News

The rain has eased enough for Anna and Goodson to begin to assess the damage in the surrounding community following Cyclone Freddy.

Anna writes: ” We walked. 😉 Not even trying to drive today.

“Some pictures are following. The damage is extensive. Many, many houses have fallen. It’s a bit overwhelming.

“And, yet, what we are facing here is nothing compared to other parts of the country – where entire villages were swept away by mud slides.

“Please pray for wisdom to know how to help when the need is so overwhelming.”

Many, many houses have fallen. It’s a bit overwhelming.

Anna
A selection of the damaged houses in our community

In Blantyre, the situation is particularly bad in some of the very overcrowded townships. Blantyre is surrounded by mountains, and many of the townships are built on lower foothills, making them susceptible to mudslides. Homes are typically built with mud-brick, often with only mud for mortar, and building standards in the townships are not enforced. A recipe for disaster.

In the immediate aftermath of this disaster the needs are:

  • Plastic sheeting for emergency shelter
  • Blankets
  • Food

In the longer term there will a lot of reconstruction to do.

We have begun a process of talking to the local village chiefs to see who the most needy and vulnerable are.

Here is a selection of heart-breaking news pieces from reliable sources:

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The following page give a good assessment of the humantitarian impact, and is updated regularly: https://reliefweb.int/disaster/tc-2023-000023-mdg#updates

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Pray

Please pray for Wati on the loss of her grandmother in the early hours of Saturday. The burial took place yesterday in the midst of Cyclone Freddy.

Please remember Wati at this difficult time and pray that the Lord will comfort give much grace.

Pray that Wati’s faith may be a testimony to other members of her family who are unsaved.

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Please pray about the water supply at Saidi. Water comes from an on-site borehole, but this has been giving intermittent problems over the past couple of weeks, and has now stopped completely.

Our first borehole gave problems when it ran dry and we had to re-drill a deeper well. An engineer is to visit the site to try to establish the nature of the difficulty. Please pray that he will be able to “get to the bottom” of this issue quickly and that the water supply will be restored soon.

Cyclone Freddy’s position & predicted path on 7 March

Tropical Cyclone Freddy has already caused serious disruption and some loss of life as it passed over Madagascar and Mozambique.

After heading back to the Indian Ocean, Freddy has again begun to track towards the coast on a path which would take it to Malawi by this coming weekend.

Many families are still affected by last year’s Cyclone Ana. Please pray that the many tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people very vulnerable to serious weather-problems will be spared further hardship. Pray too that these difficulties may be used by the Lord to create increased opportunities for the Gospel.

Click here to see the latest position of Tropical Cyclone Freddy

Anna says: Give thanks for those who came to the first Bible class for secondary students today. This is a group I’ve long been burdened for because they aren’t really covered in any of our other classes, but until now I lacked the confidence in Chichewa.

The Bibletime curriculum is already proving to be a blessing in that regard.

Please pray for God’s word to bear fruit in these lives.

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Brother Goodson asks us to pray for his son John (19) who was hospitalised yesterday with a recurrence of the problem he had a few weeks ago.

Health care in Malawi is very poor, so please really pray that John will get good medical attention and that the Lord will put his healing hand upon John.

Please give thanks for the hugely successful 4-day child protection training we did on site at Saidi last week.

This was very enlightening concerning the depth and extent of the problem of child abuse, and extremely informative on ways to address the issues in an African context.

Please pray too that what we have learnt will really inform the way we interract with children, and that it may ultimately result in outreach opportunities in our community.

ENLIGHTEN | ENCOURAGE | EMPOWER

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