Joseph is a Global Sharing Ministry Partner who lives and works in Malawi. We met Joseph in 2017 at a Disciple Making Movement Conference in Zomba.
Ron: Joseph, tell us a little about yourself.
Joseph: My name is Joseph Chikopa. I was born on 18th June 1976. I'm a Malawian living in Nsanama, Machinga district. Nsanama is a Muslim village. My favorite food is nsima (a corn/maize mush) with chicken brai (barbecued over the fire). I love to watch movies and documentaries. I love to read biographies especially about the lives of missionaries. My heart is to learn more about some missionaries who have gone before me so that I can learn about their stories, how God has been using them which inspires me in my ministry journey. Those are some of the things which I love to do.
Ron: What is the community like where you live?
Joseph: The Yao People here like to go to the mosque because they are Muslim. The game which they like most is football (i.e. soccer) and so they like to go to football clubs to play and there they watch movies too. This is the culture of the Yao people. They also like dancing in their traditions. There are 4 million Yao people - all Muslim for the last almost 200 years. David Livingstone came and preached the gospel and the Yao turned from their animism to Christianity. But they were taught back then, even required to kick out all but one wife when they converted to Christianity, and their culture struggled with this. Islam came in later and said they could have multiple wives so they converted back to Islam. Today my community is almost 100% Muslim.
Ron: Describe your family growing up.
Joseph: I grew up in a Catholic home. My parents were farmers, but both died when I was young. Farming is one thing which I learned from my mom. When I was young, I especially enjoyed the trees, the animals, the plants, the mountains. This has been one of my favorite memories and also now is my hobby. I will always cherish going out to our farm and being out in nature. I love nature. My most vivid and traumatic memory is when my parents passed away. This has been something which I will always remember. It was a very big deal in my life. It broke my heart, and I grew up as an orphan.
The hardest time I had in my life was before I received Jesus as my personal Savior. I had suffered a lot without Jesus and I was feeling like nobody liked me. Nobody liked me and loved me probably because I wasn’t very lovable. But with that day of Jesus coming into my life, I remember that it was a harvest day. I heard in my life, God began to change me, so I always thank God for that day.
Ron: How did you come to faith in the Lord Jesus?
Joseph: I started following Jesus when I was 23 years old. One of my friends took me to a Christian friendship group and at that time I couldn't believe about a real God because of what happened to my life in losing my parents. I was thinking that there was no God and I convinced myself about that. But one day a group of people came to my village showing the Jesus Film. At this time, I was broken in so many ways. I couldn't trust anybody. But when I went to that place where they were showing the Jesus Film, something happened to my life, and I remember I couldn't believe that there was a God but I wanted to. I was thinking that if there is a God, why would God take my mom and my dad before I finished school while I was so young?
So while I was watching the movie something happened. I felt in my spirit like a big weight was moving out from my life which was hurting me - so obvious before the Christians there. I realized I was hurting God badly that day. It was 1999 the day my life started to change. I found myself down in front of everyone, crying there at this Jesus Film event. Amazingly, the big weight moved out from my life and the Lord changed my life that night, and I heard a voice of the Lord saying, “You know even if you feel like nobody loves you, I am there for you. I am your parent and I want to take care of you. That's why I died on the cross of Calvary.” Then when I saw the movie, and with the voice I heard from above, things began to happen in my life. That was the turning point for me, and I felt a peace and joy as things began to change. Today I am not the same person I was back then. I heard the Lord telling me that so many people who are also suffering like me, “I wanted you, Joseph, to go and share the love of Christ” to them, what I’ve done for you. That's when I found myself starting sharing the love of Christ to many people and that was before I went to Bible School. I did not know anything, but I said to myself, I'll just testify about what happened to my life. How my life changed! That's when the Lord called me to go to preach Christ where Christ has never been preached. In my younger years before this, I was drinking. I was doing bad things. I couldn't and didn’t experience love. But since I gave my life to the Lord, Jesus changed my life. I am not the same. I'm a new person and a new creation. I thank Jesus for that.
One of the most vivid and important days I had in my life... there are so many of these days, but I will mention one. It was when I had an accident on 8th June 2015. I was coming from the training center and I was in a minibus and the mini bus turned over. God saved my life. I did not die but I broke my legs and my hand. My legs were behind my arm at one point. But still today I know God saved my life. He has a good reason why he has saved me like this. I don't take this for granted.
Ron: Tell us about your wife, Violet. What do you love most about her?
Joseph: In 1995 I got married to Violet, my beautiful wife. I was 19 and she was 18. During that time, she and I weren’t Christians yet, and as I shared before, I missed my parents love, so my wife was one of my best friends even to today! God changed us together to be followers of Him. She's an amazing woman of God, a woman of faith. She's very good and encouraging to my life and the ministry that we’re involved in together. Honestly, our children are the joy of our lives. We have five children together. The challenge for us has been to find school fees for them, but the Lord has been faithful up to today. Two have finished schooling- even university! And three of them are continuing their schooling, God has been good to us.
Ron: Do you have favorite Bible characters or stories?
Joseph: The stories that I like from the Bible apart from the story of Jesus is the story of Philip in the book of Acts. What an amazing guy! And also, the story of Steven in the Bible. These people, living inspired by the Lord, challenged my life. You know they gave their life to God by their actions and commitment. They were just normal people without titles in their lives. But God used them to reach so many people. When you read in the Bible the life of Philip reaching out to the Ethiopian eunuch, this really touched my heart and I see God can use anybody so with their story I know God can use people like me who don't have titles. He can use anybody. That also helps me know I am just a common man. I don't have a name in this world. Nobody knows me apart from God, yet I know God can use me the same way he used Steven or Philip. I see the life of Steven who was willing to die for the truth. He was not comparing himself with somebody who has a name or a title, just a deacon waiting on a table. But he stood for the truth. This touches my heart a lot.
Ron: How did you know God was calling you to work among the unreached Yao people?
Joseph: I received the calling of God one evening when I was young. I had a calling for people but I did not understand, because many times I could hear the voice of the Lord but I couldn't realize it was God (like Samuel?) and sometimes He would give me a dream to show me some scriptures but I did not understand what it all meant about the scriptures until I gave my life to the Lord. That's when I realized the Lord was calling me to go and reach out to those people who never had the gospel.
For the Yao people, 97% of this tribe are Muslims, and when I was at home one day, the Lord gave me this scripture found in Romans 15 v18 and 20. He was saying to me that I needed to preach Christ where Christ had never been preached. So this touched my heart and when I was in Blantyre, the second largest city of Malawi, I had been involved in so many churches, but the Lord had told me that I needed to go where Christ had never been preached. That's why Violet and I prayed about it and preferred to come to Machinga among the Yao. Into a different culture, different religion, even a different language!!
Ron: What do you find most challenging in ministry and life right now?
Joseph: My challenge most of the time is to raise up funds to help my kids to go to school. This has been one of my challenges in the mission field. Also to raise up funds to support people who are chased from their homes by militant Yao People. This has been one of the biggest problems. But God has been faithful, and he remains faithful. This is really a prayer request for many people to pray for us about this and another prayer request is to see their people coming to know the Lord so they can grow and do the work of ministry as a follower of Jesus. Another challenge is persecution. You know when our fellow believers tell people that they’ve come to know the Lord, the community stands against them, and they start fighting. Sometimes they beat them and sometimes even I remember people came to our house and broke windows in our house. This is some of the challenges we normally face. Please keep on praying for us.
Ron: Where do you find encouragement, especially when facing those challenges?
Joseph: Working together in the ministry is very important. It’s very special when you're having the same vision and the same heart of reaching out to those people who have never heard the gospel. That is very, very important and it brings joy because together you can do so many things, much more than when you work apart. When you are working together there is power because you strengthen each other, you listen to each other, encouraging each other, empowering each other, praying for each other, doing things together. Things which I cannot do someone else can do it so there's power and unity in the body of Christ.
Ron: Describe your partnership with Global Sharing.
Joseph: I knew about a Global Sharing through meetings we had in Zomba back in 2016 where we heard about the Disciple Making Movement and in that meeting there was one of the leaders of Global Sharing and that man was you, Pastor Ron! So the Lord gave us that time to connect and since then, we have been working together in many things. I am so thankful to you, Pastor Ron, because you have been a big blessing to us. May the good Lord continue blessing you!
Global Sharing has been a big blessing to us too by helping us to grow spiritually through counsel, teaching, and mentoring. And not only that, we have also grown more closer to God about physical things that help us, including a solar powered well pump so we can teach wet farming to many Yao people. The ministry has supplied us with so many Bibles and audio Bibles and also leaders’ bicycles and helped in the building of our center, and also electricity at our center to help us reach the Yao. This is just a few of the ways GS supports us as a family- supporting the work of the ministry in Malawi. GS is a really good partner to us. So I know that God connected us because many people have come to know the Lord through GS support. We’ve traveled together with the GS team when they came here. They've been visiting us and praying for the people in the communities, blessing them with eyeglasses and prayers for healing, and encouragement to leaders struggling to faithfully follow Jesus in the midst of persecution. We have been encouraging each other about Disciple Making Movement which is the heart of Global Sharing. We are so thankful for that. May the good Lord continue blessing Global Sharing. Thank you so much!
Click HERE if you'd like to meet Joseph online with Ron hosting!