KuMidima eya tilipo

My grandfather speaks of a time when the people in his village connived and plotted against him and had his farm taken away from him. Being a man who loved to farm, he believed that he who farms will not suffer much in this expensive world, this occurrence troubled him much that night. He failed to sleep. In his insomnia and tormented state of his soul he saw a vision.

What my grandpa saw was this: He saw his father come to him, a man who had died when he was about 5 or so. His father said “Come with me I want to give you a farm.” My grandpa obeyed and followed. They walked a great distance, the man took him to a piece of land and showed him its boundaries. One of its boundaries was a river .Then the man took him some place else. They came to a large tree outside a big house with white walls. The man then asked ‘do you see that house over there?’ My grandpa answered in the affirmative and his father then said ‘that will be your house, you will live in it’. The man who had come to my grandfather then left and my grandpa awoke from his vision.

At the time he saw these things he was working for the Malawi Road Traffic Department. A couple of weeks later he received a letter of transfer from the position he was in to another in Lilongwe. At this point doubt started creeping in my grandpa’s mind. ‘If I am going to have my farm would I be getting transferred to a place so far away from my place of origin, a place I would not plan to farm in?’ he asked himself. Since it was his job he went anyway. Little did he know what was taking him to Lilongwe.

After settling in his new position there a man came to him who had been in his employment in Blantyre. He had come around to handle some business and was on his way back home. The problem he had was he did not have money for transport home. Having known him for a while my grandpa had compassion on him. He discovered that the man had actually borrowed money for transport to Lilongwe. My grandpa then not only gave him money for transport home, but he also gave him money to repay the loan he had taken. Seeing the man was disheveled, my grandpa gave him a safari suit he had used to wear. Knowing it would look bad for the man to look good while his wife was disheveled my grandpa then gave him some money to buy some cloth for his wife. On top of that he gave the man a month’s wages as he had used to pay him even though the man had done no work for him at this time.

This friend of my grandpa’s then left for home. Along the way the man bought two pieces of clothes and a headdress for his wife. When he got home he told his wife all that had happened, he gave her the things he had bought for her and even wore the safari suit he had been given for all to see. In disbelief of the kindness of my grandpa’s heart the wife went and told her father. Her father came over and after hearing in disbelief all things that had been done for his son-in-law, the clothes and the money given, he saw with his own eyes the things which were available as proof and was impressed and grateful. Unbeknown to my grandpa the wife’s father was the King of a village in Mwanza.

The King then had his son-in-law invite my grandpa over to his village so that he could express his gratitude by giving my grandpa a farm by the authority vested in his office. My grandpa received the letter and ignored it. He then received a second letter and ignored that too. At some point he had to come to Blantyre, my grandmother then urged my grandpa to not keep ignoring the letters but to come and see what they were all about. He came to the King’s village and was greeted cheerfully. True to his word the King then took my grandpa to a piece of land where he marked out the boundaries and gave him that within it as his own. They got back to the Kings house and the King gave him a goat. Unable to take the goat with him my grandfather declined but the King said he would keep it for him till he returned. A chicken was then killed for my grandpa and he later went on his way after partaking of it.

A year and months passed and he did not return to his farm. The day my grandfather decided to visit his farm he found the land tilled and maize grown to knee level. Apparently the man he had helped in Lilongwe had done all this and was in charge of looking after the farm. As if that was not enough, grandpa found they had saved him maize in a silo from the previous year’s harvest of his farm .Even further, the goat he had declined had been exchanged with a female goat which had born calves, so he had not one goat but ten.

After a while my grandpa moved from this farmland to a place further upland after seeing production was not so good there. From there he also moved to a different place after facing various problems. This other place is where my grandpa has his farm now. It is bountiful and of good size. It is bordered on one side by the Shire river, as prophesied in his vision. The house he lives in today is the exact one he saw in his vision. How does he know? It has the same tree at the exact same angle he saw it at in his vision.

What then shall we say to all these things? The good that we do comes back to us. It is possible as well to see a vision of the future and see it come to pass.

Also, the spirits of the dead sometimes walk among us. As Christians we can not rule that out. Some of these spirits are used by God to convey messages to us. Others have been told by spirits of their relatives to turn their lives around and become better men. If you hear and see the spirits of the dead do not harden your hearts but listen carefully and take special care that you heed their message, evil or not. God works in mysterious ways, what could be more mysterious than this? Just be sure that the spirits do not ask of you anything God would not ask of you for the devil in his cleverness has his own visions that he gives to mislead you. Take every vision to God, and he will sort out your paths and keep you safe.