Assignment Africa: The Music of Heaven

The choir at the Christian Teaching Center in the Salima district gave a boisterous welcome to visiting members of the TWR family from across the world.

To my senses, African worship is the music of heaven.

So the highlight of the TWR Southern Africa Partners Conference for me was after the conference officially closed. The group of us – from Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, England, Slovakia and the United States – went on a road trip to Lake Malawi. It’s the second-largest lake in Africa, and it’s about 100 kilometers from Lilongwe on a good, two-lane, paved road.

But on the way, we stopped at the Christian Teaching Center, a Pentecostal church in the Salima district of Malawi – essentially the lake district. The U.S. equivalent might be Michigan, albeit on a smaller scale.

We wanted to meet the members of a unique listening group. In many places in the world, TWR listening groups form to listen to TWR teaching programs and then discuss them. It doesn’t replace the church; it’s more similar to a church community group that meets during the week.

These groups usually are formed with a little encouragement from the TWR partner in their region. But this group formed on its own, at the impetus of Pearson Phiri, pastor of Christian Teaching Center. It includes people from several churches.

Janet Mtali, director of TWR Malawi, first became aware of the group in 2014, she told me, and the last time she visited it comprised 30 people. They are taking the Word to their surroundings, Janet said, with outreach activities in neighboring villages. Group members sometimes travel to Lilongwe to bring tangible support to TWR Malawi, she said, sometimes in the form of money, sometimes in the form of produce.

A Joyous Welcome

We didn’t know how many of them would be able to meet us on a Thursday afternoon.

Well! As soon as we arrived, a 20-voice choir marched out to greet us, singing and swaying joyously, as only an African choir can. If there were a way I could transport you to that moment, I would. It was glorious.

We were ushered into the building, where about 60 people had gathered in addition to those of us who were visiting. More singing and short talks followed, translated between English and the local language, Chichewa.

Sadly, we were to be there only for a short time. But I had the opportunity to hear the stories of four of the individuals, with Janet providing the translation. One was Judith Khuntho, 50, who received Christ in 2004 at a crusade in Lilongwe, where she was living at the time. “She used to be a very angry person, and the message that the pastor was preaching that day was about anger,” Janet explained.

When Judith’s husband died, she returned to Salima, her home district. She was a new believer in a crisis situation. “After becoming a widow, she had a lot of anxiety in her life, she was heartbroken, depressed, and she really just thought everything was over,” Janet explained.

“But Pastor Pearson Phiri was the one who invited her and started counseling her and helping her to know that there is hope and then invited her to this group to start listening to the programs with the other listeners,” Janet went on.

“After being with the other people, listening to the programs and sharing from what they listened to, she started becoming much happier than she was before because she was over herself, and she started growing spiritually. So, in 2015, she said that the Lord led her to start preaching to other people, and now she is a preacher herself.”

After far too short a time, we received an exuberant farewell. The choir had come up with a song that had one bit in English: “TWR! TWR! TWR!”

Everywhere in Malawi

We reached the lake at sunset, just in time for some lovely photo ops before we were served dinner. We listened to TWR Malawi on the car radio both driving to the lake and while returning. We heard a program in the Yao language, spoken by a mostly Muslim people group situated near the lake; Thru the Bible in Chichewa; and pastor and broadcaster Chuck Swindoll in English.

TWR Malawi has 13 FM transmitters placed strategically throughout the country so that everyone in Malawi can hear Christian radio 24/7. I think that’s a remarkable accomplishment, one for which we can praise God.

Earlier, as we were having lunch at the TWR Malawi campus, I had the opportunity to visit with Fletcher Kampani, 24, who just joined TWR Malawi in March as a presenter/producer for youth programs. He seems ideally suited.

“Mainly, what I focus on is myself – what have I gone through, what have I struggled with?” he said. “So mainly what the youth are struggling with in Malawi, we have suicidal issues. Young people are killing themselves at random. … Being that I am also a believer, a Christian, I point them to the cross. I say, ‘You know, there’s a good friend, somebody who can listen to you, someone who can comfort you. If I fail to understand you, there’s someone who can understand you more than I have done.’”

Fletcher was one of several young adults I met this week serving Jesus with TWR in southern Africa. In a land facing many challenges, these young, committed Jesus followers are among the reasons to continue to have hope.

Click here for PART 1, PART 2 and PART 4 of Assignment Africa.

Images: (top, banner) The choir at the Christian Teaching Center in the Salima district gave a boisterous welcome to visiting members of the TWR family from across the world, (middle, right) Janet Mtali, director of TWR Malawi (left) translates for Judith Khuntho, a listener in the group that formed in Malawi's Salima district, (bottom, left) Faith Zulu, a young staffer at TWR partner One Love Radio in Zambia, is silhouetted against the backdrop of Lake Malawi.