"And I Will Give You a New Heart"

Ezekiel 36:25-27
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Hallelujah for the power of God that saves sinners - the power found in the gospel of Jesus Christ!!!
Yesterday God gave me the opportunity to meet some of the people living in one of the villages just a half hour by car from the academy. The chief of this particular village accepted Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior very recently!
When passing through villages in Malawi it is very common to see gule wamkulu. These are people who perform ritualistic dances that are associated with the religion from the traditional Chewa tribe. They wander about in scary masks and animal skins and/or lots of rags. I haven't tried to take any pictures of them because I hear they may get quite angry. If you google "gule wamkulu" I'm sure you could find some pictures online though.
The chief of the village who just recently came to Christ told the gule wamkulu that this practice would no longer be accepted in the village! And now there is a church in the same place where the gule wamkulu used to perform the ritualistic dances! I love to see the way that God changes peoples' hearts! I love to see how He can transform a whole people group and give them new hearts - hearts of flesh that beat for His glory!!
The people are very new believers and have very many questions. Polygamy is very common in the villages, and this was last week's big Sunday morning topic. If they are Christians, would they need to give up polygamy? And if they did, how would the women be able to take care of the children?
They also want their children to know about Jesus and said they would love for people to come teach their children about the truths of the Bible! Two of the academy teachers, I, and two of the Chichewa-speaking college students from ABC will now, Lord willing, go to their village each Saturday to teach the children more and more about the salvation we have in Christ Jesus!
We met with these precious children yesterday! There were over fifty who greeted us when we arrived. Many of them have never seen an American, so some of them were very scared of us! Others just stared at us with wide eyes. And one little boy plopped himself right into my lap. :) We sang, listened to a Bible story, went through the wonderful message of the gospel. . . Many of the mothers stayed to sing and listen, too!
I am so thankful to God for this opportunity! I thank Him for letting me witness His amazing work and unstoppable power from the gospel of Jesus Christ being displayed in this village! Please pray that God's name would be glorified in this village, in our lessons with the children, in us!
I cannot stop thinking about all the small villages. . . not just in Malawi, but in all of Africa, and all over the world! ALL the villages that need Jesus -some of which have never even heard the name which is above every name! Pray that God would display His power and glory throughout the whole earth!