Stephen and Gail Harper

Stephen & Gail were commended to the Lord’s work in Malawi in 2003, taking up residence in the city of Zomba (Southern Region) until changing family circumstances required them to relocate to their native Northern Ireland in 2011.

They maintain active participation in the growing work in Malawi, making, on average, 4 or 5 shorts visits each year, one of which usually involves a Seed Sower type team outreach (see Malawi Gospel Outreach).  Stephen is also involved in Gospel preaching and Bible Teaching among the majority Chichewa-speaking people of Malawi.

In recent years Gospel literature publication and distribution has been a major growth area in the work in Malawi.  To facilitate this and exciting new opportunities to take the Gospel to prison inmates, Stephen and Gail became founding Trustees of Southern Africa Literature Trust, a UK-based charitable organisation which provides Christian Literature and targeted humanitarian aid.

As well as ministering the Word and preaching the Gospel at home and abroad, Stephen is also a Trustee of Seed Sowers UK, which takes up increasing amounts of his time. Together with their son (Philip) they are in fellowship in Ebenezer Gospel Hall, Bangor (NI).

No prayer requests have been input for this worker.

May 2019 News

Posted on May 10, 2019

May 2019 Update At this time of year I (Stephen) would normally be conducting some Bible teaching conferences in Malawi, however as there are Parliamentary and Presidential elections scheduled for 21 May we decided to postpone our trip. Tensions are high and unrest is possible before, during and after the elections and it would be unwise to travel, or ask our Malawian brothers to do so either while that remains a possibility. Please pray that the elections will pass peacefully and that the Lord will give the poor people of Malawi a government that will be righteous and diligent to work to minimise their many hardships. 2019 has been relatively quiet for me so far – a welcome and much-needed respite after a fairly relentless schedule that left me physically, emotionally and spiritually drained. I am taking the opportunity afforded by the postponement of my usual Malawi trip to accept invitations to several conferences and other meetings overseas, and will value your prayers for times of mutual refreshment and blessing.

Seed Sowers

As you probably know, our summer Seed Sower outreach work in Malawi (of which more later) led to me being invited some years ago to become involved in the work of Seed Sowers in the UK.  Although taking up increasing amounts of my time, this has been a most rewarding exercise. Over the years, Seed Sowers has coordinated a number of major literature distributions around the UK, and I have been privileged to be involved in a good number of these. Personally, it has been a real blessing over the past two summers to organise and coordinate the two efforts in Belfast, and humbling to see the way the Lord used these efforts to place Bibles into hundreds of homes around the city. This year, we are planning a major effort in N.Ireland’s second, deeply divided city – London/Derry. The deep-seated sectarian hatred which is endemic to parts of that place resurfaced again around Easter, thrusting Derry onto the front pages another time, a timely reminder to all believers of how urgent and important is the task of the Gospel. Please pray for the effort as we plan, encourage others to get involved, and aim to participate yourself, if at all possible. The distribution will take place on the weekend of 4-5 October, with several packing events taking place during June and September (Lord willing). Details can be found at www.seedsowersuk.org. Please also remember efforts taking place in Stourbridge, W. Midlands (10-11 May); Harrow (6 July); and Bath (11-12 October) Lord willing. We praise the Lord that the texts recently printed for the Cape provinces (South Africa) have arrived safely and are already being put to good use. During June I hope to be in Canada for a couple of conferences and the first ever get-together of representatives of the three main international Seed Sower committees. Please pray that the Lord will grant us a fruitful time as we discuss and pray for the development of the urgent and hugely important work of spreading the Gospel by this simple, yet effective means.  

Malawi

The recent extreme weather conditions across many parts of southern Africa put Malawi back in the news recently. As ever, it is heart-breaking to see so the intensified suffering of so many dear souls for whom life was already incredibly tough. We are humbled by the generous response of the Lord’s people to this crisis, and would ask you to pray that the Lord will give us grace to be wise and faithful in the use of the funds that have been placed at our disposal in this regard. (We are coordinating the response under the auspices of Southern Africa Literature Trust, so please see our recent newsletter if you want more details of that: http://southernafricaliteraturetrust.com/2019/05/03/may-2019-update/ We received a most encouraging update from Bro. Goodson just yesterday. He thanks the Lord’s people for their prayers - after some setbacks, the Gospel work he carries on in Thondwe village has grown to such an extent that he has had to divide into the young people into two groups, and the older ones are studying Emmaus Bible Courses together.

Some of the children who meet weekly to learn the Word of God (apologies for picture quality)

The landlord of the little building we rent for him had recently been giving trouble and he had to find another place. It’s encouraging that, rather than numbers falling as a result, even more children are attending to hear the Gospel. Please pray for blessing in salvation. We are in the process of planning this year’s Malawi Gospel Outreach, which will take place from 7th-18th August (DV). In the past these have been times of great blessing and we look to the Lord for renewed blessing this year.  We have been grateful for so many who have been willing to make sacrifices of time and money to help in this effort - please consider taking part and encourage believers (younger and older alike) to give a week or two of their time to participate in this very worthwhile and rewarding Gospel activity. Please contact us for further details or visit www.southernafricaliteraturetrust.com/mgo

Israel Trip

A couple of years ago I was asked to organise a trip to Israel for some friends in N.America. Such was the success of that trip that we were asked to do another last year, when around 40 believers enjoyed a wonderfully edifying time of fellowship, visiting many of the Biblical sites that have become so dear in our hearts and minds. I’ve been further encouraged to organise another tour along with Bro Jim McMaster. If you are interested in joining us, please get in touch or visit www.ahabaisraeltours.com We close with sincere thanks for all your loving, prayerful and practical support. Stephen & Gail Harper Previous News Updates: April 2019 | March 2019

MARCH 2019 NEWS UPDATE

Posted on March 6, 2019

During February I was glad to make a further visit to Malawi in the company of Bro. Jim McMaster.  Jim and his wife Janet, have joined us in the formation of Southern Africa Literature Trust (SALT) and the dual purposes of our visit were to further strengthen ties with the Malawi Prison Service, and to move forward with plans to purchase a development site for SALT’s future operational base. The discussions with the prison authorities went exceptionally well.  Jim brought the official greetings of the senior management at HMP Durham, and made a presentation of an official seal on behalf of the Governor at Durham to the Chief Commissioner of Prisons, as a token of goodwill and their commitment to assist with prisoner welfare, where possible. The Chief Commissioner had assembled her senior management team – three Commissioners, one Deputy Commissioner, plus the National Chaplain – and all were very receptive to the plans we outlined. Jim and I were at pains to stress that, while we are genuinely interested in prisoners’ physical and emotional welfare, it is their spiritual well-being which is our primary concern, and we were very encouraged by their positive response. This particular harvest field is great, but the labourers, sadly, are few. We are thrilled to be able to draw alongside Brother Ananda Pulla (India), who together with his wife, Grace, have been visiting prisons in Malawi for some time.  They have been trying to advance Emmaus Bible study courses, but have been hampered by lack of materials. SALT has already made available sufficient courses to reintroduce Emmaus to four prisons, and we are committed to continue to advance this work further, as we are able. We plan to facilitate the development of Emmaus and other gospel work with inmates in tandem with development of the Prison Reformatory schools.  Many inmates are uneducated, even illiterate, but the prison schools are desperately under-resourced. In most cases, the teaching is provided by inmates who are incentivised by privileges such as soap, or a blanket, and teaching and learning materials are very scarce. We have undertaken to work with a selection of prisons to try to help them with resources such as text-books and writing materials. This in itself presents a wonderful opportunity, as we can provide pens branded with Gospel verses, and exercise books with a Gospel message printed on the cover. We will also target our Hygiene Relief packs on these prisons. Apart from this, the other aspects of the work continue to grow apace. In August, we produced 1 million Gospel tracts, but with our country-wide network of distributors who receive these completely free of charge now exceeding 300, these will soon be finished.  In fact, the only reason any remain is that for the past couple of months we have been concentrating on distributing the 350,000 Gospel calendars we produced. This increased activity has put a strain on our logistical capabilities. Over the past year we have been improving our regional storage abilities, and now have several strategically placed shipping containers which act as regional depots.  We were able to buy a small, second-hand estate car for brother Harold, which helps enormously with moving smallish loads of literature on a local basis. For the meantime, we are relying upon local hauliers to move larger quantities, and this brings its own challenges. The logistical challenges were further complicated toward the end of the latest trip when Stephen’s pickup finally succumbed to a long-running mechanical problem.  The vehicle’s engine is presently stripped for a major overhaul, which we trust will be successful, in which case it also needs further mechanical work to the steering and suspension. Please pray that these repairs will be completed well, as the vehicle is an essential part of the work. As you are possibly aware, during 2018 we received notice from our landlord, and had to vacate our home of 12+ years.  This exacerbated the logistical problems as our home had doubled as the base for the literature work, so finding a suitable replacement is a major priority.  We believe the Lord is leading us to find a more permanent solution, tailored to the future needs of the work, and so we have been searching for a piece of ground which would lend itself to such development. We need storage and administration space, plus accommodation for visiting volunteers.  We would also like to have the capability to lay-on residential Bible-teaching conferences, as the cost of doing this in lodges and restaurants is very expensive. We have located a site which we believe will be very suitable. It’s part of a larger estate not too far from our former home in Thondwe.  We have agreed terms in principle with the sellers, and subject to legal formalities, and our satisfying ourselves that we can find water there, we hope to proceed with the purchase, God willing.  Please pray that the purchase will proceed smoothly. Experience tells us that there are many potential pitfalls. Thank you again for your prayerful and practical support. STEPHEN & GAIL