Dynamic Churches International

Dynamic Churches International’s goal is to reach the world with the Good News. The best way to accomplish this is by new believers spreading this message through their changed lives and by telling others of the hope they found in Jesus. The DCI Team has been involved in this from the beginning. As Malawians in the north were saved the message began to spread to other areas [of Africa].

In Jenda, Brian Mkandawere went into Zambia and started a work just across the border. Now there are many Life Groups in Zambia spreading the Good News further into the country.

A little further north of Jenda other Life Groups took the Good News across the border into Zambia.

George Chipeta, one of the DCI trainers, is discipling two people in Zambia by phone, one in Lusaka and the other, who is his stepsister, in the north. (https://dynamicchurches.org/blog/)

The Tumbuka and Chewa languages of Malawi are very closely related to those spoken in the surrounding countries. This makes it easier for the Good News to organically travel into those areas. More translation work needed as the Good News continues to travel to other areas and countries.

Swahili, another widely used trade language in Africa, is already available to DCI in translation and is also used by some people groups in Mozambique. (https://dynamicchurches.org/multilanguage/swahili/).

Organic growth of the church is like one beggar telling another where the bread is. We can see this happen in the south of Malawi where the gospel is spreading into Mozambique, a country troubled by regional wars and poverty.

What follows is a summary of John Singinie’s report of DCI reaching into Mozambique:

John reported about a recent trip to the Blantyre area in the south of Malawi. He had been training leaders there who in turn had trained others there, as well as in Mozambique.

He visited 18 Life Groups in Malawi and Mozambique, including three in Chikwawa where he had previously conducted training. John was happy with the progress he saw. One coach had even completed the Dynamic Discipling book on his own, despite limited training.(https://dynamicchurches.org/resources/one-to-one_discipleship/)

John talked about a leader named Shiro who works in Mozambique. He described how the gospel is spreading organically and transforming lives in areas affected by war in this country. Large Life Groups are being formed with many participants, with training of new leaders still ongoing.

When asked about needed materials, John indicated that people in Mozambique are very thirsty for the gospel but need New Testaments and printed discipling materials. When these are supplied, these Life Groups will naturally become churches, once they have been discipled into maturity.

Just as we found in Malawi, even though the census lists people as Christian, the Good News message and assurance of salvation is not understood by most.

You can be part of this. Below are the links to get involved.

Thanks for reading this report!

God bless you,Hans Timmermans,
Interim Director

e-transfer: dcioffice@shaw.ca

Contact us

George Chipeta writes:

At his week at home, I continued training by phone my stepsister Georgina Dzimbiri who stays in Kitwe City in interior Zambia. She is a humble and devoted woman. After I explained to her how Life Groups help spread the Good News, she started one at her house. She also wanted to go to the village to start another one, but I told her to wait because there is a need to training her further. I have just introduced one-to-one discipling to her and how to establish a Life Group. Since she doesn’t have a copy of the Dynamic Basics booklet, I need to send her a soft copy of the English and Chichewa DB’s. Chichewa is like Chinyanja which is spoken in Zambia though there are some differences between these two languages. 

During one of our Team Zoom Meetings I mentioned that I am training 2 people in Zambia: Chanda Nsofwa in Lusaka, the capital and Georgina Dzimbiri in Kitwe, another city in Zambia.

During our week in Mzuzu I also spoke with pastors Brave Nyoni of Mpherembe, James Mgemezulu of Emgazini, and Laswell Banda of Enukweni. All these reported that the work is going well, but there is a need for Dynamic Basics and Bibles because several people in these Life Groups do not have those. (These pastors are in northern Malawi).

Best Regards,
George

Caleb Chirambo writes:

We visited several life groups like KAMSOLO LG, CHIZIWENI LG, CHRISTIAN HOPE LG and AGRICULTURE LG. This one named so because it is near the agricultural offices. KAMSOLO is the fourth-generation Life Group.

From Mzuzu to Euthini is about 2 hours and 25 minutes by car, it is about 95 kilometers over very bad roads and therefore we take 3-to-4-hour to get there. This time, we got stuck in the mud for almost 2 hours, fortunately the villagers came and helped push us out.
As we visited each Life Group, we encouraged the leaders about the one-to-one discipling and the Life Group meetings. We reminded them of the Explosive Growth process. We also taught about assurance of salvation, to make sure that they know they are saved. We saw about 15 to 20 people per Life Group we visited. In some places two or more Life Groups met with us.  We spent 4 days from Monday to Thursday and on Friday we returned home to Mzuzu.

All four Life Groups mentioned above are new Life Groups. We were told that there are many newly established Life Groups in the Euthini area. Euthini is a big area extending from Edingeni to the south, Mpherembe to the northeast and Mbalachanda to the west.  Euthini is one of the largest trading centers in the Mzimba district which has an area of more than 10 thousand square kilometers.

We were happy we could bring some New Testaments and Dynamic Basics to this area which is a being reached by Christ-followers reaching the lost.

With kind regards,
Caleb

DAMALI SAMWILI;
She is one of the devoted Life Group members. Before she was saved, she was an herbalist/ witch doctor, and she was a very cruel woman. She considered herself as a healer and someone who could help people to defeat witchcraft. She believed in rituals and spells, and she misled many people by deceiving them to believe in her and not in God.

By the grace of God, she surrendered her life to Jesus. She learnt many things through one-to-one discipling and participating in the Life Group meetings and her life is changed. She believes in God and she is now preaching Jesus. She is discipling other people so they can know the truth which sets them free from the fear of witchcraft and death. 

LUSUNGU CHAULA;

She was a quarrelsome lady and a troublemaker. She had no friends because of her bad behaviour.  By grace, God has saved her and changed her life, and she now is a good testimony to the community and is doing the work of God. 

CECELLIA SAKALA:

Before she was saved there was no peace in her family. She would fight with her husband. 

After being saved she became a blessing to her family and a good testimony to her husband, children and the people of her community.  Her husband, after seeing that God had saved and changed his wife, also received Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. 

He used to abuse his wife, and she had no peace at home, and life was not easy for her. He was violent and would not take care of his family. He was cruel to his family and spent his funds on drinking. He would even sell his family properties to spend the money on drink. 

A good testimony encourages people to come to the Lord. Cecelia did not preach to her husband, but her husband saw what God had done in his wife and the change in her life this had caused. This made him give his life to Jesus.

Greetings in Jesus name,

Our field trip was wonderful. Among the many Life Groups that we followed up was KAMSOLO where we found Group Village Headman Symon Mkhalipi and Innocent Sakala who shared their testimonies with us. This Life group was started by Patrisha Shaba who was trained by coach Misted Manda.

GVH Symon Mkhalipi

He was one of the people who welcomed us with joy and shared with us his testimony. He used to smoke heavily, and this affected his life and family. He lived a godless life, and his family had no joy. He tried to stop smoking on his own, but he failed. But now, after he believed in Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he stopped smoking. Now there is joy in his family because of Jesus Christ has changed his life. Symon is a Group Village Headman who leads by example and since everyone knew about his past, they are now watching his new life in Christ being lived out.

Innocent Sakala

He was a drunkard and a smoker. He used his money for beer and smoking without taking care of his family. Now as he accepted Jesus into his life, Jesus Christ has changed his life. He is no longer spending money in beer and smoking. He is now a devoted member of KAMSOLO Life group and he witnesses about Jesus Christ in his community . He was very happy to have received a DB and a Bible from DCI . He said this will help to grow his spiritual life but also help in sharing the good news through one to one in his community.

We were very blessed to follow-up on these people and may God continue transforming their lives as the do Life group Bible studies.

Dear Friends of Dynamic Churches International,

Recently Al Middleton has introduced me, Hans Timmermans, as the Interim Director of DCI. Let me give you a little background:

In 2002 Al & Mary Middleton and I met in a restaurant in Ontario for the first time. I was on the verge of travelling to the Netherlands for ministry purposes. Al introduced me to the one-to-one discipling approach he had developed over the previous years. I was excited! “This is a tool I can use in Europe,” I thought. I became an Associate Missionary with DCI to train people in the Explosive Growth, along with the one-to-one discipling and leadership development.

During the next 6 years I trained people in Europe and Ontario in various churches and mission organizations that inquired about DCI. In 2008 Elly, my dear wife, went to Malawi, Africa with her sister Anna to follow up on a missionary endeavour her sister and her husband had started there some years earlier. During return visits in 2010 and 2011 Elly discovered a real hunger for the Good News.

In 2011 I resigned the missionary pastor position I had with Village Missions and joined Elly to begin a discipling ministry in Malawi. God had brought some godly men to her attention in 2011 during a pastors’ conference she had organised in Mzuzu in northern Malawi. In early 2012 we travelled together to Malawi during January and February; we planned to stay for two months. Our goal was to train local men to equip their own people and disciple them. They know the languages and the culture. They are used to the food and the local travel conditions. Mzuzu is in the north of Malawi, in the poorest part of that country. Malawi ranks 5th in the world’s poorest countries index.

As we know, we become part of God’s family through new birth (John 1:12; 3:3-16). And to live victoriously through Jesus Christ one needs to give up on self sufficiency (“I have been crucified with Christ…” Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:11).

The situation in Malawi, especially in the villages, proved to be ready for receiving this Good News. The DCI Team doesn’t mix any humanitarian work into their mission; they travel with the Word and aim to have people saved through the one-to-one discipling through using the Dynamic Basics and the Dynamic Discipling Al Middleton so generously designed and made available for this purpose. When God saves souls, their life outlook changes dramatically, often immediately. We have so many testimonies of changed lives listed on this DCI branch website: www.northernmalawinews.com. Please go there and read and praise God for saving so many thousands in Malawi and beyond.

The Good News is spreading organically to the rest of Malawi from the north. Also, the surrounding countries, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania are being reached through the organic spread of the Gospel. Sometimes people want to know “how many” and “how far,” but organically moving outward means you lose track of where and how far the message has travelled. Wasn’t that how the early church reached their known world and beyond?

Since you have read this far you must be interested in the work of God through Dynamic Churches International. You may be asking yourself, “How can I help and where is the greatest need?”

1. New Testaments. Without these in the local languages the work slows. We could use 10,000 a year effectively. These are given to those who have completed the one-to-one Dynamic Basics discipling booklet.
2. Printed materials: Dynamic Basics, Dynamic Discipling and leadership training booklets in local languages.
3. Translation funds: as the Good News travels to other places, new languages are encountered. Nothing communicates the Word as reading it in your mother tongue.
4. Support for the DCI Team, John Singinie, George Chipeta and Caleb Chirambo.
   a. Personal support (inflation is rampant in Malawi).
   b. Fuel: diesel fuel is almost $ 5.00/litre.
   c. General Funds to finance the ministry.
   

Elly and I are self-supporting, we don’t draw a wage from DCI. The lesson we learned in Malawi is that the Good News cannot be forced to spread, it needs to spread organically, from person to person. The right conditions for this exist in many areas of Africa, where people live without hope. The Good News gives hope and brings God’s order to families and villages.

Thank you for your prayers and support of Dynamic Churches International over the years. My prayer is that we can go a little further together as we all do our part in spreading the Good News to the lost.

Yours in Christ,
Hans Timmermans, Interim Director of DCI
dcitimmermans@gmail.com
Mobile: 519-859-9812

This newsletter comes to you from all those you support around the world. Please join with
me as we pray for these ministers and their families and that God will enlarge the work,
they do in the countries they disciple in.

• Malawi, Africa
• Northern India
• Nepal
• Ethiopia
• Spain
• Bangladesh
• Myanmar
• Philippines

Highlights in the update from Al and Mary:

• They are in their rental home in Sherwood Park, Alberta (near Edmonton)
• They need their house in Airdrie to sell
• Their 64th wedding anniverary
• Online training with Malawi leaders

Here is our newsletter!

Don’t miss this important news:

• DCI’s new mailing address
• Al and Mary’s move to Sherwood Park, AB
• The fruit from the Knowing Jesus as Our Life zoom training given by Al and Merle to pastors in Ethiopia and the fruitful impact through their ministries!

GoMAKE

After 24 years at the same address in Airdrie Alberta DCI, Founders Al and Mary are moving and accordingly the DCI office address is changing. With Executive Director Merle living in Edmonton DCI can now be reached at our new address in Edmonton…

Read the newsletter in PDF:

It has been a long time since our Christmas letter, so please find our most recent letter attached. We praise God for enabling us to learn new ways to continue to train people at a distance. Thanks for your prayers and financial assistance.

Here is a reminder from today’s verse of the day:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all
Your ways submit to Him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5,6

Our job is to trust God. His job is everything else!

Your brother and sister in Christ,
Al and Mary Middleton

Here is our current newsletter. Please download and share this PDF file.

Support donations can be made here.