The team in Malawi will be meeting on Monday to discuss preparations for MGO 2023. Please pray that they will be guided in their deliberations. They will also be further discussing the development of our Child Protection procedures, following the very useful training held earlier in the year, prior to the cyclone.
Jim & Stephen are joining the team today for an extended monthly team meeting. Together, they plan to review the events of the year so far, and to take stock and plan for the remainder of the year. Much help is needed.
Please pray for blessing on last week’s activities with Jim, David & Stephen and the rest of the SALT team. Each afternoon, we had Bible studies and Gospel outreach at Saidi, with mornings occupied with a prison visit and a couple of visits to evacuation camps.
At Bvumbwe prison, several hundred juvenile prisoners received hygiene packs and heard the Gospel preached, and at the evacuation camps we distributed food and other relief items, and preached the Gospel. Pray for blessing on each activity.
Wati says, “The numbers in evacuation camps have reduced as people are being encouraged to return home. The reopening of schools has also added pressure as many camps are at schools (which are themselves overcrowded).
“We can pray for Cyclone Freddy survivors who have left camps very little support as they are looking to return home and rebuild their livelihoods.”
Please remember Stephen, who will be travelling to Malawi on Tuesday, and Jim & David who follow on Friday and Saturday respectively.
Pray they will have travelling mercies and have a safe and profitable time ministering among the people at the evacuation camps. They also plan to have a short series of Gospel Meetings at Saidi.
Although it’s barely 3 weeks since Stephen returned for his son’s wedding, he is preparing for the next trip to Malawi, next week, God willing.
Stephen will be joined by Jim McMaster and David Williamson (on his first visit to Malawi). This visit was to have been for a week of Bible teaching conferences, but that has been cancelled in view of the present crisis in Malawi. In lieu of that, they will visit some of the evacuation camps for Gospel outreach.
Please pray for them as they prepare, particularly in view of the simultaneous preparations for the Seed Sowers’ distribution in Londonderry, this weekend.
Please pray for the hundreds of thousands of Malawians who continue to experience extreme hardship as a result of the Cyclone Freddy.
According to the latest reports, around 659,000 of the 2,267,000 people affected are still living in 767 evacuation camps. Over 500 people are still missing.
Women and children are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, especially as they are hungry and living in unlit, unsegregated spaces. There are real problems concerning proliferation of Malaria and Malawi’s worst Cholera outbreak, which was already well established before the cyclone.
The acute crisis concerning food insecurity in Malawi is being made worse by the ongoing rains.
Many crops (such as our own – pictured) were flattened by the cyclone winds, and these are now starting to rot / germinate as the rains continue and villagers don’t have the means to store and dry them.
Please pray – it’s clear than this humanitarian crisis is set to become worse and worse.
Wati writes, “The team visited the evacuation camp at Pa Mchenga on 31/03/23. A short gospel message was shared, and some food items were given. We can pray for the families there who all listened attentively.”
The other work is ongoing, Bible studies (kids and adults) Sunday meetings.
We are doing a little more finishing work on the msasa (plastering etc)
Please pray for Anna (and her family) on the homecall of her Papa.
Bereavement is all the more difficult when family are separated, so please pray that all will know special grace during their time of loss.
Anna says, “while we are grieving the loss of him as a special person, we are all so happy he is with the Lord and very much at peace.”
