This is my last night in Blantyre. People have been saying all week that the rains are overdue. Well, tonight they have come with a vengeance. It is absolutely bucketing down. And, as on my last night in Mbeya, the power is out and I am sitting here in semi darkness writing this and praying that the power comes on in time for me to pack my bags before going to bed. I’m also hoping that this isn’t setting a pattern for the rest of the trip. This time I don’t even have a candle, just  rapidly fading day light and the light from the computer. As I write, the lights have flicked on for a couple of seconds a few times, but straight off again. I’m not sure if that is a good sign or a bad one. At least the rain has dropped the temperature a couple of degrees.

The conference here in Blantyre has been great. I love ministering to pastors and leaders, and the response has been wonderful. On Sunday night I prayed for everyone in the congregation, and this morning I had one testimony, a lady who had a problem with her leg for some years who was healed when I prayed. Praise the Lord! I don’t often get feedback, but I love it when I do hear what the Lord has done.

This morning I shared my testimony, and several people came up afterwards and said that they found that encouraging for their own walk. This is me speaking this morning.

When I finished speaking, I felt the Lord saying to ask the pastors to pray for me, and was honoured to have these beautiful men and women of God pray blessing, anointing and protection over me and the ministry.  Here I am with some of the pastors and leaders outside the  church.

Tomorrow is another early start – we have to be away by 6.30 to be at the airport by 7 for the flight to Zimbabwe (thankfully no horrible long bus trip this time.)

The day started with breakfast, which is included in the price of the room – a rather nice omelette, with veg mixed through it, a sausage, and chips. And the inevitable cup of tea.

Then we travelled quite a distance to the church where the conference is being held. Bishop Thomas’s own church, and his home, is a long way from the city centre, and their meetings are held in a school, which is obviously not available on week days. The conference will run over four days, including church services tomorrow, so all up I will have seven meetings over the four days, doing one of the things I love most, ministering to mostly pastors and leaders.

This is some of today’s congregation as they came in for the service.

Of course, African time meant that the first session started somewhat later than the planned time, but once we got going it was a great time, with wonderful African worship and a very  responsive congregation when it came to the message.

The ladies made us lunch before we went to the second session, which also went very well. Bishop Thomas took  plenty of notes at both sessions, and said that he will preach from them in the future.

Bishop Thomas is a former school teacher, so has excellent English and is also very organized. His burden is to train up pastors and leaders, and he has a two-year training program that recently graduated over 60 students. I’m quite impressed with him.

Over the last two days I have travelled from Mbeya in Tanzania to Blantyre in Malawi. Apostle Philip drove me from Mbeya to the border. He said we would need to leave at 6am, and I thought, “African time. That will probably be 7 or 8.” But no, we were walking out the front door at 5.50am!

I did my “good baby” trick and slept most of the way, which is really disappointing because what I did see of the scenery in the times when I was awake was spectacular. That area of Tanzania is very mountainous, and at times it felt like we were driving on top of the world.

At the border there were of course all the formalities. Fortunately Philip has a friend who lives in the border area, and he was a great help to us. The Tanzanian side was simple – here’s me filling in some of the paperwork.

Malawi Immigration was a different story altogether. I handed over my passport and visa approval letter, and was told to wait a few minutes. Half an hour later, we were still waiting. An enquiry from Philip, and we were again told to wait “a few minutes.” By now it was very obvious that the bloke was hoping for a bribe. After some furious glares from me, and some strong words from Philip, my passport was finally stamped and handed back to me. It was definitely not a good first impression of Malawi!

Philip’s friend then changed some money for me, and I’m sure got a better exchange rate than I would have, and we went off to get my ticket for the bus to Blantyre. To give you some idea of the exchange rate, the cost for the ticket was 51,000 Kwacha (yes, that’s fifty one thousand!) which equates to roughly $46 Aussie dollars.

We then had about 3 hours to wait for the bus. There had not been time to eat before we left Mbeya, so I grabbed a Fanta and a two-egg omelette at a local cafe – cost 1700 Kwacha, or around $1.50.

After the pleasantly cool weather I had experienced in both Kigoma and Mbeya, Malawi hit with the kind of weather I had been expecting in Africa – stinking hot! Philip found a place to park the car in the shade, but it was still a very uncomfortable wait. He warned me that food along the way might not be good, and bought me some rather nice gingery bikkies to munch on the  trip. I also supplemented these with some bananas from a roadside seller at one of the stops – I figured bananas had to be safe.

Finally it was time to get on the bus. Hugely high steps were a major challenge. I had been given a window seat which was nice, particularly with an open window and wind in my face (I totally understand why dogs love having their heads out of car windows.) The seating was arranged with two seats to a row on the right side of the bus, and three seats to a row on the left side. The lass who was like a kind of hostess suggested I might like to move over to the left side as there would be more room. That didn’t make sense to me, but later I did move, not for extra room but because the sun was on my side of the bus and I was getting cooked. Not a smart move! My legs simply couldn’t fit in the space between my seat and the one in front. Now those who know me know that I am a shortie – if my legs can’t fit in the space available, then there is definitely something wrong with the space available! As I initially had two empty seats beside me, I was able to overcome it a bit by turning sideways and letting my legs intrude a bit into the middle seat’s space. Then a teenager came along and plonked herself right across both remaining seats, leaving me cramped in the corner and unable to move. At the next stop I moved back to my original seat. Someone else had occupied it, even though it was obviously not the seat assigned to her, but  she willingly moved when I said I was supposed to be there. But I did hear a comment from behind somewhere that the Mzungu had taken her seat. Another not so good first impression.

At one of the stops I needed a toilet break (no onboard toilet in the bus.) I was directed to the most disgustingly filthy squatty toilet that you could possibly imagine – and had to pay 300 Kwacha for the privilege of using it! That equates to only cents, but still another bad impression.

Mercifully, the bus trip took 20 hours, not the two days I had been told. This gave an interesting insight into the difference between western understanding of time (a day is 24 hours) and African/Eastern understanding (any part of a day is a day.) We left the border yesterday, and arrived in Blantyre this morning – in African thinking, two days. This difference, incidentally, explains why some people (Westerners) have trouble with the amount of time Jesus spent in the tomb, and say He must have been crucified on Wednesday, so they can fit in three 24-hour days before His resurrection, whereas Eastern thinking says He was buried on Friday (day 1), was in the tomb Saturday (day 2) and rose on Sunday (day 3.)

The trip was, quite frankly, horrible. Because of a broken window, I was moved to yet another seat, which was again cramped, though not a bad as the  second one. I simply could not get comfortable, and wiggled and squirmed all night, but got very little sleep. Back in then  ’80s I used to travel a lot on busses in Australia, but a 73 year-old body just doesn’t cope as well as a 35 year-old one does. By the time I arrived I was totally exhausted and ready to fall in a heap. I had planned t take a bus from Zimbabwe to Zambia, but one of the first thing I did after settling in to my room was to book a flight for that trip.

This is the bus after its arrival in Blantyre.

Rev Thomas and another guy met me and brought me to the hotel where I am staying. Quite a nice room, western shower and toilet (YAY!), air con that doesn’t work very well and a fan that does. Resting this afternoon ready to start ministering tomorrow.

Tonight is my last night in Mbeya. It has gone so quickly, and I have been blessed to get to know Philip and his wife as I have stayed in their home.

I’m now the proud possessor of three more African style dresses, including this one, which is definitely on the glam side (though I might have to wear black stockings under it so the white legs don’t show up so much.)

Since I’ve been here I have done five meetings – teaching the intercessors on Saturday night, the church service on Sunday morning, teaching women on Monday and youth on Tuesday, and a special meeting tonight. On Sunday afternoon as Philip was sharing his vision with me, the Lord spoke to my heart and said that he is called as an apostle, and I was to ordain him as such. When I asked him if he would be happy for me to do that, he was delighted, so tonight was an ordination service. Here he is with his wife receiving his ordination certificate.

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Now we are back at the house, and the electricity is out, so I am sitting here typing this by candlelight and praying that the power will come back on before it gets too late so I can get my bags packed. Tomorrow we have to be away from here by 6am in order to get to the Malawi border in time for me to catch the bus to Blantyre, a journey which they tell me will take the best part of two days. So there is a pretty good chance I won’t be posting anything for the next couple of days.

Sometimes the challenges of this trip are almost comical. Last night the power went off at around 8. I was in the middle of my evening Bible reading, which I have been doing on the computer, using a downloaded version of World English Bible because it is much easier to read than the relatively small print of the Bible I brought with me because my normal large-print Bible was just too heavy. The computer was fully charged, so there was not a problem with that.

Then came ferocious wind and bucketing rain. A good night to be inside, even if it was by candlelight.

When I finished my reading, I went into a prayer time. I was in a fairly intense time of intercession when I started hearing “plop”, “plop”, “plop”! Surely not, I thought. But as I felt the end of my bed, sure enough “raindrops are falling on my bed!” (‘Fess up, those of my generation – you started to sing it, didn’t you?)

A quick look at the ceiling revealed a hole, and another patch that looks as if it’s about to break through. I’m guessing the wind had taken off one of the roofing sheets – definitely not comical for Pastor Philip and his wife. He moved my bed around so that it was away from the drip, and he will be up on the roof today to see exactly what damage there is.

On one of my very early trips to Africa I spent a night in a mud hut with an unlined tin roof that had very obvious holes. I was not surprised to get rained on there, but I definitely didn’t expect it in this lovely big modern house!

Ah, my Africa! I love you, but at times you really try me. (Though in fairness, this could have happened anywhere in the world. But it didn’t. It happened here, just another of the ongoing challenges great and small of this trip.)

Just so there is no misunderstanding, I am writing this with a smile on my face.

Pastor Philip and his wife have been taking very good care of me here in Mbeya, but the area itself has some challenges. Both power and water are intermittent. On Friday we had no water all day, and no power for about 3 hours in the evening. Yesterday we had water all day, but no power for most of the day. Today, as far as I can tell, we have had both all day – but we have been at church most of the day, so I can’t say for sure.

This is Pastor Philip and his wife with their daughter (the third of their four children) outside their home.

Last night I ministered to a smallish group of prayer warriors, and this morning to the church. This morning I had prophetic words for a couple of people in the congregation, and quite a strong word for the church exposing witchcraft and rebellion among the people. Afterwards Pastor Philip said the word was spot on.

This is the congregation this morning.

Meanwhile, I have come under very heavy spiritual attack, and it is obvious that the spiritual warfare surrounding this trip is even more intense than I knew it would be. So, prayer warriors, please continue to hold me up in intercession.

Because of the mix-up with Air Tanzania I had to spend a night in Dar Es Salaam (locally known simply as Dar) on my way from Kigoma to Mbeya. I made the mistake of booking a cheap backpackers hotel, not realizing the distance from the airport and that the cost of taxis each way would make the total cost as much as a more comfortable hotel closer to the airport. Another lesson learned!

The hotel was basic – a not very comfortable bed (two single mattresses pushed together on a king bed, and I kept finding the gap between them) but it did have an ensuite, with a western toilet (something I am always grateful for, although squatty toilets are becoming less of a challenge.) Breakfast, which was included in the price, was surprisingly good: a selection of fruit slices (banana, mango, papaya and watermelon), an omelette and what I think was the African version of a hash brown, and two slices of toast with butter and jam, plus coffee.

All that I wrote about roads and drivers in Kigoma, is definitely not true of those in Dar. Roads are appalling, and drivers are feral. It didn’t help that the arrival time of the plane was in the middle of the afternoon peak hour. I didn’t time it, but I’m guessing about two hours from the airport to the hotel.

These two lovely ladies are friends of Apostle Adams. Evelyn (left) is a  singer and Mary (right) is a pastor. They very kindly came to meet me at the airport, negotiated the taxi and accompanied me to the hotel, where they proceeded to bless me with a foot and neck massage. Bliss! Then they came back in the morning and again negotiated the taxi (interestingly at half the cost of the previous night’s trip) and accompanied me back to the airport, where they stayed with me for a couple of hours before I was able to convince them that I would be fine on my own.

It was a long day. We arrived at the airport around 10am, and the check-in time was not till 6pm. The girls stayed with me till lunch time, then I did my Bible readings for the day and spent quite a bit of time playing Mahjong on my phone. When I did get through check-in, there was more waiting as the plane was around an hour late.

I arrived in Mbeya around 10.30pm, and Pastor Philip and his wife met me at the airport and drove me to their home. So glad to be staying with the pastor and his family rather than in a hotel! They have a lovely big home, and I have a huge bedroom that is twice the size of my caravan.

Yesterday was a rest day, for which I was grateful. There is no wifi here, but Pastor Philip was able to get me a data sim, so I can hot-spot from the phone. I encountered one major problem – I tried to book my visa for my return to Kenya next month, and the system would not accept my card for payment. Prayer warriors, please pray that I will be able to sort this out with the bank, as I need to be able to use the card for expenses along the way.

Today I will be meeting the ladies this morning – not sure if this is an actual church service, or just a casual meeting – and I have a service this evening.

My time in Kigoma is now finished for this trip, but I will definitely be back, the Lord permitting. I arrived last Friday, and we had two meetings on Saturday then one each on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. All were great, with a very responsive congregation.

The ladies particularly took me into their hearts, and decided that I really needed some African clothes. So they gifted me not just one or two, but FIVE African style outfits, as well as a beautiful blanket. The only problem was fitting them all into my already full suitcase, which is now absolutely jam packed and probably at the very limit of my weight allowance for my flights.

Here I am rocking it in African Mama style:

The ministry was great, but I did have a few challenges. Health wise, on the first night I kept waking up with severe cramps in my legs. Praise God that didn’t continue beyond the first night!

The biggest disappointment was changing my Aussie dollars into Tanzanian shillings – the currency exchange ripped me off for $200! I gave them $650 to exchange, but when I got back to my room and checked the exchange rate I found that what they had given me was only equivalent to $447. Lesson learned – next time I will check the exchange rate before I go. That experience left a really bad taste in my mouth.

I also had problems with my computer, which was throwing a major hissy fit and refusing to open the stuff I wanted, and with my phone which locked itself and would not open, would not close, would not restart, would not do anything. Mr Google gave me the solution for the phone – press the volume and power buttons at the same time. And the computer has largely sorted itself out. Praise God! It wouldn’t be missions without a few challenges.

Just a few impressions of Kigoma:

The weather was pleasantly (and unexpectedly) cool, with some very heavy rain. They told me that the nearness to Lake Tanganyika keeps the temperature down.

Roads are either good or very bad. There seems to be little in between. The sealed roads seem to be well maintained, with very few potholes, but the unsealed roads are terrible. Driving habits are far more orderly than in Kenya  and Uganda – drivers actually stop at traffic lights, and for the most part keep to their own lane and the right side of the street.

Whilst there are of course the roadside markets everywhere, I didn’t see many of the people walking along the road around the traffic selling stuff, as you do in Kenya and Uganda. But then I was mostly in urban areas, so maybe if we had been on the open road they would be there.

The pastors worked on Mzungu (white person) time, rather than African time, which was a huge relief to me. In fact they were actually early picking me up a couple of times. (I will write about African time in another post.) The people were warm and welcoming, and made me feel very much at home.

Tonight I am in Dar Es Salaam, and I will fly on to Mbeya tomorrow.

Kigoma is located on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in north-western Tanzania. Because of this it is not as hot as some places in Africa, which is really good. There is also a ceiling fan in the room here, to keep the temperature even closer to the level I prefer.

My first night here was a bit rough – I kept waking up with cramps in my legs. Should have brought my magnesium tablets, but alas they are still sitting on my table in the van.

I had two sessions at Pastor Peter’s church today – a general session with the whole church this morning, and one with the youth this afternoon. Both went very well, but they weren’t recorded.

In the morning session there were special presentations by the children, youth and women. Below is a little taste of the ones from the children and youth. Don’t you just love the little one right at the front in the kids’ presentation?

My last meeting in Kenya for now was a healing meeting at East Gate Chapel on Wednesday evening. It was only a  fairly small group. I ended up praying for almost everyone for personal healing, but then the Lord impressed me to also pray for the impartation of gifts of healing, and commission them to go out and pray for others. So now I’m believing to hear reports of healings as a result of the people praying for others.

On Wednesday morning we left at 8am for the eight hour drive back to Nairobi for me to catch the flight to Tanzania. We hadn’t got very far when a problem came up – the windscreen wipers and washer started running continually. Adams called for a mechanic, who obviously didn’t have the faintest clue what he was doing, then had Mary and I wait at the little cafe where we had stopped while he took the car to the garage. As time wore on I was beginning to panic, but eventually he returned with the problem fixed and we were on our way.

The rest of the trip was uneventful – in fact I slept through most of it. We arrived at the airport early for my 7pm check-in, and because Nairobi airport has a ridiculous rule that they won’t let you in before the check-in opens, I had to wait at a little restaurant next door. Had a surprisingly good cappucino while I waited.

The flight to Dar Es Salaam was only a couple of hours, in a tiny plane (only four seats to a row.) By the time I arrived, collected my luggage and did the immigration stuff, then walked from the international terminal to the domestic, it was around half past midnight. My flight to Kigoma was not due to leave till 10.50, so another looooong wait.

When I  finally arrived at Kigoma, Pastor Peter and another pastor, Pastor Love, met me at the airport. They drove me to their church for some prayer, then took me to a restaurant for lunch. Not sure what exactly I ate, other than that there was a fish on the plate, but it was rather nice especially as I had not eaten any real food since lunch the day before (when I arrived in Dar Es Salaam it was too late to change any money, so I wasn’t able to buy food at the airport.)

Finally they brought me to the place where I am staying. It’s kind of a Christian camp, in a compound that includes the local Christian radio station. I would prefer to stay with the pastor and his family, but sometime that isn’t possible, and this is quite nice and comfortable. The room I am in has four beds, but I am the only one staying here.

Pastor Peter’s church has their service on Saturday, so I am waiting for them to pick me up for my first time of ministry here.