Co-hosts Jason and Scott have witnessed firsthand the wonderful college campus ministries that Antioch Baptist Church and pastor Malamulo Chindongo have in Blantyre, Malawi. For over a decade, Mala has conducted purposeful, consistent student ministries, and we have much to learn from him. In this conversation, Mala tells us how they do it, giving us a look under the hood of this ministry.

Well, welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture. And today we have Malamulu Chindongo from Malawi, better known as Mala, or the Grand Puba, as we like to call him. So hey Mala, welcome. Hey Scott, It's good to connect again.

Yeah, it's so good to see you. We just sang happy birthday to his seven-year-old daughter, Amelie, didn't we? Yes. Wasn't that fun? Yes, she was so sweet.

But yeah, it was really a joy to sing Happy Birthday to your daughter there in Malawi. She enjoyed it. Oh my, that was so cute. She's such a sweetie. So we want to talk to you about something that has always astounded us when we come and visit you, and that is the way that you do campus ministry.

So before we get into that, I just wanted to say a little bit more. Mala is the pastor at Antioch Baptist Church in Blantyre, Malawi. He's got a wonderful ministry to his church. He's in the process of planting a church in another city. We've been working together for a little over a decade, and it's really been a joy.

Maul has been a real encouragement to us, and we've just been really grateful, haven't we, Jason, to be with him. Yep, it's great to be there and it's great to be in Blantyre on the different campuses. I don't know, you're probably on seven different campuses or something like that. Blantyre is a city of two million, so it's a major, major city with many universities there. And you know and of course we're surrounded by universities.

They're as corrupt as you can get and getting worse. But we wanted to learn what we could from you. And maybe listeners who live near university towns or universities might be able to gain some insight from how you do it because what we've seen is just tremendous fruit from your very regular efforts in those universities. So why don't you tell us about it? Tell us what you do.

Yeah, Thanks, Scott. I think it's, when you mentioned it, I thought it was quite an interesting subject to spend some time discussing. So we're in Boulanty, and so Malawi has a population of about 90 million people now. We were planting, and our desire is to plant biblical churches. And so, I mean, if you go around, there'll be very few churches that you will come across that are preaching the gospel.

Like on any Sunday, if you just show up to any of the churches, it would be rare that you end up in a church that's preaching the gospel unless you knew where you're going. So that's been our burden for years now to see good churches multiplied across the country. So we want to do our part and in the providence of God and by his grace, hope that he would in the process raise up other men that would continue doing what we started. So we, at least for now, it's to try to be more strategic in terms of church planting and also just evangelism. Well, when we started, we were out and about preaching the gospel, going door to door, doing small book tables in street corners and talking to people one-on-one, giving out, handing out trucks.

So that went on for quite a while, but we were still doing a little bit of campus ministry. And so in the process, we begin to notice that students were responding more to the things we were saying. And so that really got us excited. We felt like the Lord was opening a door for us to these students. And so we just slowly began to focus our energies, our attention, our resources towards our campus ministry.

And so over the years, we've ended up with seven different campuses doing different things, conferences, weekly Bible studies. So I do some, some of our main, my co-elder is doing a few as well. And that's been going on for years now. I remember one time you scheduled a Suficiency of Scripture Conference for Jason and I to speak at, at a Catholic university. I couldn't believe that.

Yeah. Suficiency of Scripture at a Catholic university? What's that all about? I don't think they knew what we were doing that night. And the unique thing with that meeting was that a good number of the young guys that were in that group have long graduated now and they are part of our members of our sister church in Nulungwe.

So it's just very interesting that some of the students, they end up, maybe it might not necessarily be our church, but in our sister churches. So Mala, would you just tell us your educational background and also your wife Rachel's educational background? So I trained as an engineer here in Blount Air, the polytechnic. Eventually went on to work for one of the telecommunications companies here in Malawi. Before that, I'd worked for Ilofo Sugar Company.

So that's a sugar manufacturing company. I'd worked for them for about two years it was, and then went on to work for a telecommunications company here in Blantyre. And then from there went on into the ministry. My wife Rachel, she's a market researcher, trained as a market researcher, went to University of Pretoria, did her masters there and went on to work a little bit and then eventually left all of that behind. Got married eventually and yeah, now we're here in Blanta going back into these universities and talking to these young men and women about Christ spending pretty much most of our time discipling these guys.

So I just wanted people to hear that because Mala is a degreeed engineer who spent some time working in engineering and then he married a woman from South Africa who has a master's degree. And I think, if I remember right, she'd been accepted into a PhD program when she changed directions, came to Malawi, and married a pastor in Malawi. But, so The point being is that the university space is not foreign to you guys. You went through it. And so both of you are very comfortable in that atmosphere.

I've witnessed it firsthand. This makes me think of Acts chapter 1 and the last recorded words of the Lord Jesus before His ascension, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." So what you have here is these concentric circles, starting with where you are. It starts in Jerusalem, which is where Jesus was speaking to them, and then Judea, the larger region, then Samaria, outside that larger region, then to the ends of the earth. And we start in the place where God has planted us. And I know that you have so many students or former students in that church, and you're starting your ministry where God has planted you.

Yeah. And that's the thing for me is that students, there's a lot of things you have to consider with student ministry. I mean, they're still figuring out life. They're not stable yet as far as they're still moving, studying, looking for work. And so it's still, it's not easy to try to plant a church that has a lot of students with it.

But one thing that we've learned and we've seen ourselves, and I think a lot of people know this, that students don't stay students forever. They graduate at some point, they get married, they settle down, they start having kids. And this is what we've seen with our student ministry, is that a good number of our members have actually come out of our ministry from these campuses. So those are the joys of, you know, ministering to students. But like you've said, studying where territories that we're familiar with, studying with places where It's easier for us to relate with them.

But at the same time, like I was saying before, that's where the door is open for now. We're also learning that these doors won't be open forever. There's been places where we've been to doing ministry, we've seen a lot of conversions, some of them ended up in our church, but some of those campuses we don't accept it anymore, like they don't allow us, they don't want us there. Our last meeting there, we were meeting outside of campus in sort of like a forest. Because the administration just wouldn't allow us to hold meetings on campus.

So we had to go out of campus in some forest and we would meet there with students on a Saturday morning, and they would show up and sit down with us and would study the scriptures and read her books. And it was always a joy. But today, I mean, we don't have any ministry going on in that one campus. So we think that there is, we believe that there is an opportunity right now, there are doors that are open for us, and we want to be there for as long as we can. These doors won't be open forever.

And probably that's also some, you have these experiences as well where you are, where some university campuses just become very difficult to reach out and do ministry. Mala, would you mind talking about the city of Zamba and Chancellor's College and the history of the theological boot camp you've been doing there? Yeah, so I'm glad you bring that up. So our largest meeting every year happens toward the end of the year. We're actually just getting ready for that.

It's gonna be in December, December 10th and 11th. That's when we're doing a college conference in Zumba. We do it in Zumba because Zumba has the largest university campus in Malawi. And so we started a meeting there. We had been going there doing evangelism, preaching conferences.

But over time, we wanted to have an idea who is warming up to our message, who is the Lord touching, you know. And so we decided we would do a conference and we would try to invite them outside of campus and that would help us to know who is interested in what we do and who is interested in our myth. So we did that and the first conference had about, I think it was 180 students that came up, signed up for the conference and we went up up on the mountain and had a conference there preaching on the doctrines of grace. And so since then we've been doing this conference every year. We're getting ready for this conference, for the second conference this year on union with Christ because we want to make sure that the students have a clear understanding what it means to follow Jesus, what it means to have the relationship with him, what it means to be a Christian, and the practical implications of that.

So we're looking forward to that. So this particular campus, because it's in Zumba about an hour away from where we are, there's been students that have graduated and stayed in Zumba, and they're living there now, and they'll be part of our ministry. Some of them have been having to take public transport and come all the way to Blanty to attend church. So for years we prayed if the Lord would allow us to just Blanty church there where these men and women could go and attend church. So that's been our dream for years.

And finally, we have a brother who is with us sort of going through an internship, and we're looking forward to sending him, setting him apart and sending him next year, sometime next year, I hope to organize this group of men and women that I'd somber into a church and so now we're from here so all churches is going to be fully involved in that and just giving guidance and direction and help establish that church. That's so good. I'll tell you, we've been praying about that for a long time. Now, One of the things that we noticed, at least when we were there last, the universities are far more open to having Christian meetings than the universities here in the United States. You are freer there.

But could you just tell us about how you do it? How you engage students? I know you do some interesting, unique things that at least we thought they were unique. So tell us how you do it on campus. Yeah, so what we've seen is, and I've been doing, you know, reaching out to these companies for years, I think probably 17, 18 years now.

At first we would do all kinds of things, sometimes we'd do concerts and all of that, but that was things that we are ashamed of. We have a few of those. Yeah, you know, things that we are ashamed of Because we learned 13, 14 years ago that whatever you use to bring them in, you're going to have to keep doing that to keep them in. And so We are at a place where we've learned our lessons, we've seen the kind of fruit that kind of evangelism produces. So like you said, as you rightly observed, when you go into these campuses, there are all kinds of things going on.

Our meetings are probably the least attractive right now on campus, we go there, either with a book table, with books and trucks, and we invite students to come. That provides us an opportunity to actually be able to talk to them about Christ one-on-one. Yeah, so I'll just stop you there. So, you know, we've seen these tables full of literature, lots of chapel library literature, and there they are. And students walk by and you have a person or somebody behind the table inviting students to take literature.

So have you found particular titles, particular subjects of greater interest to students? Yeah, it's actually would be more, I think easy to read subjects for many, prayer, repentance, the gospel, things that probably maybe people would do already, at least those who are churched already use the language and can understand simple terminology like that. So when they see it, it's easy for them to at least inquire or take a look. But what we're discovering also, I think through the power of the internet is that there's still quite a few students we meet that are probably North Caucasian, have heard a Port Washington message, they're familiar with him, they've heard a MacArthur maybe through the radio, so they know MacArthur. So sometimes it's just the names of authors as well that they've heard before and so they're interested.

But most of the times, And there's been a learning process as well, because in the past, even for our guys, if someone approached our table and they asked for maybe they asked for Benahin, say, do you have a book by Benahin? In the past, maybe our guys would handle that maybe not in the right way, but sort of spiraling process. Right now, you try to guide them and say, okay, we don't have that title, but we do have a title that might be more helpful than the one you're looking for. And then you suggest maybe a book, maybe on the same title, but a different author that you think might be helpful. In the past, probably if someone came at our table and asked for something like that, you'll probably be calling fire from heaven.

So. So you'd rather pass out a book by Justin Peters rather than Vettie Hinn, is that right? So yeah, but we do see a lot of interest based on authors they have heard about before, a sermon they've heard, or just familiar titles, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, things like those. Yeah. And also those tables, I think one of the things I love about is that they provide us an opportunity because when people come, they begin to ask questions.

So, okay, where are you from? What church? What kind of books do you have? And so we take advantage of questions like that. Or even when we are around and we're inviting people to come and see what we have, that just provides this sort of a conversation, you know, pick starts a conversation and we begin to talk to the person and in the process we end up sharing the gospel with them or in the process probably let them know who we are and invite them to a meeting that we have on campus on a particular day.

So it's really just great opportunities for us. We've done some open-air preaching in these places and some they allow us to do that, some campuses that don't. So we just take what we're given. Okay, so just in the next couple minutes, the last minutes that are to remain here, what kind of advice would you give to people who are near campuses? Yeah, so one of the things we've learned is, I think evangelism, like anything else, not just for students, but any group of people you're reaching out, It requires patience.

You really need to be very patient. Students, what we've learned is they look for consistency. In some of these colleges, we've been going there for years and only to be meeting two people for Bible study. And people look for bigger numbers so that they do sort of measure progress. But because we've been there and meeting a few people and because the students, they see us there all the time, We've been consistent at least to a certain extent.

And we become the familiar face. And it's easier for them to talk to us. It's easier for them to say, we've seen these guys coming for years. Let's check them out. And let's go and see what they're doing, what they're saying.

So just to really be patient, some of our meetings that we've been doing for like seven years now with only two or three people have really grown in time. So just be very patient as you reach out to these students. There are also quite a good number of students that are, and this is true also for any other group you're reaching out to, that you do find people that are just discontent with what they're hearing, the places they go to. Maybe some of them the Lord is waking in their lives and they're already looking for someone who might affirm the things that they are learning And they are in these places. And so when we go and we're patiently, visiting these places and meeting these guys, we begin to meet some of these young people and begin to see what the world is doing and begin to affirm also the things they're learning and be able to encourage them in the right direction.

So Scott, here's a couple of observations as somebody who's lived in Mala's house for weeks at a time. The first observation is this, you can get no peace there. It's because there's a steady stream of these college students in and out of their house. You can get no peace there for the best reason in the world, which is they don't just travel to campus and drop off some tracks in one and done kind of encounters with people, but they're getting to know these people, they're having them over for meals, they have meetings at their house. The second observation is, it's so grassroots in their church.

I mean, this is woven into the fabric of their church. So it's not just Mala and his co-elder who are teaching Bible studies. There are people on those campus who go to their church who are participating and even in some instances teaching those Bible studies. Yeah, and it's been a long, just a long consistent pattern of your whole life. And we just, we marvel at it, we're thankful for it.

Pray that we and others really could learn from you just to keep keep plodding along and seeing the church grow and seeing young people who are trying to figure it out, finally get it figured out. Praise the Lord. Yeah. Amen. Okay.

Well, Mala, Thank you so much for joining us and until we meet again, we can't wait to see you. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for having me. God bless you. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.

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