"The Iris Malawi Base is growing and changing all the time. With four children's homes now occupied, and a total of 43 Iris children, there is never a slow moment! Our Malawian house parents, Hedson, Fanny, Rose, Lamek, Zione, and Dorothy are a tremendous answer to prayer. Your continued prayers are needed as they give all they have to this great task.

"The two-week intensive Bible school sessions are now held every month. Although we have a mini graduation at the end of each two-week session, we are greatly anticipating ‘fully' graduating some members of the first Bible school session that was held four years ago! We are planning to do that during the annual Youth Conference, to be held the last weekend of September. Over the last four years, these pastors will have completed forty courses, totalling nearly 500 hours of instruction. You can imagine their anticipation of this event!

"Over the past months we have finished the addition of offices for the Bible school. This is providing much needed space for the translators and the directors, in addition to having everyone together in the same space now. This has greatly benefited the work environment! No longer do we need to run all over the centre looking for a translator or have a teacher confused about where his class has been moved to. Oh, the blessings of progress!

Earlier this year, the food program was expanded to include orphans and vulnerable children in the village of Mieze. By actual count, IMC is currently feeding 158 village children through the Mieze church and 22 babies are currently receiving formula. This initiative began in January when Mieze Pastor Juma showed IMC missionary Don Kantel twin baby orphan girls who were almost dead from malnutrition and asked if we could help. Attached is a picture of one of those babies taken this month.

Through the generosity of the many friends of Iris Ministries in Canada, it is possible to greatly expand our feeding of poor children in Northern Mozambique (both in and around Pemba and beyond).

[Kids having lunch together after school]

“We are FINALLY in our very own classrooms of our new Bible school. What an amazing blessing this is! Having finalized the purchase of the desks, blackboards, etc., we began the 2007 school session in our new facilities. After operating out of children's dormitories and other locations for the last eight years, we now have a place to call home. All have settled in very nicely!

[John & Sandra Ewert teaching at the Bible school]

The Redworths moved to South Africa to direct the base in April 2006.

"Since our return we have held four intensive bible schools for returning and new students. All the students are already pastors or senior workers in their Partners in Harvest Churches. Most are men, but there are women at every session as well. Most of the students come from various parts of the large Mpumalanga province, but there are also a few from the Limpopo and Gauteng provinces.

"Our Iris base continues to expand. When you drive into Bangula at night, ours are the first lights you see. With two children’s homes and two pastors dormitories, plus two missionary homes, there is a veritable suburb developing!!

“It continues to be our vision to impart God's love and have the pastors in turn pour into the many abandoned and orphaned children in this country. To help facilitate this and to also minister to the many children at the centre we have expanded the role of the Bible school students to have them ministering to the children at the centre. For the first time, we have all the boys dorms participating in discipleship groups with the pastors, from the 6 year olds to late teens. Teaching on the Father's Heart continues to one of our favorite courses to teach.

“Two third-year classes of pastors from the Bible school have now been graduated, and we have taken from those classes ten new teachers. Of our 365 churches in Malawi, 180 pastors have finished at least their first year of Bible school, and 60 have completed the three year training. There is a great hunger for teaching, and we look forward to the day when all of our pastors will have received the benefit of thorough teaching on the basics of Christianity and Kingdom.