It is January, the rainy season in Malawi, and Machitidwe awakens to the muffled drumming of a downpour on the thatched roof. A rooster crows and another provides a hoarse echo. Machitidwe has mixed feelings about the rain this morning. He must bike a long distance today and would prefer dry weather, but vivid memories of drought and famine prevent him from recklessly wishing the rain away. Without rain there will be no maize harvest. After his breakfast of tea and a piece of bread, the rain has eased to a drizzle, and Machitidwe heaves his bike out the door and down the single front step. He climbs on and begins the two-hour journey to the village of Madzambwa.
For the past year-and-a-half, Machitidwe Sepitala has been employed as one of three coordinators for Nkhoma Orphan Care Project. The project has 34 orphan care centers within a 30 kilometer radius of Nkhoma mission station. These centers serve approximately 900 small villages and the project has 4875 orphans registered in their program. Rather than placing orphaned children in an institutional setting, they remain in a traditional village, often living with relatives. The care centers attempt to support these caregiver families in a variety of ways. Donated items including food, clothing, blankets, seed, and fertilizer are distributed to the families. Each care center maintains a community garden: another source of food.
Many of the centers provide weekly Bible lessons for the orphaned children, with the goal being to have all centers do so. Financial assistance for the orphans’ medical and educational costs is also allocated if available. Machitidwe, together with his fellow coordinators, Notice Chada and Myamiko Bonongwe, oversees the activities of these care centers. Equipped with bikes for transportation, they spend many hours negotiating the narrow, rutted trails between the villages, trying to visit each center twice monthly to provide supervision, direction, and encouragement.
Machitidwe has been employed by Nkhoma Orphan Care for less than two years, but he has been a part of their work since their inception 11 years ago. This optimistic young man brings to his job a unique empathy and compassion for orphaned children because he also lost his parents as a child. When he was nine, his mother died of pneumonia and two years later his father passed away, leaving behind three orphaned boys. Machitidwe moved six kilometers to the village of Chimwaye to live with his uncle and aunt, Tolera and Christina Masauko, and he still resides with them today.
He remembers the first three years in his new home as a time of much struggle and hardship. His new family was very poor and his Aunt Christina fought to feed and clothe four children, often hindered by her husband’s alcohol abuse. When the Nkhoma Orphan Care Project began helping families care for orphans in 1997, Machitidwe’s family was one of the first they assisted. Through the project, together with generous overseas donations, the family was blessed with precious basic necessities: food, clothing, blankets, fertilizer, and seed. Financial assistance from the project made it possible for him to graduate from secondary school. Machitidwe firmly believes that the Lord used Nkhoma Orphan Care to provide for him during a period of desperate need and he is grateful to be in a position where he can now minister to children in similar circumstances.
When asked about his plans for the future, Machitidwe does not hesitate with his reply. He would like to attend the technical college in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, to upgrade his education and improve his ability to do his job. He and his wife, Snedia, and infant son, Vincent, live with his aunt and uncle, but he recently acquired a partly built home from relatives in the same village and he is working on finishing it. The home includes a separate space for a small shop and he hopes that Snedia will eventually be able to supplement their income by selling groceries to the villagers.
It is evening and Machitidwe pedals wearily through the village to his home. The sky has cleared and the setting sun covers the lush green landscape with a soft, golden light. Laughing children race along side his bike, welcoming him home. The scent of wood smoke from his neighbors’ cooking fires fills his nostrils. He finds Aunt Christina and Snedia sitting companionably just outside the house. His aunt is cooking their simple supper of maize meal porridge and greens on a small woodstove, while his wife nurses the baby. As he settles down beside them and takes his son into his arms, Machitidwe is thankful for how the Lord has faithfully provided for another day.
Caroline Van Dyken and her husband Scott are members of Trinity Orthodox Reformed Church in St. Catharines, Ontario and are currently on a two year placement in Malawi where they are supporting Word & Deed projects.
