In 2016, the VGR tape outreach crisscrossed the country and crossed borders to baptize 994 souls in about 86 baptismal services, scattered along approximately 20,050 kilometers . At this point of writing, the work is continuing and the Ford Ranger truck is expected to eat away more kilometers to reach out to more needy souls in 2017.
Apart from two trips to bordering country Mozambique, three quarters of the meetings were conducted in the remote villages of Malawi. In most of these areas, the terrain and road conditions are quite a challenge, but the burning desire to search for the remaining crew of Bride of Christ overrode the difficulty. Because the harvest is huge, the tape outreach team will continue to go city after city, town after town, and village after village in Malawi to spread the Message of the hour, preached by the prophet of God, Brother William Branham.
Brother William Branham desired to preach again to the people of Africa, as he said this in his 1965 Africa trip. That hindsight excited the desire in Brother Joseph’s heart, and the hearts of a few loyal supporters, to give the people of Malawi a chance to listen to the Voice of God through His prophet. Equipped with state of the art speakers, the team assertively goes around playing tapes of the prophet in fulfilment of His servant’s desire.
The year 2016 has been quite noteworthy in as far as tape outreach effort is concerned. The response of the tape outreach meetings has been overwhelming. It has proven to the world that the Message is not just any ordinary voice, it is one infused with Life, the same that sounded at the grave of Lazarus, and made him come back to life after a four days’ journey, and is also the same Voice that searched for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
The Message came to Malawi with a big bang. evangelists took turns at public places, schools, buses, and market places to introduce the prophet to the gentiles. The pioneers spared no efforts in trumpeting the End Time Message. Their efforts bore the gifts of churches spanning across the whole country. In the course of time, the revival cooled down. It was at that point that Voice of God Recordings came in with the tape outreach effort to resuscitate the revival. The Chichewa-interpreted tapes started to roll and preach the voice of the prophet to the people of all walks of life. The tape outreach effort has raised the tempo of the outreach work; its results leaves the onlookers dumbfounded and its effect is beyond comparison. Many believers confess that the tape outreach has an amazing anointing and its results are beyond description.
Beautiful grammar fails to describe the authority that is in the voice of the prophet on CD's and microSD cards. These tapes carry the anointed Voice of Eternal Life that searches for the Seed of God. Our main target has been the villages, farther away from civilization, where people can’t afford to buy a tape player. This affords helpless people a chance to hear the vindicated Voice of God for this end time.
Our team of seven dedicated brothers, with the inspiration from Brother Joseph, is armed with desire to see that the voice of the prophet is heard all over Malawi and across the borders.
When we arrive at a venue, the boys speedily set up the equipment, and the scene attracts the attention of many people. The fascination balloons up until some of the gathering lose patience and start asking, "What do you want to do? What have you brought us?" and we simply say, "Just hold your peace, you will see what you have never seen before."
After playing a few songs of worship, the atmosphere normally sets in for a tape to be played. It is always a privilege to invite Brother William Branham to preach again to the people of Africa through an interpreter. Whenever a tape is being played that has corresponding books, we make sure the people are following the tape with the Chichewa books. And it has also been encouraging to see some believers that attend our meetings following the tape being played on their phones with microSD cards that VGR has recently distributed.
The tape outreach has not been without its hitches and challenges; we go in an area where the already established churches have adopted a strange doctrine that denies the importance of listening to tapes, one that refuses to go by what the tapes says. In most of those places the old churches have ended up losing members, because people want to be associated with the true identified prophet of God of this age. It has always been an honor taking the Voice of God into those places, declaring to the world that we still have a living Voice and it is still searching for the last soul to come into the fold.
The team has traveled in a number of places; these places include markets, trading centers, bushes, and villages. Nkando (one of the produce markets where we had an overwhelming attendance), Madisi in Dowa district, Zalewa trading center, Thyolo tea plantations, Liwonde police check point, Mwenye village, Sawali village, Mapelera trading, Chiwaya village, Luchenza trading center, Mjoho, Ntaja, Lunzu trading center, Namadzi trading center, Fatima trading center, Makoka market, Ngongomwa village, Mangámba market, Nafisi village and many others. These are long miles covered, with thousand liters of gas burnt. We have been to some of the areas more than once, conducting tape outreach meeting in two or more locations per area.
In Mangámba we had an extraordinary situation. A drunkard heard a tape being played far from where he was, and pulled himself along. Staggering, he managed to come. He caused a bit of commotion but we endured with him, and when the altar call was made he surrendered to be baptized. He went into the water staggering in his drunken state, but emerged from the water sober. It was awe-inspiring. None understood it, and he is now a well-established member of the church.
At Liwonde police check point, a heavily intoxicated man came to disturb the meeting. Still noisy, the boys pulled him aside. At the end of the meeting, the drunkard man was baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is now a stable brother in the church and his wife who was a Moslem has embraced the Message. For her, it is a miracle to see her husband reformed. These are some of the situations that bear witness to the power of Tape Ministry.
We thank Brother Joseph and the little group of dedicated brethren for supporting the effort with enough funding, without which we wouldn't have managed to visit all these places and baptized people in the true Bible baptism.
The Malawi Missionary Team