Kabvunye Church Meeting
July 7, 2003

These are the brethren who attended the meeting at the Kabvunye congregation today, Sunday, July 6, 2003. It was raining. The trails on the steep mountain slopes were muddy and slippery. But, as you can see, many people braved the conditions and attended the service. The building was "jam packed." There were many who stood on the outside of the building in the rain, holding their umbrellas over their heads during the entire service which lasted the usual African time of about two and half hours. I was told that if it had not been raining, we would have had many more people in attendance. But, because of the weather, they attended the services of their home congregations.

Kabvunye congregation is located in the mountains of Thyolo District about 60 kilometers southeast of Blantyre. Some areas of the village roads were very muddy and slippery. I put the Nissan in four wheel drive after leaving the main paved road to keep from finding myself in a ditch. We made it to the meeting without too much of a problem and were very happy to be able to make it. We were not so fortunate yesterday, Saturday the 5th. On our way to a meeting in Chikwawa District, we had to turn around and return home. The rains had made driving on the roads impossible in the area where the meeting was scheduled.

Stephen Kasenda was the translator. The preacher for Kabvunye is Bro. D. Timoteo. He is standing just behind the children in the front on the left side, the third man from the left (He has on a medium blue coat). Chief Kabvunye is standing to the right of Bro. Timoteo. The brethren presented Stephen and me with gifts of bananas, sweet potatoes, cassava, tangerines, oranges, sugar cane and cabbage. --Jim Franklin, P.O. Box 573, Blantyre, Malawi.