It’s really exciting to see progress on the Msasa wa Ana.
Until now the children have been meeting in the shade of the storage containers, but these will obviously provide no shelter once the oncoming rainy season arrives.
It was so satisfying to see the containers finally moved onto their base yesterday. This was my main objective for this trip.
Credit is due to the builders who have done a remarkable job, and especially to brother Goodson who has worked tirelessly and with great diligence, supervising the work, to turn my ideas into reality.
What a blessing to be back with the brothers and sisters in Malawi!
I arrived in time to join the monthly get together of workers at Goodson’s house at the Saidi project site. It’s a joy to see how well the team is gelling. It’s obvious that the Lord of the Harvest has brought His labourers together in His harvest field.
Brother Stephen has just returned from a most encouraging visit to Malawi – his first since February 2020. The main reasons for this trip were (1) to help Anna (Vallance) get settled into her new home and environment, (2) to “eyeball” the project site at Saidi for the first time (Bros. Harold & Goodson had been our eyes and ears through the entire process of buying the land), and (3) to meet and encourage many of SALT’s partners in the work in Malawi. With the gracious help of the Lord, Stephen was able to accomplish what he set out to do.
A couple of months back the authorities in Malawi gave the green light for schools to resume after several months of Coronavirus lockdown.
Although the pupils and staff at COOM academy welcomed this news, the extra conditions concerning social distancing necessary because of Covid-19 presented an impossible burden for them.
Earlier this year SALT hosted a two-day seminar with key members of the Malawi Prison Service Chaplaincy team.
It became apparent that the importance of chaplaincy as a distinct role within the service is not fully understood, and we undertook to start working with the team to change that.
Karonga is almost as far north as you can go in Malawi – about 12 hours from our Southern Region base.
Today, brother Raphael visited the prison there to leave some basic PPE and some Gospel literature. Here is his moving report of the visit:
Raphael reports that the task of producing all 2250 masks is now complete and distribution of these and the soap and pails to the remaining prisons in Northern Region will happen this week.
Each inmate will receive Gospel literature along with the hygiene items, so please pray that the Lord will use this to the blessing of many souls.
We again express our gratitude to Raphael and his team who have begun distributing the items purchased through the kindness of the Lord’s people.
Pails, soap and masks have already been distributed in Chitipa and work is underway to sew masks for the remaining five prisons in the region.
Each inmate has also received a supply of Gospel Literature.
Thanks to everyone who has given support to this valuable effort.
The government in Malawi has just re-introduced prevention measures designed to slow the progress of the virus – many of them measures which were lifted a month or two back to facilitate the Presidential election. This U-turn has caused considerable confusion about the issue.
