Service and evangelism hand in hand

By Julianna Jones

Jesus came to bring hope and healing to the hurting and the lost, and he continues to do this ministry today through his Church. One All Nations Cape Town member has seen this reflected in his work while he was in South Africa and now while he’s ministering in Malawi.

  Rebman Yosowa is a Malawian who, along with his wife Ellen, ministers in Nkhata Bay, Malawi. He came to Cape Town to look for work in 2005. Although he was raised in a Christian family, Rebman didn’t take his relationship with God seriously until in 2008 he met some missionaries in his community, Masiphumelele. He got connected with YWAM and then All Nations members. “Then my heart felt like this was the time, this was the chance that I could sit down and have the time with the Lord while I was in South Africa,” Rebman said. All Nations founder Floyd McClung, as well as Mike and Kalyn Arndt, started meeting with Rebman and his friends and family, starting a house church. 

  Rebman started working at ANCT’s property, Africa House, in 2009 and then in 2012 went through AN’s flagship training program, Church Planting Experience (CPx). He spent several months of that time on outreach in Malawi, and returned for a time the next year as well. All the while, he said, the church in Masiphumelele was flourishing.

  “Churches in Masi were growing, like, day by day,” Rebman said. “We had, like, every day we had somebody coming to the Lord. And Masi was a place where a lot of things were happening — like accidents, fires burning out houses — and AN would come and they would help putting up houses. And I was part of that team. So it was like reaching out to people was becoming so easy, like we had an access because people trusted us and they saw all the work we were doing.”

  Rebman brought this value for service and evangelism with him when he moved back to Malawi in 2016 as an ANCT field worker. There, he coaches a soccer team to reach out to young men at risk of turning to drugs. “So we [are] kind of bringing them together and also teaching them the word of God,” Rebman said. He also started a farming project and other small businesses to sustain the work of him and the leaders he’s raised up there. He went through Business for Missions training from All Nations and is being coached in these principals by AN member Jonathan Fokker. Rebman and his team are teaching others in their community how to start businesses to sustain them financially but also provide opportunities to share the Gospel and disciple people in their communities.

  Just like when he was in Masi, Rebman’s church community now is still focused on serving others in need. Every Tuesday they have charity time, led by the leaders Rebman has raised up in his community. Everyone spends time praying and asking God who they should give to, then they write down the names to whom they think they should give. The next week, the churches go and buy essentials like salt and soap to give to those in need — often the elderly or orphans — and also pray with them. “The team is putting their heart into it,” Rebman said. “We are raising funds for it by ourselves.”

  This year they’ve faced increased challenges because of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially as it’s made travel more difficult. But Rebman praises God that there hasn’t been a single case of Covid-19 in their community. Still, they’ve had to rely more on messaging on the phone in order to communicate with the leaders and ministries, which costs money. Rebman said they also are trusting God for bicycles so they can travel between villages easier.  

  Rebman also is trusting God to see a movement begun from his ministry. He’s continued to focus on planting easily reproducible simple churches in his ministry, which isn’t something with which most people in Malawi are familiar. Sometimes that makes people in his community doubt him. “It’s like people are thinking we need to have a big church, while the vision is not to do that,” he said. “So that’s a big challenge. But we can not force people to be for that, but we are trusting the Lord that this is the movement which we want.”