Mission Moments: Malawi
Visiting houses growing into churches
By GARY FALLESEN, Climbing For Christ
Damson Samson opened the house visit with the same question he was asking all of the small groups formed by members of Climbing For Christ’s Mulanje Massif Chapter: how have you been blessed by this Bible study?
One woman said she had learned how to share from the Word of God. Another said she had learned how to pray.
“So, I asked the one who could pray to pray for us and the one who could preach to share with us,” Damson said of this house visit in Thuchila, one of the gateway villages to Mulanje Mountain.
After the prayer, the young woman shared for three minutes from Matthew 7:21-23 (“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven…”).
“It was well spoken,” said Damson, our Malawi-based Africa coordinator, who took over the preaching from there.
He gave the example of a tomato farm, where the good tomatoes will go to market and the bad will be turned into manure. And then at the market, the buyer will decide what is really good and what is not. But even that which is poor can be made into tomato sauce.
Damson explained that only Jesus can make someone of value. “The sinful life is like a damaged tomato which needs Jesus to renovate and give value,” he said.
After this, the Spirit touched the hearts of many in the group – not all of whom were believers – and 25 people declared a desire to follow Jesus Christ.
Damson, above, praying with 25 new believers in Thuchila during a house visit of a small group led by Rescue Chapola, a porter and member of the Mulanje Massif Chapter. Below, a woman overwhelmed by the Spirit falls on her face in exaltation.
When Damson followed up with this group a few days later, he learned of prayers that had been answered: some who were plagued by nightmares were sleeping soundly, an unemployed person found a job, and a young woman who was engaged but her fiancé had been absent was reunited with the man who expressed remorse.
“From this home we went to (Kelvin) Chinagwa’s group, which is at Thuchila,” Damson said. “This group has been one of the biggest groups from the second class (of 61 guides and porters in our disciples-making-disciples training) and they are doing pretty well.”
Many in the group asked for a temporary shelter for times when it rains so this large group can still meet and also for food when they gather. Damson told them they needed to commit those requests to prayer.
He then taught them about hypocrisy and Jesus’ warnings to His disciples. “I started teaching what it means to be hypocritical and how that can destroy the hope that one should have,” Damson said. “Jesus rebuked people many times for looking like what they were not (see Matthew 6:1).
“Through the Spirit of God, what I was teaching with examples, many people were touched and 29 came forward confessing Jesus to be their Lord and Savior.”
Damson prays over some of the 29 desiring committing to Christ in Kelvin Chinagwa’s small group.
Day after day at the end of January and beginning of February, Damson visited the houses where Mulanje chapter members meet with their small groups – in Mnesa, Likhubula, Thuchila, and Fort Lister. He preached, prayed, and heard testimonies of people who had been healed and lives that have been transformed.
“I have been blessed more with this group,” said a woman in porter Chaston Buledi’s Bible study in Mnesa. “I was not a church person in the beginning, but now things are different. I never knew fasting, but now through Climbing For Christ I can do even two days. Sometimes I do it at home and sometimes I climb and fast on the mountain.”
A life transformed in Mnesa.
The small groups were formed as part of our teaching on “Disciples Making Disciples,” the second study we did with the Mulanje chapter in the DMD training conducted since 2017-2018 in Malawi and neighboring Tanzania with the Kilimanjaro Chapter. More than 150 guides and porters have received DMD training from Climbing For Christ using resources provided by The Timothy Initiative.
We have covered “TTI Lite” (an introduction to DMD), “Disciples Making Disciples,” “Discovering the Bible,” and “Communicating the Bible.” During “Communicating the Bible,” we also began doing outreach training on Mulanje Mountain in Malawi and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
This year, we are beginning our fifth study, “Church Planting & Book of Acts,” as we continue outreach training on the mountain for a third year.
Damson teaching a big small group in Likhubula.
Bibles and speakers with sim cards containing audio Bibles and Gospel lessons have been provided to many of the small groups – some of which are larger than the average size of congregations in North American churches. We have about 750 people in 27 small groups in Malawi and about 500 in 21 groups in Tanzania.
It will be interesting to see how the Lord leads this DMD training as we study church planting in Malawi and Tanzania this year and into 2027.
“We continue praying that the Lord would provide more financial support to help us grow and strengthen our groups, which is the long-awaited fruit of Climbing For Christ in the Mulanje and Kilimanjaro chapters,” Damson said.
“We pray that the Lord would give us courage to accept the call to help these groups grow into churches. Any denying this will bring our brothers down as they cannot see anyone who has been there for them apart from Climbing For Christ. As for me, I am ready to grow them as a mother church in Africa.”
To accomplish this, Damson said, “Leaders from these groups should be given more attention and time.” Our hope is to hold a small-group leadership meeting and training during Mission: Malawi 2026, which – Lord (and funding) willing – would be conducted in late April and early May.
Damson also urged that we must prepare to “support those ready for the construction of churches. This fact is undeniable. We will see it coming soon, like a pregnant woman giving birth is undeniable and nobody will stop that for it is beyond human capability.” 
The final Word
“…and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” – Matthew 16:18 (ESV
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