Day One: MercyCare Ministries

At dinner tonight with Gibozi Mphanzi, I asked Nancy, “So what touched your heart today? She replied, “The graciousness of Gomezgani, Kondwani and Providence, who greeted us and showed us around the MercyCare school.” Sadly, Peter Gamula, Executive Director of MercyCare, Gibozi and many other UPI leaders, were at the funeral today for his 30-year-old sister Ruth. 

Missing today from MercyCare were the students, as school starts next Monday. But what I saw today were the dramatic changes compared to my visit in 2014. Since then a new science building, computer lab, library, solar panels and additional classrooms have been added.   



Gibozi and his wife Esther met us at the Baptist Mission House
where we are staying. 
What touched both our hearts was a comment that Providence made about attendance at school. She shared that for the first term, parents usually had saved enough over the summer to send their children to school. However, after Christmas many families find it difficult to continue paying tuition. To our surprise, the tuition to send a child to school for a term (3 months) is only $35! It seems that it should be easy for us to get the word out to others who might be willing to give a modest amount for a child to complete his/her high school education. 


For the rest of the evening at dinner, we talked about the wonderful dedication of the new YouthCare high school tomorrow morning and our plans for the rest of the week and dreamed about how we can connect people’s hearts in the U.S. to these amazing and vital ministries for Christ here in Malawi. 

 -- Dave 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 5: From Malawi to Zambia

Image
On the way to the airport with Israel and Ian. They loved wearing our sunglasses!  Gibozi picked us up at the Baptist Mission Apartments with his whole family — his wife Esther, seven-year-old Israel and two-year-old Ian — to take us to the airport. What a gracious and attentive host he has been.   Farewell at the airport.  Our flight from Lilongwe to Lusaka, Zambia via Harrare, Zimbabwe went very well. Corie and Eric Thuma met us, and we began a six-and-a-half hour drive to Macha. They had been on a vacation away from their children for a week and were very excited to be reunited with them.   On the ride we talked about mutual friends at NHUMC and Willowdale, mission work and strategies and other topics like Philadelphia sports teams, social issues, life in Macha and our experience in Malawi. It was great to get reacquainted. They informed us that we wouldn’t be staying in the guest house as we thought, but instead in Dr. and Elaine Thuma’s home next door to Cori
Read more

Day Six: Sunday in Macha, Zambia

Image
When going to Africa, people tend to say, “I am going to Africa.” But people on the continent prefer to say that one is going to a particular country. It was clear yesterday on our drive from Lusaka that Zambia and Malawi are very different places. Walking to church We got to the Brethren in Christ Church Macha at 10 a.m. There were services before that starting at 8 a.m. for holy communion, baptisms and foot washing. We waited outside meeting local Zambians, an ophthalmologist from Holland and his family and a doctor who supervises the hospital and his wife from Virginia.   It was a special Sunday with a service for 16 local churches, and we had to wait for seats to become available. We got seated at 10:30 a.m. and the service concluded at about 1 p.m. The music was beautiful with songs sung in Tonga, but most of the tunes were old gospel hymns that we recognized. Along with other first-time guests, we were asked to stand in front of the congregation and say ou
Read more

Day Eight: More of Macha

Image
Macha International  Christian School This morning we took a tour of MICS (Macha International Christian School) with Dr. Berkerk’s wife Tamara, his brother Otto from Holland and Otto’s wife Lois and Corie. The boarding and day school was established in 2006 by the Brethren of Christ for Zambian children, including orphans, vulnerable children and local expatriates. Charlotte and Reece Thuma attend the school.   The school serves preschool through 7th grade students and provides a solid curriculum. Last year, 100% of their 7th graders passed exams to move on to next level.  Once again, we were struck by people from across the world who are motivated to serve and make great sacrifices because of their commitment to Jesus Christ.   Push the Rock Zambia When Dave was here in 2014, the addition to the Push the Rock Zambia recreation center — funded by NHUMC — was just beginning. Now there is an offic
Read more