When the men and women of Chankhungu, Malawi woke with the dawn on a cool Monday morning to set up their stalls in the dusty market, they thought it would be a day like any other. But around lunchtime, a van of young people from the city arrived and started pulling out some strange equipment.
Word spread quickly that strangers had arrived and people from homes all through the village started gathering.
They watched the newcomers’ leader in quiet conversation with the market chairman and saw him clear a large space. Everyone gathered around the edges.
As the newcomers positioned themselves in the middle of that space, children pushed their way to the front of the crowd, curious.
It was still for a moment. Then the newcomers began to dance.
After a week of corporate fasting and break from ministry, the Malawi Foxfire team plunged back into work with vibrant enthusiasm and danced, sang and preached their way into the lives of the people of Chankhungu.
The crowd clapped and swayed in response as one of the young men performed a solo song and the group launched themselves into an acrobatic routine.
The people were hooked.
Then this strange performing group, who called themselves the African Enterprise Foxfires, acted out a skit about the creation of the whole earth. They talked about the first man and women that ever lived, how they went against their own God and made the whole of humanity sin, and how God’s own Son had to die to safe everyone.
One of the young men got up with a microphone. He said his name was Alinafe Katengeza, and he talked about how he was a sinner but had been saved by a man called Jesus.
As they listened to the Gospel, some in the crowd began to feel something in their hearts. When the young man from the city asked if anyone wanted to also follow Jesus, they found themselves raising their hands.
It was the first time for many of them to repent of their sins.
When it was over, they gathered around the young people, the Foxfires from the city, and listened to how they could grow in their Christian lives by praying to God, by finding other believers to spend time with and by reading the book of God, the Bible.
Chankhungu will never be the same again.
