Faith in Action in Malawi

Frank Scammell writes -

I would like to tell you about my visit to Malawi at the end of July this year

I travelled with another Frank who’s in his 70s.  He’s from my old church in Bury St Edmunds and we have been to Malawi a number of times together.
We are linked to an English charity and an African Church both with the name Faith in Action

A number of years ago an English lady living in Sussex decided to start a charity to provide clothes, food and development aid to some of the poorest parts of Malawi.
She linked with an African church leader and together they founded the charity which is a partnership with English helpers and Malawi churches.  Over the years the charity has sent many containers of clothing and essential goods – all supplied by British churches. Wells have been built in isolated villages and development projects begun. The Faith in Action Church in Malawi now looks after over 800 churches, mostly in Southern Malawi and Mozambique. This is one of the poorest areas of Africa where average life expectancy is 34 and where 1 in 4 children has HIV/AIDS

We began our trip by meeting the church leadership in Blantyre. We then travelled out from there and visited groups of Christians.

The purpose of our visit was to go and live alongside some of the poorest of Christians you could imagine, living in mud houses in villages where white people are hardly ever seen. This stems from the privilege of being linked with an indigenous African Church. Their hospitality is a lesson to us. Their sharing of what little they have is very generous. In each village we visited we joined in worship services and I had an opportunities to preach. Joining in such worship in mud churches or under the trees is a rare privilege

As we travelled among the villages we saw some of the development projects that are helping the villagers. These include irrigation projects, growing plantain bananas and sweet potatoes to help with drought, the provision of mosquito nets, village bicycle ambulances and goat projects

I may go to teach the bible to very eager listeners but I always end up learning far more from them. White people have not always left a good legacy in Africa. We see our visits as being genuine ways of showing love and demonstrating that we are one family in Christ despite our vast cultural differences.