the total of baptized believers to 7. Did demons laugh as they trapped these individual sheep in the obscurity of 5 different villages of only a few thousand each? Were they proud having barricaded these souls inside walls built of irrational fears and bone-chilling poverty? Did evil spirits take a twisted aesthetic pleasure in letting them have a shiny glaze of truth in words like God, Bible, and church while preventing the actual substance? Did their diabolical hopes not rise that Amy Carmichael’s words would prove true again, “And some went over [the precipice] quietly and fell without a sound”?

Yet it appears this laughter was cheated. Omnipotent love pursues the sheep to forgotten villages racing on the wind of the prayers of God’s people. And it is to encourage and stimulate more of these prayers that I write a rare second letter in the same month. Do not be weary in interceding for this people group. May we not baptize again soon?

Opening our mouth wide,

“There! Behind the fear that many diverse and malevolent spirits rule the world, Matimba will never see the Holy One of Israel. Tie that Tsonga man faster still with an ambivalence or better yet, if possible, a positive dislike of recorded words—How will he then ever find pleasure in the Word made flesh? Massage the course of his world so that poverty blooms on every side; he’ll not be able to lift his eyes past the things which are seen when each day is a struggle for daily bread. Geography can serve us too! Place him gently, quietly in a non-descript village of a few thousand with no unique advantages to pull development and no shocking problems to attract any of the Enemy’s servants. And to fill our kind of aesthetic taste—‘art for art’s sake,’ don’t you know—let them have a shiny glaze of truth, words like God, Bible, and church without any lively knowledge of the King’s Son. Then we can safely see the fulfillment of the words of that cursed wench Amy Carmichael, ‘Some went over [the precipice] quietly and fell without a sound.’”

Scenes from Zimbabwe

Heading North

Last Monday, we finished a 1,000 mile weekend delivering Mugove Kamutimbe to his home in Harare along with Alpheus Nyalungu and 2 of my boys. What kind providence that we were spared on such roads even though a truck trying to miss potholes swerved into my lane and sent my newly returned bakkie back to the sick bay.

On a previous trip, while in the country for only 30 hours, we had been pulled over 29 times by policemen fining us for lights that were too high, “frosted” rather than “honeycomb” textured reflective safety stickers, and lack of fire extinguisher in the vehicle. But this time was different—not one police stop the entire way. Stress at the border crossing was more like mud on a rainy day rather than a slough of despond.

Alpheus, Mugove, and I spoke at the outset about our goals for the trip. Together we each offered estimates for the health of the Zimbabwean church on a 1-1,000 scale. The average of our answers was 352. Our goal, using such a measurement, was to move the metric to 354 or 355 by encouraging pastors, churches, and churchplanting. Five different pastors including 3 graduates of the Limpopo Bible Institute and 2 from Christ Baptist Seminary made up the weekend’s travels.

Dangerous Journey

One of the men from LBI had given us cause for concern over the years, and we were unsure of his spiritual condition. Sadly, evidence and witnesses came to light leaving no doubt this man had been living a double life. Though we had not supported this particular man or been much in contact with him for years, it weighs heavily to see someone fall away—especially one for whom we had hoped and prayed and invested. Why include such bad news? Because it is true, and because by grace this bad news may lead you to offer more lively prayers and even guard yourself. Why did Paul tell Timothy that Demas was a turncoat?

After a visit to Great Zimbabwe, Shadreck Zireva hosted us. His borehole has run well helping him sell both poultry and vegetables. His wife and four children were happy and growing as were the 15 or so members of his church. On our way to the main road from Shadreck’s house, a man in his 20’s hitched a ride. He shocked us all with the accuracy of his answers until he told us that Shadreck led him to Christ and has been training him in theology. What pleasing providence to find in a very rural place, a man who through local church evangelism could sling his answers at a hair and not miss.

Arriving at Mugove’s home Saturday night, Sheila had prepared—without running water or electricity—a 6-course meal with 3 meats in the 9×15 foot room where all 5 of the family sleep. “Ti no fara zvikuru!” [We are just so happy!] She said over and over. You may recall that she was baptized back in November 2021. While he was gone for work, she has been taking the 3 kids to church though it is quite a distance. We even found her doing Bible studies with neighbors and reading a tattered Shona Watch Tower Bible storybook to the kids.

The Lord’s Day

Sunday morning, about 25 Shona believers from 4 different assemblies—some traveling from before dawn over very bad roads met for worship. In a 30 minute prayer meeting before the service, different members led the group in prayer verse by verse through Psalm 100. A few books from Spurgeon’s church and the Banner of Truth were being sold in the back. Not all of the 45 church members could make it to Harare, but the praying, singing, and talk smelled like the fear of God and tasted like Christian love.

After the service, Pastor Nickson Pasi invited everyone to his house for a meal. Until 4 PM we sat in several groups because of the size of the rooms and spoke together. Both Nickson and the 28-year old Knowledge Mafowera seemed to be examples of devotion to their church. The conversations were decidedly spiritual, and I wondered how many other places in that city had a dozen men speaking about spiritual things for more than 2 hours after the 3-hour church service.

Our Part in Moving the Metric

These men and their wives and families will never be well known, but they were all serious about Christianity and evangelism. They are worthy of our prayers which is why I am even taking the time to write. If from this trip north, godly believers would go to their Father saying,

“All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord. Does this not include the 18 millions of Shonas, Father? Shall we see little scattered groups and think this prophecy fulfilled? These words of David have now been waiting 3,000 years, and how can we be content to think that only a handful represents grace abounding to these sinners?”

I do not write this letter for any purpose or with any other hope than that you would bring this people group and these little churches to the Lord of the Harvest not doubting that He is more willing to save than we are to pray.

Perhaps, next year we will embark on the same route aiming for 356.

By degrees,

Seth and Amy

9 September 2023~Scenes from Mozambique

Time Travel

It is the work of a time machine to enable a man to seat himself in a vehicle in the 21st century, and emerge from that vehicle several hours later in a world of the distant past. When our family tried this experiment last week, we stepped into Tsonga villages that were a jarring mix of both ancient and modern. Last Tuesday, my wife, kids, and I drove through the Kruger game park crossing the ford of the Limpopo with a Toyota.

Our goal for the trip was simple: We wanted to gather information for Caleb or other missionaries to plant churches among this people group. When I say “information” I mean border crossing difficulties, village populations, linguistic similarity between Tsonga dialects, road quality, presence of electricity, availability of groceries, and cell phone signal.

Depending on which website you reference there are 6 to 7 million Tsongas alive today with 40% living in SA and 60% in Mozambique. But as with many—perhaps most—of the world’s 7,000 languages, the majority live in areas without jobs, English, or efficient roads.

Not 2 minutes inside the border, we were stopped for the first of 12 police traps. Carson and Caleb kept a tally chart of the self-seeding villages that we could see as we averaged 50 k’s per hour (30 mph).

Three Population Centers

About 2 hours across the border, Mapai is a town of perhaps 10,000 people that now has electricity, cell phones, and a cement road. By providence we spoke with a pastor asking him basic questions like What do you teach at church?, How did you become a Christian?, and If a sinner came to you asking to go to Heaven, what would you tell him? Unfortunately, he did not mention the name or work or person of Christ in any way though I phrased and rephrased questions over our 30-minute interview.

Striking out to the north, we passed clusters of 5-30 homes repeatedly until we arrived at Machaila after 100 k’s. Estimating again, I would say 5,000 people live in this growing area that now had electricity and a stick and mud police station. At this point on the road there is a T junction that can send a traveler on a 5-hour journey to the beach.

But after we purchased for a $1.50 per plate some vuswa (corn meal) and impala meat cooked right beside the road, we spurred our metal horse into the 90 k road to Massangena. Back in 2006, a croc attacked Dan Minton while Paul and I were with him. This had been my fourth visit to that village which had grown substantially to an estimated 5-10,000. The streets were now dressed with electric wires and numerous shops, but best of all was a gas station and grocery store!

Each of these three standing 6-10 hours from the capital calls out with its own advantages, but presently there is no one to answer their call. After questioning chiefs, pastors, and shop owners, we tentatively concluded that neither Tsonga nor Portuguese Bibles are available in these areas though we did see church buildings.

Way of Life

The most common homes were round huts with thatched roofs called rondavels, but a very common mode of building, probably because of the economic advantages, were rooms built with sticks and rocks balanced between them. Some whole villages appeared to have been built without any cement.

As for industry, we passed many, many 5-foot high sacks of burnt wood waiting beside the road. Each day we were there, we saw fires in the bush where villagers would burn the wood to bag up as charcoal. The bags were than propped up on the side of the road where drivers would come by once every few days to transport the cargo. Each 5-foot bag fetches about $8. When I took that picture, I spoke with a group waiting by the road. “Who does all this work of burning, cutting, and bagging the charcoal?” A man replied, “This is woman’s work. We don’t do this.” Do you think the women are happy with their sooty hands and children while they burn and cut and gather in the sun?

Since mills are far away, we saw several women beating the corn with a wooden post in a wooden pot until it was powdery enough to make porridge.

The Big City

Thursday night we arrived in Maputo a city of about 1.2 million. It filled our hearts with joy to speak with Helio, a 28-year old pastor led to Christ as a boy by the tireless work of the American missionaries Joel and Joanie Troester. Helio counted five biblical churches in and around the capital that preach the gospel. He also let us pepper him with questions about Tsonga words. Though there are differences in the dialects, he still used the same Tsonga Bible that we do.

Over the weekend, we moved back across the border and preached at Malelane Bible Church. Two things I enjoy are large dessert tables and conversion testimonies, and the latter more than the former. I heard at least 7 recent conversion accounts from both adults and youth from a church of about 40 members. On Sunday many visitors came to the camp, and there was a hunger for the Word. After a 70-minute sermon, 3 different people said they wished the preaching would go on.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In this assembly, life and answered prayers and humble pastors and the comforts that stem from many generations of Biblical influence. In our tour of the Tsongas, dust and lack and begging and ignorance chilled us to the bone.

Where there is no vision the people perish. Where there are no Bibles, true churches, and rays from the Sun of Righteousness, why would we expect to see happiness?

Do pray for this people group. Somehow those villages must kiss the Son. Somehow they must adore that One who is the Sum of all glory. It is the greatest travesty in the long storied history of our world that people groups like the Tsonga do not see Him with love. Pray that Light would come to those who sit in darkness. Pray that men would leave comfort and stand in the way of risk. Pray that we like Paul would remember the poor.

“Before they call, I will answer.”

Calling and expecting,

Seth and Amy

10 October 2023~Off the Topic

Saturday my boys and I picked up a sharp and friendly Tsonga man who needed a lift. For about 30 minutes he was in our car resulting in this conversation as best as I can reconstruct it.

Seth: “Do you call yourself a Christian?”

Man: “I am a pastor.”

Seth: “How do you know that you are a Christian?”

Man: “My lifestyle; I live the way I should.”

That answer is strike 1. Maybe I’m pitching too fast.

Seth: “Is there anything else? Any thing else that you would say you are trusting in?”

Man: “And prayer. That too.”

Seth: “There is something else that you are forgetting. What are you forgetting? When I tell you, you will say, ‘Oh, I knew that.’ But you need to ask why you didn’t know before you were told. Can you think what it might be?”

Man: “Can you remind me? I can’t think of it.”

Seth: “I will tell you, but before I do, I want you to know that you are very similar to most of the people that I pick up. When I speak with them, they answer like you are answering. Where do you worship?”

Man: “I started a church in my house.”

Seth: “Why did you start a church? Is it different from the other churches? What is your main reason for wanting a new church?”

Man: “We saw that many people were chasing these prophetic ministries so that prophets would tell their futures. But I told the people, you cannot be prophesied over until you prophesy for yourselves.”

Seth: “So that is the main reason you started your church? Is there anything else you would add to that?”

Man: “No.”

Seth: “What about Jesus Christ? What about the Cross? Heaven, Hell, Life, Death, repentance, and humility? Why didn’t you say anything about these matters?”

Man (smiling): “I forgot.”

Seth: “Christ did not come out of your mouth because He is not in your heart. But this is not my first and second time to hear these kinds of answers. Nearly everyone answers without Christ as you did. Let me ask, Have you ever read the whole Bible: Genesis to Revelation?”

Man: “No.”

Seth: “The entire NT, it is only 260 chapters and takes about 15 hours to read?”

Man: “No, and I will tell you, I am not accustomed to read the Bible. When I preach, I just open and find a verse. Then I talk.”

Our conversation went on, but you now have the salient points faithfully narrated. Later that same day, I met again two other pastors who had been with me at one of the preaching points for nearly a year. Neither man was able even to recite the 5 Solas though we had repeated these week after week. In less than 6 months they had forgotten Bible Alone, Christ Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone, and Glory To God Alone.

If this dialogue interests you, I have recorded other conversations that I hope will reveal the barbaric nature of false religion that still binds so many.

Usually, these letters explain what God is doing in the souls of Tsongas, but this letter is off the topic in that it shows more of the environment of the Tsongas in SA. I hope you are stimulated to ask God for an eye-opening, chain-breaking, knee-bending work of grace.

Lord-willing, half a dozen Tsongas will be baptized on October 29. Please pray that God would teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight for only the violent will take the Kingdom.

Conversing with Men and God,

Seth and Amy

12 December 2023~Another International Trip

Cross Border Again

Six months ago to this day, I wrote about our trip to Zimbabwe. Two days ago I returned from another trip to that country which was most remarkable for the number of recent conversions related to me.

A young man named Joe Shoko was sent by churches in Lusaka, Zambia back to his home country and language in Zimbabwe. There on the north side of the capital city, he has planted a church with 16 members. Caleb, Colin, and I stayed with he and his wife, Tino, for the weekend during their church’s Bible conference. Brother Shoko cast his net wide inviting as many churches as he knew that believed the gospel and might be able to come.

On Saturday, we rejoiced with about 50 dedicated Christians from 9 different churches. After asking pastors about membership, I estimated the churches present represent less than 250 believers. When the lively singing and invigorating preaching paused at the end of each session, fellowship like spontaneous combustion fired up in pockets.

I was mining for information in my conversations in order to evaluate the strength of the believers as a collective body in Zimbabwe. Kelvin, Henry, Michelle, Tapiwa, Ticha, Tawurai, and most of the others I spoke with had been converted since 2020.

Washington served as a pastor in a small church in a rural area about 3 hours away. He had been converted as a student in the Shona Bible Institute, a small Bible college started as a ministry from one of the churches in attendance. Though he had been a pastor for years, he was born again after hearing the gospel. This was the same for Pastor Nkata and others with whom I spoke. Thus my bias was confirmed that most pastors are not converted, and at the same time my inner Doubt-in-God’s-Promises suffered a decided, and I hope a mortal, injury.

Speaking with the conference host, we wondered if there were twice as many true churches as were present. Perhaps so, but it seemed unlikely to any of us that more than 1% of Zimbabwe’s 16 million citizens were true believers.

So many lost! But so many recently and vibrantly converted! May these two stand like the pillars outside Solomon’s Temple reminding you to go to the High Priest and prevail upon Him for the souls of Shona and Kalanga and Ndebele and Tonga people.

Planning Another Attack

For the past few years, I have been spending a significant amount of time preaching in the open air. Most weeks this year, I visited 10 different spots giving 192 Bibles to those who listened to 10 consecutive sermons. Seven of those who received Bibles this year were also baptized; about 20 are still attending one of the churchplants each week. In Makhasa, about 15-20 began meeting each Lord’s Day. Lord-willing in 2024, a group will form in the village of Bungeni.

Each Wednesday, I plan to preach several times in Bungeni gathering all the answers to your prayers into a new churchplant. On Thursdays, we will focus on the Makhasa area and also hopefully establish a weekly prayer meeting for that group. Five other villages are jostling for position on Friday and Saturday.

If you read these paragraphs and felt encouraged, then you must remember that there would be no encouragement without answers to prayer. Certainly, you are like me trying and then cooling off, only to try again. May every eye that sees these words hasten to gather heart and will and lips to a combined meeting of intercession for the Tsongas. However slow, have we not seen answers to make every rational soul hopeful for more?

Adoring the God who took part in flesh and blood,

Seth and Amy

https://t.me/gracetothetsongas