Donations

Just a reminder to all of our precious financial supporters of the CC School of Ministry (Malawi Outreach), please begin to mail all donations & your checks payable to Ruth's Shawl and mail to Ruth's Shawl address at 1172 South Main St Box #354 in Salinas, Ca. 93901. As of January 1, 2013, Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay is no longer the receiving location of all donations due to tax laws pertaining to receiving funds for a non-employee.

We have, therefore, have joined under the Ruth's Shawl Non-Profit 501(c)3 corporation in the USA & under Ruth's Shawl legal status under the NGO Board, the Government agency here in Malawi. Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay is still our sending church & continues to support the ministry here in prayer as well as their continued financial support. This change of combining both ministries in reality has changed nothing, as we have always operated as a team ministry, using two different names in order to clarify the focus of each ministry.

To those of you who sent your gifts in Febraury to CCMB, they have forwarded these to us at Ruth's Shawl and they have been recorded accordingly. You will also recieve your Year-End Tax Dedutible Receipts from Ruth's Shawl for all gifts/donations for 2013 & beyond.

Thank you for your prayers & your financial giving, as we have said many times before, it is because of your faithfulness we are able to continue to minister here in Malawi as our Lord directs us to do! Here is what you are supporting, changing lives in the least, the lost and the last! So, we say a big, Zikomo Kwambiri to you all!!!!!



3-11-13

Malawi 2013

We arrived back in Malawi on February 7th, after spending 10 full & busy weeks in the States. Up & down all of California, Texas, & Washington State. 12 churches, 2 High Schools, 2 Elementary Schools, several Home Fellowships; numerous doctor appointments, and best of all, spent some very precious time with each of our four grown children, our 13 grandchildren, 7 great grandchildren, what a total blessing it has all been! We are so truly blessed of God and we are eternally grateful for His goodness towards us!!



We experienced some of the warmest greetings ever in each church and other venues where we shared this year , about what God has & is doing in Malawi Africa! People received us with open hearts & made us feel as a part of their respected church fellowships! They rejoiced with us in the reports of God's goodness which He is showering on Malawi & its people, and many people have expressed a genuine desire to come to Malawi to serve & see the work here in peron! This is something we are very excited about and we look forward to their arrival someday soon, prayerfully in 2013 and beyond.



We also wanted to take this opportunity to express our sincere & heart felt thanks for the generous outpouring of financial gifts, given for the work of the ministry here in Malawi from those churches we were privileged to share with, as well as our faithful donor base that have stood with us these past four years. There are not words that can adequately describe how grateful & blessed, both Nora & I are, with your faith in Jesus & your trust you have expressed in us! All we can do is to say thank you Jesus & Zikomo Kwambiri to each of you! Our promise to each of you is this, we will keep on keeping on until the Lord returns for us all or until He decides to take us (Nora & I) to be with Himself! We absolutely love serving our Lord here in Malawi, because we know, experiencially, this is where He has sent us to serve Him.


Some exciting good news is that all the crops that were plaanted on the newly acquired 8.13 acres in early December are almost ready to be harvested come late March & mid April. The crops are maize, ground nuts,(Peanuts) pumpkins,& sweet potatoes. It looks like all of these crops are going to result in a bumper harvest! PTL!!!! We also met with the architectual firm again this week and we are moving forward with plans to seeing the fence around the property to be going up after the harvest. This fence in its total footage will be approximately 1 mile in length in order to fence in the total acreage.



Our schedule for village outreaches will begin in March, with a number of new villages, as well follow up with those where we conducted our seminars last year. We have already conducted a Pastors & wives Conference for a local Baptist Church here in Lilongwe on 2/15 & 16th and I have been asked to start a weekly Bible study on a new T.V. station beginning operational viewing in July. We will begin a new weekly mentoring gathering of the young men & women of Flood Church very soon as well. We have also been requested by a local Pastor & its church leadership to consider conducting several different Seminars for their three churches in 2013.



So, all in all, 2013 has begun with a clear path of what is before us as of this moment in time and we understand that we must keep a close abiding fellowship with our Lord so we only follow His directions! We earnestly seek your continued prayers, love, & support for Malawi and for us persoanlly, that the Lord will keep us healthy & strong, so we can teach, train & disciple the people whom God has entrusted into our care!

Furlough

We left Lilongwe on Nov. 29th, arrived in San Francisco on Nov. 30th from Malawi, getting up at 5:30AM Malawi time, & getting into the condo here in Salinas, Ca,we clocked 39 hours. Tired, but we had great flights all the way. God has been so good to us and we praise His Holy Name!

We began the very next day with a Board of Directors meeting at 9AM PDT & we have been on the run since. We have spoken at the following churches since our arrival:

Sanctuary Bible Church in Carmel Valley Ca.
Grace Christian Chapel of Seaside, Ca.
Calvary Chapel Foresthill, Ca.
Lighthouse Fellowship in Pacific Grove, Ca.
Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay, Monterey, Ca.

To come:

Cornerstone Fellowship in Napa, Ca 12/23/12
Calvary Chapel Hollister,Ca. on 12/30/12
Calvary Chapel Visalia, Ca. on 1/6/13
Calvary Chapel Annual Missions Conference in Murrieta, Ca. 1/7/to 1/11/13
The Cross Church in Shell Beach, Ca. on 1/13/13
Stockdale Christian School in Bakersfield, Ca. 1/24/13
Trinity High School in Monterey, Ca. on 1/25/13
Calvary Chapel Salinas, Ca. on 1/27/13


We have also attended to our annual Medical check-ups such as :

Chiropractic Exam
Eye Exams
Hearing Aid Exam
Annual Check up with our Doctor of Internal Medicine
Dermatologists
Dentist
Allergist

and all of them with wonderful good reports!!!!

This week we are enjoying our time with our daughter & family in Vacaville, Ca. near Sacramento. Natalie is our oldest child, married to Greg Locastro, their two boys are Domenic & Sam. Natalie loves to cook & bake, & Greg also loves to cook the best Italian food you have ever tasted!! It has been in the 20's at night & high 50's during the day. Burrrrr! Tomorrow we will get to be with my older brother & wife, as well as several of their grown children & families. So blessed to be able to spend time with family!!!!!!

We have the blessing of spending Christmas week with our son Tom, his wife Mayra, & three of their children, Kayla, Jaeden, & Quinn in Salinas Ca. It is so good to be with some of our children & grandchildren. We will also be able to see most of our great grandchildren and we met recently for the first tme our newest great grandchild, Addison Mae, who was born this last May. She is a beauty, even if I say so myself! Her father is Ty Matthew Hurlbirt (1st grandson) & mother is Savannah.

Then the first week of January 2013 with our daughter Erin & family in Bakersfield, Ca. Erin is our youngest child & is married to Todd Brendlin, their children are Trevor Alan & Keely Grace. It is always a wonderful time to spend with them as well as getting the opportunity to speak at their Christian School in January. We might also get to see Trevor & Keely to play some of the sports activity.

Then the week of 1/14/13, we fly to Washington State to be with our daughter Kelly & her husband Lewis along with their daughters, Avery & Delaney. It will be really cold in Washington, but we also have the best time with Kelly & family. Really looking forward to Lew's B-B-Q pizza! Our daughter Kelly & both of their daughters love to bake, so probably will gain a few pounds, but with a smile on my face!

We will then return to Salinas in time to speak at Calvary Chapel Salinas on 1/27/13 and then wrap up our visiting in & around Monterey/Salinas before we head back to Malawi. Please be praying for us to enjoy all of our time with our family as well as be good ambassadors for Christ as we share at each of the venues described above. We love & appreciate each one of you for your love, prayers, & support!

Merry Chrstmas one & all, remembering whom we are celebrating, Jesus Christ, our Lord & Savior!! To Him be all the glory & honor! Amen.











This is what the ministry it is all about, teaching, training, & discipling in the villages of Malawi along with the young men & women who assist us in every element of the ministry!

Month of October Update Report

Here we are again, another month gone again already! Time sure seems to be flying by us all. We had a good month in October, Bible Study each Monday with the staff at Water Missions International, a lot of activity with the land purchase, meetings with the sellers, getting all the necessary paper work done with the Malawi Ministry of Lands, finally recieving the final Land Certificate (Trust Deed) from the Ministry of Lands, then meeting with an Architect Firm who had been referred to us to start the drawings of the Ruth's Shawl Pavilion Training Center, (Nora is their Program Manager in Malawi), along with all the regular duties & activities!













Then on October 25th, Pastor Demitri, Ruan, & Edme arrived for a ten day ministry stay here in Malawi. We had active right away, going first to Area 44 at the Nsambeta Primary School, to share at the Special Needs class of 30 disabled children. Then later at the school, they participated in the weekly Bible Club Ministry with about 1400 students attending. The next day we had them at one of the widows house that Gary Guthrie of CC Napa rebuilt back in April/May, painting the inside of the house with a lime coating to protect it from rain deterioation & crawling bugs that are very common
in Malawi.









On October 29 we took off for the Village of Chisanja for a two day Pastors Conference & then the next two days in the village of Msambiamfa for an additional two day Pastors Conference. The next day we headed to Lake Malawi for a half day of relaxation & a good non-village meal. On the way home on Friday afernoon, our Toyota Prado began making a noise which did not sound good at all! The engine died on us 4 times before we made it back to Lilongwe. I had called our mechanic after the first time the engine died, described what the sound was making, but he said to try to make it back, if possible, which we did, but with a lot of frustration! We have subsequently learned that it was the crankshaft, & the vehicle has been in the garage since then. Oh Lord have mercy upon the final cost of repairs!

Saturday was spent cleaning up all our equipment, our bodies & taking care of the all the dirty clothes we had accumulated over the week. Village life is spent in living in & around dirt as most houses & buildings have dirt floors & there is no asphalt roads. Sunday we took the team from South Africa to the airport and we came home & collapsed. We have been totally blessed of God again in 2012 with all the teams/individuals who have come to Malawi to minister here! We have had co-laborers here with us from the Month of April straight through to 11/4/12. Praise His Holy Name! All this activity was a direct result of answered prayer!! So, please join us as we continue to ask the Lord to send even more of His called people in 2013.

We & our team will be leaving on 11/19 for a week long outreach to a village named Chapulapula that is 2 1/2 hour drive from Lilongwe, and this will be our(Nora & I) last outreach for 2012 as we will be leaving for our furlough on 11/29. Please be praying for a safe journey back to the States, wonderful holidays with our 4 grown children, 13 grandchildren, & 7 great grandchildren, & for the Holy Spirit's anointing as we share with a number of churches & other speaking venues about what God is doing in Malawi.

May the Lord of the Harvest raise up His called people to share the gospel worldwide,as His soon return is quickly approaching!! We pray for all of you a Happy Thanksgiving & Christ filled Christmas! Remember, keep looking up, for our redemption draws nigh!!!!!!

September 2012 Update Report

Wow, where do I start to try to share with all of you what we have seen God do since our last update August 5th. With all the wonderful activity & the teams that have come to minister with us since April, in whom we have been so blessed, Nora & I took off 6 days for some R & R. We did not truly realize how very tired we were until we got to the Safari Beach Lodge at Lake Malawi & started to relax. It was a beautiful location above the lake on a large hill overlooking so much of the Senga Bay. It was so restful & relaxing, doing a whole lot of nothing except for praying, reading & eating. It was exactly what we needed & what the good Lord provided for us! Except for the attack of a very large Baboon, who decided he wanted one of our coffee mugs. I started to chase him, then quickly realized that was not really the smartest thing I could do, so decided to allow him to keep the mug, so he can proudly show all his fans how smart & clever he was to outfox an old “Asungu”! (White skinned person) But the time there it was perfect for us as we celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary! (July 24, 1959)
We then proceeded to leave the lodge on Monday the 20th, for a four day outreach to a village named Mlesi, not too far from where we were staying at the Lodge. We were blessed with another great opportunity of being able to teach pastors, elders, youth leaders, women, & of course, all the multitude of children. In Malawi, 51% of the entire population of Malawi is under the age of 14. So, there are literally hundreds of children in every village, with little, to no supervision! They flock to our activities, for many have never seen a white person, never seen a movie of any kind, & the puppet ministry by the Guthrie family was a total new experience for them!!
We then return home to Lilongwe and the next evening had our monthly UNO Championship card game night, along with some outstandingly good food, with our team of volunteers & helpers. Great evening of fun, food, & relaxation! We are totally blessed with the team God has surrounded us with here in Malawi. Smart, trainable, dedicated, easy to work with, hard workers, and the best part, is that each one of them loves our Lord Jesus with their whole heart! Thank you Jesus for your goodness!!!!

The next week we returned to the village of Nsambiafa for a one day follow up visit to see how they were doing with the Word they had been taught as well as how they are applying the Word to their daily lives. We were pleased to find them doing well, happy, & encouraged by the things they had learned from us on our earlier week long outreach. Then the following week we traveled to the village of Chisanja to meet with Pastor Mphatso to set up a meeting to begin Adult Literacy Classes in this village for those widows & other women who cannot read or write. Nora will be hiring a Credentialed school teacher from that area to teach the class for 12 week Pilot Program, then RS will evaluate the progress of the attendee’s & if things are progressing well, RS will rewrite a contract for an additional 12 weeks. We also discussed setting dates to hold a Youth Conference, Pastors Conference, & a Women’s Conference in the months of October and November. Pastor Mphatso is the lead Pastor for 14 other churches in the region and is well known & respected by all the other churches in the Ntcihsi area.

We were so excited to welcome the Guthrie family on September 11th from CC Foresthill, Ca. The family consisted of Pastor Mike, his wife Stephanie, & their three daughters, Michaela, Jenna, & Rebecca. And we left no moss growing under their feet as we had them out the very next morning at 6AM setting up for the Chapel Service at the African Bible College, where I taught & they need a mini presentation of their outstanding puppet ministry. These are college age men & women, but they were so impressed with the ministry using puppets! We then had them ministering at the ABC campus for the purpose of training any interested students at the college for the puppet ministry; they taught at the ABC Primary Academy on campus; recorded 5 shows for the new ABC T.V. station, taught at Nsambeta Primary School with a student population of 5110 students & on another date taught at the Special Needs class at Nsambeta School with about 30 students who went wild with the puppets! We also took them to three remote villages, having them ministering with their gifts using their puppet ministry. All in all, we were totally blessed with their hearts to go anywhere at any time,, being flexible, & being the servants God has called them to be. All of us say to the Guthrie family, Zikomo Kwambiri, & may the good Lord continue to bless & use you all for His kingdom purposes! Come back soon to Malawi & follow up on what you have planted here, we will water, & tend the garden in your absence! Until then, Dovajana! (Until we meet again) We love and appreciate all five of you mucho!

The month of October is scheduled to be a catch up time on all the projects we have not been able to get to during the last few months. We will see how that goes, as in Malawi, the phrase, blessed are the flexible, is an often used phrase here! In the later part of October, Pastor Demitri from CC Cape Town, South Africa, is coming to minister with us along with one other pastor. Our plans are to conduct a Pastors Conference in Chisanja, which will allow approximately 20 churches with their pastors & church leaders to be taught over a three day time period. We are very excited to see this come into fruition, Lord willing, of course!
Ruth’s Shawl has just signed the legal papers and had them recorded in Blantyre, to allow them to purchase 3.308 hectares of land where the Ruth’s Shawl Pavilion Training Centre will be built. This Centre will provide a place where special training can be administered, and allow expanded knowledge of God’s Word to be taught as well as to disciple & mentor Malawians. Malawi Outreach, Ruth’s Shawl, & Water Missions International ministries continue to work in concert with three different focused ministries, but yet able to complement one another.
These three separate ministries, with different Board Members, & supporters, yet, working well in meeting the very many & diverse needs found in Malawi. The Body of Christ working together for the benefit & wellbeing of others!
Please be praying for all areas of ministries, that we may accomplish what our Lord desires us to complete before we head back to Ca. for our annual furlough in December. There are so many areas of needs that exist and we need your prayers for our Jehovah Jireh to provide all the necessary funding for the projects at hand as well as those we know not of as yet! He has been so faithful to provide for all our needs, and we will trust Him to continue to do so. So, please pray with us, so that the people here in Malawi may grow stronger in their faith & their knowledge of God’s Word.
Thank you one and all for your faithful support in love, prayers, & financially. We cannot do this ministry God has called us to without each of you doing that which God places on your heart to be co-laborers here in Malawi! The Lord bless & keep you all in His loving arms!

Zikomo Kwambiri,
Steve & Nora Braselton
Malawi Outreach Ministry
www.theroadtomalawi.blogspot.com
Ruth’s Shawl Ministry
www.ruthsshawl.org