I am writing this just a few days since Linda and I returned from spending 3 weeks with Julian and Caroline through the month of November. So this introduction is also a first-hand report of current progress with the work. I deliberately use the word ‘progress’, because one of the benefits of having travelled out to be with them every couple of years since 2006, is how marked the differences are over a time frame lapse of two years. For example, when we visited in October/November 2011, they had just moved onto the farm a week earlier and the land was pretty bare and almost tree-less.

But I get ahead of myself, as I’m sure the first question everyone wants to know the answer to is: ‘How is Caroline really doing after her accident’? So, without minimising what she has been through, I’m pleased to say that we were pleasantly surprised to see how well she looked when they greeted us at Lilongwe Airport. It was obvious in them both that the time they had spent through October with Tom and Nicky, celebrating Caroline’s 60th, had been a real time of R&R in every sense of the words. As Julian mentioned in the last newsletter, the prayer cover of everyone had also played a huge part – and continues to do so.

Back to our visit! What a joy it was to meet up with John and Betha and the children again (wow, how they have grown – the children that is!). I don’t know how they fit all 8 orphans into their home – plus their own children. But they are like one big happy family and those children who have been with them for several years (Lunia, Brenda, Paul, Gift, Femos and Matthews) are delightful, well balanced kids!

When we left Cameron and Victoria 2 years ago, they were still living in Tete, an hour’s rough drive away. Now here they were greeting us, having settled in a nice new home, with their family extended by the addition of 4 orphans – Chisanso, Steve, Kosimos and Elisa.

And there’s more! Two years ago, a new church member from the village brought Linda and me a gift of some potatoes she had grown. They were delicious! This was Rachel - and now here she was too, living in a new house with her 12 year old daughter, Charity, and caring for two well settled orphans – 2-year-old Myamiko and 5-year-old Chimwemwe (his neck problems now less troublesome than when he was first rescued) – what a lovely lady she is.

While Linda spent every day catching up and sharing with Caroline, Julian and I enjoyed a two day teaching conference with the church leaders from the Dedza area, using the church building at Mphalale – another leap forward. On our last visit, I had accompanied Julian to the first open-air meeting in that village where we met the chief, who seemed a little suspicious of our motives, but later donated the church building that we were now holding our leaders’ conference in! The following weekend, we spent 3 days at Makosana village (over 3 hours drive from the farm and one of the very earliest church plants) for the Lilongwe area leaders’ conference.

Meeting up with Biliat and his team of leaders again was another very special time. The work in that area seems so well established, but they want to do more. Part of their vision is to see their own leadership capabilities built up and strengthened. A real opportunity exists for any gifted leaders from the UK to come and help them realise this ambition. Please pray for this.

As others have before, we brought stuff that had been donated for the orphans – John had said a key need this time was for shoes – so there was real excitement when it came to allocating the shoes and clothes to the different children. John and Cameron were brilliant. We all gathered in Cameron’s house, the children sitting in groups, waiting patiently.

We were also able to arrange a visit to the local school, just half a mile away from the Village of Light, Chiphazi Full Primary School. Victoria teaches there and three of the orphans also attend. Back in October, after I had taken an assembly at a school near Lincoln and shared a bit about Malawi, the children wanted me to try to make a link with school-kids out there and they produced a beautiful introductory folder. The head teacher is already grateful for the proximity of the Village of Light to his school and when we explained the reason for our visit to him and presented the folder from the Lincoln school, you would have thought we were offering the Crown Jewels! He told us a little about his school – 940 ‘learners’ with an age range 5 to 17 years, 8 classes, 3 of which have over 150 learners in each!

The 10 teachers and 4 assistants sharing the load certainly have their hands full – especially as they are limited to 1 textbook between 4 learners and very few exercise books! The head invited us back later in the week to talk to the whole school. They assembled, sat on the grass on the field behind the school with a row of chairs at the front for guests and staff. A representative ‘learner’ from each class came to the front and recited a passage of Scripture and a small group then entertained us with a song. The head interpreted as I shared the reason for our visit (to huge applause!) and then brought them a lesson from Scripture (story of Zacchaeus). After visiting all the classes, the head presented us with a letter and a gift (examples of their classwork) for the school back home in Lincoln. Hopefully both schools will benefit from the link.

Brian

Julian and Caroline are now back in Malawi, after their summer visit to England. Julian has given us the following update:

"It has been a time of great joy to meet up with our family and friends, many of whom we have not seen for at least 2 years (the last time we were together in England). Time always is too short for us (and even if we had more time - our energy limits what we are able to do). We regret that we have not seen everyone that we wished to meet. A highlight that will always stick with us has obviously been the marriage of Tom and Naomi in July. It was a wonderful occasion. We rejoice at this union, and love Naomi as we clearly do our children. To witness young people starting their new life with the Lord is a rare honour indeed. We feel that our family has been enriched as Naomi, and the members of her own family, join us.

Update on Orphan Care

In December and January there was an influx of new orphans which, at a stroke, doubled the number of orphans on the farm. See our main item on Orphan Care for details. Whilst this inevitably stretches resources, we all feel joined to Julian and Caroline and the team in expressing faith for God’s provision for this increasing need.

The team had seen this as a very useful teaching aid for both children and adults, and had made enquiries as to how a complete kit could be obtained. The answer to this question appears to be “from America using a parcel delivery service”. When considering a delivery to a small town in Malawi has a “this year, next year, sometime, (probably) never” feel about it. After some discussion with the SaltMalawi trustees, we volunteered to cary a complete kit and deliver with far greater certainty, at least in timing, than one sent by a parcel delivery service.

We were able to spend time using the flannel graph in the villages teaching the children more stories of Jesus, continuing on from our time earlier in the year.

One highlight for me during the visit, was the opportunity to travel north to see some of the people I had seen some years ago in the Makosana district churches. I travelled with Cameron initially to see Kaisha, a man I briefly met about five years ago, as the church at Dzoole was just starting. He is now the leader of the church in that village, but is very ill. It was a great relief to see him walking about outside his home, and to be able to encourage him from the scriptures and to pray for him and his wife and children. It was also an encouragement to me to see a portion of the congregation gather spontaneously around us and to receive their greeting.

What follows is an extract from David’s Facebook diary and other information.

How it all began

I have never travelled in Africa because of the need to have all the vaccinations etc, so I decided that while I am still fit enough I will visit the tropics. I chose Malawi and Zambia for my Africa Experience because of the variety - Mountains, Lakes, Culture and Wildlife. During my research for the trip I came across the SaltMalawi website which reminded me of the previous meeting. Malawi proved an excellent choice.

First impressions So many people, about half of them under 20. Transport for 95% is a bicycle. The others, business owners, politicians, and NGOs (non govt org) drive a Landcruiser or double cab pickup. The few main roads are surfaced, most are rough dirt tracks.

The lady in the photo has to pay 10p to the government for her head load, carry it maybe 5 miles, cut it up, then sell it for £2.50 in town. The bike load costs about 50p. It's worth a lot more but money has to be set aside for tyres and bike repairs. There is a constant stream down from the wooded areas, very hard but it is that or nothing. Older houses are built from mud bricks, more recent ones from home made fired bricks but still usually 2 rooms with a tin or thatched roof.

So we drove about 8 miles along a rough dirt track and found them first time. They do not get many visitors and we were welcomed enthusiastically and given a tour of their farm and the local village. The farm is 15 acres and very basic but provides much of the food for them and the community around them.

Apart from spreading the gospel, aid projects take up much of their time. HIV has caused many problems in Africa. Children become orphans so they are homed with other families and supported so that they can be looked after. We were introduced to one woman, probably mid 30s who had 4 of her own and 8 orphans to care for. Single mothers are destitute unless helped, as are old people who have lost their family and can no longer work to grow their own food.

The highlight of the visit was the new village well, provided by Julian's charity. Formerly the water source was a polluted pit at the bottom of the hill. A new well was dug close to the village, the hand pump delivers crystal clear water and the women using it were very enthusiastic about the improvement. Peter my guide, an older man probably 50 or so, turned out to be a real character chatting animatedly to the locals and translating the gist of it for us. The village chief joined us and more animated chat then back to the farm for tea and home. A revealing and very worthwhile day out.

****    Forgot to say    ****

Made an important discovery - the local beer.

Called "Kuche Kuche" this translates to "until morning comes" - sold in pint bottles for about 90p to tourists probably a lot less for locals.

Brewed by Carlsberg, tastes very like Budwieser.

I felt incredibly privileged to be asked by Julian if we would consider spending some of their visit time helping on the farm and continuing the teaching in the local villages. Julian was eager to have help and a driver available to collect maize stalks from the surrounding farms (where they would be disposed of by burning) to make into a mulch for the crops on Village of Light fields. This is a fundamental part of improving the ground and retaining moisture levels, on poor agricultural land, and since the harvest would finish when Julian was away, unless someone could help in this matter, little would be done.

Piled maize stalk ready for chopping into a mulch

Some mornings were of course spent doing other useful things, like the one morning when there were three poorly children, so we took them all to a local clinic and had them all checked over; in the end no malaria, and simple medicines to alleviate the symptoms. Another morning we spent time in a local wood, searching for tree seedlings to dig up and grow on at the farm to produce trees in years to come.

We arrived in Malawi about a week before Julian and Caroline left for the UK, so we had a week to recover from the flight, and learn the whats and wheres of the daily and weekly routine of living in The Village Of Light. This involved such measures as learning to manage the water supply, ensuring the solar water heater always had a suitable supply of water, feeding the five cats and three dogs, where to go to purchase vegetables etc. and of course, learning to navigate your way around the district.

My mornings were subsequently spent helping the men with collecting loads of maize stalk, and depositing it on the land ready to be chopped up.

John collecting ash seedlings

The afternoons were occupied with ministry to the branches in the local villages on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. First Liz would do some bible teaching with the children, telling a story of Jesus with a clear teaching point. The children were eager to listen and learn, and with twenty five to fifty children crammed into a small room, it was a lively experience.

On one occasion we managed to gather in excess of one hundred children, and on that occasion we abandoned the room and taught outside!

Old person who might be visited by "People of mercy"

On Monday afternoons, the local leaders gathered to pray and plan for the week ahead. It was during these meetings that an idea and vision for church involvement in help for the vulnerable and poor in the village was advanced from being something to aim at, to being a reality on the ground, and so “People of Mercy” really came into being. We had seen an involvement of the church in the community in South Africa on a previous visit there, and had walked with “People of Hope” into the houses of poor, ill and vulnerable people, giving friendship, comfort, help and aid etc. into that community. These were exactly the ideas and vision of the leaders with Julian. The difference was that we had seen it working, and the difference it made to the lives of the people.

So with Julian’s encouragement, we shared our experiences, and by the time we left five weeks later, we had done initial visits with Harrison to show the way, and Harrison and his team had themselves visited ten people and started doing repeat visits. The team were encouraged, and those visited were happy to be called on. In every visit the team pray with those visited, and will often be able to share the good news of the gospel as well. Sundays we spent ministering and visiting the various local churches at Bisket, Nyombe and Mphalale, teaching both the children, and adults, and always giving a clear simple gospel message during the service. Liz would use the flannelgraph to illustrate a story from the gospels, then I would follow on with teaching for the adults drawing from the story which had already been told. Wherever possible we would use drama, and objects to highlight as many aspects of the teaching as possible.

We left the Village of Light after five and a half weeks feeling that much had been done both physically in terms of farm work, and spiritually, with the children’s work being advanced and Cameron being very enthusiastic to carry on, and ‘People of Mercy’ ready to continue their work on a week to week basis, knowing that they do a valuable work in the community. We were also thrilled to see the children, both natural and orphans, living and working together under the parenthoods of John and Betha, Cameron and Victoria, Rachel and Mai Peters.

There were many other things that happened during our stay, for which we thank God, and all in all we count it a blessed time.