Our morning began at the Church of St. Paul’s in Malawi Parish. Fr. Alan Banda is the priest-in-charge and he has four outstations. Malawi Parish is quite flat and dry. This is the one area where Yasinta’s efforts in permaculture have been less than successful. The only well is quite a distance away and all water needs to be transported in buckets. This parish is a perfect case for Tom Gephard, of Warm Heart International out of Austin, Texas. WHI puts in wells and sanitation, and we’ve been in conversation with Tom about an affiliation with his organization, so that WHI would put in wells and Love’s Harvest would follow with gardens.
Malawi Parish has a school and orphan care program but they need water. There is a sense of despondency, even though the people are warm and friendly. The day care center for orphans, built by the government but staffed by volunteers, takes care of 119 children, feeding and teaching them.
Lively sounds of laughter came from the school building. 650 children in grades one through eight are taught here, and we saw the beginnings of small library put in by a group from Colorado.
Fr. Banda’s three year old daughter Molly took my hand and stayed right by my side for about an hour, even waiting for me outside when I used the latrine. She kept staring at the skin on my hand and stroking it and smiling up at me. I told Fr. Banda I wanted to take her home with me and he said “Okay, but you have to bring her right back!”
After Malawi Parish, we drove back to the Diocesan Offices for our meeting with Bishop James Tengatenga. John Msusa took my mom back to Pedro’s for lunch and a nap. John Springer and I had a power bar and talked together outside as Josie Tengatenga, Bp. James’ wife, drove up in her car. She was conducting a three day youth seminar on HIV/AIDS with a British physician and priest the Rev. Dr. Annie Bayley, but she made time to speak with us about her youth farm idea on a piece of land outside the city called Khombwe. She was carrying charts about permaculture from Christopher Walker, son of June Walker, a longtime resident of Malawi and one of the foremost permaculture experts in the world. He will be helping Josie with her project. About twenty young people, aged 12 to 25, who are not able to be in school and are not employed. They will share the labor and sell the produce and animals. The money will go into a bank account and they will each make a small amount for their own necessities. This project will also benefit women in more rural areas, who have difficulty traveling in to buy fresh produce. The youth can take orders from them. The youth are supervised by Fr. Barnabas Saleka in Chileka Parish, and this income will also support youth group events. Love’s Harvest is supporting this project with the start-up costs of the farm.
At 2:00 pm, we entered the bishop’s office and received a warm greeting from Bishop James Tengatenga. He had just returned from Lambeth and gave us a fascinating recap of the conference, of which he was one of the planners. He spoke about indaba, a kind of listening and talking in which, as he said, “you tell your story, I tell my story, he tells his story, until it becomes our story.” It was a completely different way of structuring Lambeth and overall it sounds like a success. Product and process were essentially the same, which is a hard concept for some people to grasp or take part in, but it seems to be where we are in our Anglican Communion right now.
The bulk of our meeting was spent in discussing the goat project at Chikwawa as a model for how a small business can benefit a priest, his parish and the Diocese. The goal is empowering people; moving priests and their congregations away from the idea of asking for handouts from the West or from the Diocese. One way we can help is to assist in putting together business plans. This is critical. As Fr. Patrick communicated to us, priests don’t know necessarily agriculture or animal husbandry projects, and they do not have training in business. The goat project, potentially a great boon for Chickwawa, needs a real plan to maximize its revenues.
Over Malawian tea and banana cake, we talked about the structure of Love’s Harvest and these parish-to-parish projects like the one Christ Church Bronxville took on in Chikwawa. The diocese has twenty-two parishes. One of Love’s Harvest’s goal is to continue to link parishes in the US with Malawian counterparts, establishing a means of correspondence, and later evaluating the impact of these income-generating, empowerment programs. These parishes really need help from someone with business acumen. Quite possibly there is an experienced business person in the US who would be interested in helping formulate business plans for a partnership parish.
We spoke about Yasinta’s extraordinary skills in leadership and her kitchen garden successes, as well as about the burgeoning permaculture demonstration farm at the theological college. Bp. James would like to have a similar farm down in Blantyre: a dream for the future.
Bp. James is terribly bright and creative, and has many marvelous ideas for how to support his priests and grow his diocese in a way that honors God and God’s people in Malawi. We had a stimulating visit, planning for the short term and brainstorming for the future. He understands that marketing the story of Malawi is something Malawians do not know how to do. I showed him some of the record I was putting together, with photos, narrative and video, and he graciously agreed to record a short video message to use in our material.
It was a marvelous, encouraging visit with the bishop. We left at 4:00 pm to return to Pedro’s for a celebratory tea and farewell with Yasinta. We exchanged gifts, finalized our plans for the coming year with the Mothers’ Union permaculture projects, and promised we would meet again soon. Paramount on the list are the women’s empowerment projects in animal husbandry, which we will begin in Mulanje parish and Thylo parish in the near future.
The evening came to a rollicking conclusion as Geofry Tamatama hosted our farewell dinner at the Blue Lagoon hotel and restaurant in Limbe. Mom and I had our last chambo of the trip, and Geofrey presented us with chitenji from the bishop’s ten year anniversary and “Nets for Life” tea shirts.
Tomorrow, we leave Pedro’s at 9:00 am to do a few last minute errands before heading to the airport. God willing, our flights will be on time and we’ll arrive in Johannesburg at 4:40 pm for a 7:00 pm flight back to the U.S.
As a final message from this beautiful country, please keep the people of Malawi and their leaders in the Anglican church in your prayers. They have us in theirs.
Malawi Parish has a school and orphan care program but they need water. There is a sense of despondency, even though the people are warm and friendly. The day care center for orphans, built by the government but staffed by volunteers, takes care of 119 children, feeding and teaching them.
Lively sounds of laughter came from the school building. 650 children in grades one through eight are taught here, and we saw the beginnings of small library put in by a group from Colorado.
Fr. Banda’s three year old daughter Molly took my hand and stayed right by my side for about an hour, even waiting for me outside when I used the latrine. She kept staring at the skin on my hand and stroking it and smiling up at me. I told Fr. Banda I wanted to take her home with me and he said “Okay, but you have to bring her right back!”
After Malawi Parish, we drove back to the Diocesan Offices for our meeting with Bishop James Tengatenga. John Msusa took my mom back to Pedro’s for lunch and a nap. John Springer and I had a power bar and talked together outside as Josie Tengatenga, Bp. James’ wife, drove up in her car. She was conducting a three day youth seminar on HIV/AIDS with a British physician and priest the Rev. Dr. Annie Bayley, but she made time to speak with us about her youth farm idea on a piece of land outside the city called Khombwe. She was carrying charts about permaculture from Christopher Walker, son of June Walker, a longtime resident of Malawi and one of the foremost permaculture experts in the world. He will be helping Josie with her project. About twenty young people, aged 12 to 25, who are not able to be in school and are not employed. They will share the labor and sell the produce and animals. The money will go into a bank account and they will each make a small amount for their own necessities. This project will also benefit women in more rural areas, who have difficulty traveling in to buy fresh produce. The youth can take orders from them. The youth are supervised by Fr. Barnabas Saleka in Chileka Parish, and this income will also support youth group events. Love’s Harvest is supporting this project with the start-up costs of the farm.
At 2:00 pm, we entered the bishop’s office and received a warm greeting from Bishop James Tengatenga. He had just returned from Lambeth and gave us a fascinating recap of the conference, of which he was one of the planners. He spoke about indaba, a kind of listening and talking in which, as he said, “you tell your story, I tell my story, he tells his story, until it becomes our story.” It was a completely different way of structuring Lambeth and overall it sounds like a success. Product and process were essentially the same, which is a hard concept for some people to grasp or take part in, but it seems to be where we are in our Anglican Communion right now.
The bulk of our meeting was spent in discussing the goat project at Chikwawa as a model for how a small business can benefit a priest, his parish and the Diocese. The goal is empowering people; moving priests and their congregations away from the idea of asking for handouts from the West or from the Diocese. One way we can help is to assist in putting together business plans. This is critical. As Fr. Patrick communicated to us, priests don’t know necessarily agriculture or animal husbandry projects, and they do not have training in business. The goat project, potentially a great boon for Chickwawa, needs a real plan to maximize its revenues.
Over Malawian tea and banana cake, we talked about the structure of Love’s Harvest and these parish-to-parish projects like the one Christ Church Bronxville took on in Chikwawa. The diocese has twenty-two parishes. One of Love’s Harvest’s goal is to continue to link parishes in the US with Malawian counterparts, establishing a means of correspondence, and later evaluating the impact of these income-generating, empowerment programs. These parishes really need help from someone with business acumen. Quite possibly there is an experienced business person in the US who would be interested in helping formulate business plans for a partnership parish.
We spoke about Yasinta’s extraordinary skills in leadership and her kitchen garden successes, as well as about the burgeoning permaculture demonstration farm at the theological college. Bp. James would like to have a similar farm down in Blantyre: a dream for the future.
Bp. James is terribly bright and creative, and has many marvelous ideas for how to support his priests and grow his diocese in a way that honors God and God’s people in Malawi. We had a stimulating visit, planning for the short term and brainstorming for the future. He understands that marketing the story of Malawi is something Malawians do not know how to do. I showed him some of the record I was putting together, with photos, narrative and video, and he graciously agreed to record a short video message to use in our material.
It was a marvelous, encouraging visit with the bishop. We left at 4:00 pm to return to Pedro’s for a celebratory tea and farewell with Yasinta. We exchanged gifts, finalized our plans for the coming year with the Mothers’ Union permaculture projects, and promised we would meet again soon. Paramount on the list are the women’s empowerment projects in animal husbandry, which we will begin in Mulanje parish and Thylo parish in the near future.
The evening came to a rollicking conclusion as Geofry Tamatama hosted our farewell dinner at the Blue Lagoon hotel and restaurant in Limbe. Mom and I had our last chambo of the trip, and Geofrey presented us with chitenji from the bishop’s ten year anniversary and “Nets for Life” tea shirts.
Tomorrow, we leave Pedro’s at 9:00 am to do a few last minute errands before heading to the airport. God willing, our flights will be on time and we’ll arrive in Johannesburg at 4:40 pm for a 7:00 pm flight back to the U.S.
As a final message from this beautiful country, please keep the people of Malawi and their leaders in the Anglican church in your prayers. They have us in theirs.
2 comments:
Kate, it's so wonderful to see photos and read the stories of your trip. What beautiful relationships you are nurturing!
Thanks for sharing-- The Rev. Ann B. Fraser, St. James' Church
So good to hear of my good friend Lucinda's venture. Thank you.
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