Update on the Orphan Basic Group Sponsorship Program in Malawi

The Orphan sponsorship program is off and running in Malawi. For a description of the program, please click on the link at the right "Orphans - How you can Help".

The initial objective of the program is to sponsor 2,000 of the 5,500 orphans supported by Word & Deed in Malawi. At this point, 320 orphans are being sponsored by families in North America. The remainder of the orphans are being supported through fund raisers and church collections. The sponsorship program provides a higher funding level on a per orphan basis (current funding is inadequate). Below is a picture of Peter VanKempen with some of the orphans.

The Lizulu Orphan Care Project is led by Everton Kamangire (below with a computer donated by Covenant Reformed Baptist Church of Orillia, Ontario), the volunteer director. The project has three centers with a total of 360 orphans (with an additional 100 orphans being added). Everton’s project was chosen first since it received the highest rating (best run) of the six Word & Deed supported projects located throughout Malawi.

The orphans at the Lizulu project are receiving nutritious meals and Bible based teaching on 4 afternoons per week (this exceeds the minimum of 3 afternoons per week established by the program). The regular diet of rice and beans has been supplemented this year with meat and eggs on some days as well as a nutritional diet supplement.

Recently a program was started to provide the orphans with a strong biblically based understanding of sexuality and marriage. There are 40 orphan children receiving secondary school education (all that are eligible) which is wonderful for Malawi.

A local chief has donated 40 acres of land for use by the orphan care center. The plan is to grow corn and soy. The orphans will learn farming methods in partnership with adult volunteers. The harvested crops will be used for the benefit of the orphans.

Everton reports that there is excellent cooperation between the children and their caregivers. The local project committee is in the middle of constructing some playground equipment for the children and they have also set up a separate hut for private counseling sessions.

Below is a picture of some of the care givers, volunteers and Lizulu Orphan Care Project committee members. Their dedication to the needs of the orphans are critical to the ongoing success of the project.

Below you can see some of the typical huts as well as the beautiful countryside of Malawi. The orphans live here with their caregiver families.

Finally, we are delighted to report that a group of businessmen in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area are funding the construction of a 90m well. Currently, water must be carried to Lizulu from a well that is located 1 KM away.

God has great concern for orphans. “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). Repeatedly, especially in the Old Testament, God instructs His people to make provision for the fatherless (Deut. 24:17-21) and declares judgment on those who don’t (Mal. 3:5). If you are already sponsoring a group of orphans, we thank you for your partnership. If you aren't, please prayerfully consider it today.

In a world that has become a global village, may we respond with faithfulness, generosity, and gladness to the responsibility that God has given us in answering the plaintive calls of the orphans in Malawi.

To sponsor a group of orphans click on Sponsor an orphan or call Toll Free in Canada 877.375.9673 or U.S.A. 866.391.5728. We need your help!

From Confusion to Clarity

Logos Ministries in Malawi - by Manuel Kamnkhwani




Exactly one year ago, in October 2006, I was privileged to share a hotel room for three nights with Rev. Joel Dykstra, a young Canadian pastor from Wellandport Orthodox Reformed Church. He was in Malawi on a fact finding mission. At the time, Logos Ministries had been in existence for just two months and we did not have the slightest clue where, when, and how we could begin to tackle the aims and objectives that we had set out to implement. Over three days and nights, we brainstormed, reviewed and revised the plan of action as we ate, drove, slept, and indeed even as we formally sat down to discuss business. A week later, Pastor Joel went back home full of knowledge and a bit of experience about the state of the church in Malawi.

Three months after Pastor Joel went back things began to happen, although not exactly as planned. In February 2007, two of the staff members of Logos Ministries, Martin Thondolo and I spent one sleepless night at the Msenjere CCAP manse. We were anxious about the following morning when we would launch the Theological Lay Training Program for church elders and deacons of the Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian (CCAP) Nkhoma Synod. Up until this point, the Theological Lay Training Program was still “a white elephant” since it was not based on any previously tried and tested program. Our anxiety was later worsened by the discovery that we were starting our program in a congregation that had not had a pastor for a number of years.

The following morning was indeed a great challenge and one of the most unforgettable experiences we would ever have in the Logos ministry. At 8:30 am, the 22 participants had converged to start the seminar. We decided to take our time and ask random questions that would give us a picture of the people’s knowledge of the basic catechetical theology of the Reformed Creeds and Confessions. In the course of the question and answer session, we occasionally got interesting answers to the questions we posed. One of the most interesting and revealing questions, for instance was: “Is Jesus Christ God?” and there was a very confident and resounding “No!” from a number of the elders and deacons. At that moment, something sank in my heart as I realized that we have tonnes of work ahead of us if the ministry of Logos is going to make a difference within the Malawian church. Today, eight months later, with our limited human resources, we have reached sixteen congregations with our program. Requests for the program to be introduced in the remaining one hundred plus Nkhoma Synod congregations are overwhelming.

As a ministry, we have been compelled by Isaiah’s response to the Lord’s call when the Lord said, “Whom shall we send, who will go for us?” Our primary objective in the lay training program that we are running is to ignite an interest in the lives of CCAP Nkhoma Synod members to know and understand the various biblical doctrines on which the foundation of the church is built. For a number of decades, the Presbyterian/Reformed church in Malawi has lived in a theological maze, with most of its members not knowing even the first thing about being Reformed. To most people the difference between themselves and members of other denominations is very superficial. Lately, a good number of lay church leaders in the congregations that we have reached so far with the Theological Lay Training Program are beginning to get an idea of their Reformed identity and spirituality.

In September 2007, our zeal for the fulfilment of Logos Ministries’ main objectives was strengthened with the introduction of a parallel in-service program for pastors, with Dr. Timothy Monsma as the main speaker. Having dealt with laymen for more than six months, this seminar was much more encouraging, since we were dealing with people who have a higher level of understanding. Furthermore, the environment in which the seminar was conducted made the experience even more exhilarating. The seminar was held in a brand new facility at Josophat Mwale Theological Institute at the CCAP Nkhoma Synod headquarters, which has been specially built for the in-service training of pastors. Built with funds from different sources, the facility has been fully furnished with Word & Deed funds to the tune of $7,000. For most of the participants it was their first time to see the facility, and one of them walked up to me and said “When I first heard about Logos Ministry, I thought it was a phony ministry. You have proved me wrong, you guys are really serious.”

The success of the first Logos Ministries in-service training seminar for pastors cannot be overemphasized. Among the comments we had on the evaluation sheets that we handed out at the end of the seminar, Rev. Gamaliel Kalebe wrote “I do not hesitate to say that it is God’s grace that I attended the seminar. I had a chance of learning more things for the betterment of my ministry. Apart from that, it was good to meet my fellow ministers with whom I shared a lot…” Another anonymous comment said: “The seminar reflected on our daily congregational lives and the material offered was rich in sound theology and up to date skills…”

As we sit back and look at the successes of this first year of the existence of Logos Ministries, we are at loss for words when we consider how the Lord has put together resources from two groups of Christians living in totally different worlds who have never met one another. By human standards, it is very difficult, or even impossible for people from two different cultures to make real meaningful progress in one endeavour, yet the great strides that Logos Ministries has made over the past year is a joint effort of Word & Deed partner - Wellandport Orthodox Reformed Church in Canada - and the trustees and staff of Logos Ministries in Malawi. This is a clear indication that any success we meet in ministry is a result of the Lord planning and doing, and that nothing is impossible with the Lord.

Manuel Kamnkhwani is Project Director for Word & Deed in Malawi

From Orphan to Independance

WORD & DEED IN AFRICA - by Dr. Timothy Monsma

While I was teaching at African Bible College in Lilongwe, Malawi, from 1996 to 1998, students told me of thousands of orphans in their home areas whose parents had died, many of them from AIDS.

My wife Dorothy, who was the school nurse at Africa Bible College, volunteered to visit the villages of the orphans and encourage other relatives (grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.) to care for the children when both parents had died. She also gave provisions when needed. My time was occupied with teaching at Africa Bible College, but in addition to her medical work at the college, Dorothy visited one village after another. Various supporters in the U.S. contributed money to this project. We agreed with our students and some retired pastors that the orphans needed spiritual care as well as food and clothing.

The efforts to help the caregivers and the orphans continued to grow after we returned to California in 1998. By the time we had moved to Colorado in 2000, one or both of us returned to Malawi once a year to make sure that the funds for orphans were well used. We also required a quarterly report of how the funds had been used and what had been done to help the orphans. By 2003 we were serving over 6,000 orphans in six different locations. We were already past retirement age as the work continued to grow. Word & Deed came to the rescue with a strong organization committed to the Reformed faith and charity for those in need.

There is more. This past August, I accepted an invitation to attend and speak at a conference of Reformed Christians at Potchefstroom, South Africa. While we were staying in Pretoria, I was invited to speak in the chapel service at Mukhanyo Theological College and Community Development Center. Dr. Flip Buys, who is well known in South Africa for his loyalty to the Reformed confessions and his leadership among Reformed Christians in dismantling apartheid, began this work. It is a holistic work, ministering to orphans, HIV-AIDs patients and others in need. In 2007, Word & Deed began getting involved with the Community Development Center by supporting the HIV/AIDS project which is known as the Nakekela HIV/AIDS Care Center.

From South Africa, Dorothy and I flew to Lilongwe, Malawi, and drove to the Nkhoma Hospital and Mission Center established many years ago by missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. Here the Logos Ministries project of Word & Deed is cooperating with the Theological Seminary. I was asked to lecture to church pastors for two weeks. This work was well received by both the pastors and the leadership of the Nkhoma Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Malawi. (After David Livingstone died, the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland sent missionaries to Northern Malawi and Southern Malawi, while the Dutch Reformed of South Africa were invited to send missionaries to Central Malawi. Thus there are now three Synods in Malawi forming one denomination).

After the lectures, Dorothy and I toured the orphan facilities we had helped establish. We observed Christian instruction given to orphans as well as care for their physical needs. Manuel Kamnkhwani, a dedicated Malawi Christian, keeps an eye on the orphan centers and reports to Word & Deed headquarters in Ontario and Michigan. While at the Lizulu facility, we learned that one of their former orphans was now an adult and had become a policeman. He was also married in the Lord to a beautiful young lady. Also, two of the orphans at Lizulu had married each other when they became adults, and established a Christian home. These were two of the four young men whose secondary school fees we had paid for.

When we visited the caregivers at Chintheche (about 460 kilometers north of Lizulu near Lake Malawi), we encouraged the caregivers to prepare the teenage orphans for the day when they too would be “on their own.”

We are thankful that Word & Deed not only provides finances for this work; but also monitors the work so that the children are not only fed and clothed, but are raised in a Christian environment that will influence these children for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Timothy Monsma currently lives in Loveland, Colorado with his wife Dorothy and visits the developing world periodically. He is the author of, “Hope for the Southern World: Impacting Societal Problems in the Southern World”.