Inside Story: Mission Field in Lake Malawi

Mission Field in Lake Malawi

By A.D.V. Moyo

A stranger stopped the Seventh-day Adventist university student as he walked down the road after a Pathfinder meeting on the island of Chizumulu in Lake Malawi. His green Pathfinder uniform caught her attention.

“Where are you coming from?” the stranger asked with great interest.

The student, Levison Kawonga, told her that he had been participating in a Pathfinder event at an Adventist church. His words seemed to touch her heart, and the words started rolling off her lips. “I used to be an Adventist,” she said. “I married an Adventist man, but we divorced.”

She spoke about going to bars and living licentiously after the divorce. Then she moved to Chizumulu and married a local high school teacher.

The next Sabbath, the woman showed up at the Adventist church. She enjoyed the worship service, and she asked Levison for Bible studies.

Levison was delighted. This was why he had come to the island in the first place: to share God’s love. He belonged to a club of Adventist students at Mzuzu University, a major public university of 8,500 students located about 60 miles (100 kilometers) away. The club aimed to strengthen the faith of Adventists students and reach out to classmates through twice-weekly prayer meetings. The club grew into the Mzuzu Seventh-day Adventist Church, and its students fanned out to engage in missionary work in places in the region, including Chizumulu.

Levison visited the woman and her husband in their home and, after the Bible study, left behind several books, including Ellen White’s The Great Controversy. When Levison arrived for the second Bible study, he found the husband deeply engrossed in The Great Controversy. “What’s the difference between Saturday and Sunday?” the husband asked Levison. At the end of the Bible study, he promised to go with his wife to church the next Sabbath.

Weeks and months passed, and the man and his wife (pictured) gave their hearts to Jesus and were baptized. Today, they are mission-minded members of the Chizumulo Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Levison is convinced that God can use young people to reach anyone and everyone. “It is time to go and reach different classes of people with the good news of Jesus Christ,” he said. “The Mzuni Seventh-day Adventist Church, which started as a club of students, never dreamed that the Chizumulu effort would bear such fruit. Glory to God!”

Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will support Adventist education in the East-Central Africa Division. Thank you for your Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in second quarter 2021 that is helping to expand Adventist education in Malawi.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

Amen!