In Acts 12:24, Luke writes, “But the word of God increased and multiplied.” That same work—the work of the living and active word—continues into our own day. Over the past few months, we’ve seen God’s word pressing onward and changing lives in Malawi and Mozambique.
Church Planting in Mangochi
At the end of 2025, we began to support Patrick Matope as a church planter in one of the hardest-to-reach regions of Malawi: the district of Mangochi. Mangochi is a majority-Muslim area of the country, but Patrick felt the Lord’s leading to give his life to taking the gospel to the Muslim Yao people group.
This past Sunday, Patrick baptized the first three men to believe the gospel—the beginnings of a gospel-preaching church in the district. Pray for Patrick as he settles himself and his family in a place far from his own family and where he may at times face opposition.
Shepherds Academy in Malawi and Mozambique
In the final months of the year, Isaac Dzimbiri, our Malawi Ministry Director, taught Shepherds Academy courses both in Malawi and Mozambique. He was particularly burdened to take pastor training to the remote area of Mozambique on the east bank of Lake Chilwa.
Recently, we received reports of a pastor we had trained in years past who was removed from his church due to a doctrinal controversy. Another pastor had begun preaching that Jesus was not God but only the Son of God (Arianism always comes back in new ways all around the world). This pastor resisted the false teaching by preaching through the Gospel of John. In the end, he was expelled from the church for orthodox teaching! I couldn’t help but be proud of our Shepherds Academy graduate who had followed in the footsteps of Athanasius—standing up for the gospel and paying a price for it.
This reminds us of the eternal significance of everything that we do.
Theological Education Scholarship at Work
Last year, our board of trustees added a theological education scholarship to our budget. Our hope was to help support Malawians in pursuing ministry training at high-quality Bible colleges and seminaries. Through the scholarship, we’ve enabled Isaac to pursue his MDiv online through Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minnesota.
This year, we began supporting a former Shepherds Academy graduate, Solomon Nkhoma, to pursue his bachelor’s degree at Central Africa Baptist University in Zambia. This is the same college that Isaac graduated from, and it is a like-minded institution bringing faithful theological education to Africa.
We look forward to seeing what God does in the lives of these men and others that we support.
Stay Up-to-Date with the Gospel Life Podcast
If you’d like to dive deeper into everything that God is doing through Gospel Life, make sure you subscribe to the Gospel Life podcast. In our most recent episode, Isaac and I unpacked what it’s like to teach pastors in Malawi and Mozambique and how Shepherds Academy is expanding to meet those needs.
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