Friends of SALT in N. America have been asking for some time how they can get involved practically in the work in Malawi.
Over the past five years, SALT’s prison ministry has been blessed by the generosity of many believers in the UK who have helped us assemble hygiene packs. These have opened many doors and secured many opportunities to preach the Gospel inside.
Now it’s the turn of our friends in USA & Canada!
Our translation team has almost completely finished the translation and editing of the Chichewa Nthawi Ya BaibuloNYB (Bible Time) curriculum for school children. We expect the printers will begin production very shortly. If so, we hope the courses will be ready for use by the end of the year.
Classroom Packs
Tom Turnbull (Michigan) is coordinating an effort to pack and send 4,000 Classroom Packs which we will use in support of the NYB work. Each pack will comprise a lightweight backpack, some learning materials, and an attractive Bible text. He aims to send the first of these in the fall of 2024, Lord willing.
If you are interested in participating, please contact Tom using the reply form below.
Pack Contents
It’s important for customs reasons that all packs are standardised – please don’t begin to assemble packs until you have been in touch with Tom.
For illustration purposes only – it’s important that you get in touch before you begin assembling packs!
Yes – “Give Thanks: The Nthawi ya Baibulo (Bibletime) books have arrived” from the printer.
Anna adds:
PRAYER REQUEST
Please pray for the five groups including us who will be using the curriculum, for help to get comfortable and use it prayerfully to ground children in the truth of the gospel.
Note: This is a very significant moment for the team who have been involved in the painstaking work of translation for well over a year now. This is Year 1 of 3. The experience gained from this should enable the process to go more smoothly in the future as the next two years’ material is translated.
To be brutally honest, I never expected a course on safeguarding children and young people to be so profitable – and so enjoyable.
I don’t think it was just the entertainment value of the numerous cars and trucks playing “stick in the mud” on the road passing the site. Or the valiant, if entirely futile efforts of the many muck-defying entrepreneurs offering to dig them out for a fee. There is, as you may have heard, “money in muck”.
But I digress.
On the contrary, our three guest trainers, Martin, Susan and Robbie from Tehila Zambia, did a truly fantastic job of engaging and informing us all. Their professionalism and passion for safeguarding children and young people was plain to see. And as usual, Brother Harold excelled in translation on those occasions when the visitors ChiNjanya was just too different to the local Chichewa to be understood.
Why is safeguarding important?
A very good question. Children make up over 50% of the malawi population. Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the entire world. According to Unicef, a staggering 42% of girls in Malawi are married before they are 18 years. As many as 9% are married before they are 15. This makes a huge impact on education and literacy levels, as most of these girls drop out of education. These hard statistics bear out what we know intuitively after almost 21 years experience here.
Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the entire world.
Sadly, child abuse is a world-wide problem. However, as our course continued, I began to to gain a deeper appreciation of just how big the problem is.
Some cultural practices encourage children to be sexually active at a very young age. Many children in their early teens still attend initiation camps where they learn, and often practise, the secrets of adulthood. Incredibly, some people believe that having sex with a young child will bring them success in their business or career. These, and other beliefs, put children at great risk.
Edit: In the 24 hours since I wrote this piece I have had a further disturbing conversation with a sister in the Lord who works with orphaned children in the Central Region of Malawi. She told me that 90% of the girls she works with have been sexually abused, some from as early as 3 years. One young girl has been left deeply traumatised as a result of being repeatedly raped from 5 years old. Most of the abuse is by family members.
Almost all of us agree on the need to safeguard children against sexual abuse. However, I was equally struck by the many other risks facing children in Malawi. Honestly, I hadn’t thought enough about the issue of children “footing it” when going to school, or our programs at Saidi. You can see from the photos of the “stick-in-the-muds” above that heavy rains can make travelling treacherous. Children walking on village paths often have to negotiate swollen streams and broken bridges. In so doing, they put themselves at great risk.
some people believe that having sex with a young child will bring them success in their business or career
Not to mention, the very real threat of abduction!
You may think it incredible, but stories abound of kidnappers abducting adults and children to traffic them, or to harvest their body parts for ufiti – witchcraft!
Working together to safeguard children
The dangers are real – and plentiful.
Which is why we were so happy to welcome several local community leaders (village chiefs) and representatives of the local police unit to our week of training. Although it’s important to have a Child Protection Policy, together, we were able to explore ways to really protect children. We are less interested in just satisfying our legal obligations than we are in genuinely safeguarding children and young people in Malawi.
A little over a year ago, I wrote an article about the translation and revision of the Bibletime curriculum. As of this week, we are now ready for the third step: publication!
It seems like it has been a long time coming. However, our translator really has done a fabulous job powering through eight student booklets. And four text-heavy teacher guides! It truly is a blessing to have a translator who is just as committed to this project as we are. Gibson is a believer, and he understands the importance of clearly communicating truth.
Stephen says: “Please pray for a week of Safeguarding training planned for later this month. Many children in Malawi are subject to horrendous abuse. It’s essential that SALT not only supports children who are, or could be victims, but that we ensure that they are completely safe when in our care.
Anna writes: Please pray for the timely printing of the Bibletime curriculum and for help as we seek to pilot and continue revising it in the coming year.
The most important thing, of course, is that God would use it to make the many children we work with “wise unto salvation.”
Harold ask us to pray for the Schools work in the coming months. They have more invitations than they can possibly respond to and need wisdom to know which schools to prioritise.
The school visits made during MGO were very encouraging – 1000s of youngsters heard the Gospel and received Gospel Literature. There is a wide-open door in schools.
Concerning the Christmas program at Dzaleka, Anna writes: “Please pray for grace, strength and safety as Wati and I anticipate two two-day kids’ camps at Dzaleka next week. Please pray that the gospel will be central.
“Please also pray for the Lord to continue to use Bibletime in the refugee camp to bring many to the Saviour.”
