April 2004

Dear Friends,

My work with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance gives me the opportunity to meet wonderful people in different cultures. This month, I celebrated Palm Sunday with the congregation of Chingale Presbyterian Church in southern Malawi. The Rev. M.S.Kanjerwa is pastor of this church, along with its 12 preaching stations, which are smaller congregations who live too far to walk to the Chingale building. Each of these 13 churches has its own group of elders responsible for organizing Sunday services and pastoral care for the congregation. Rev. Kanjerwa visits all of the churches regularly, preaching in several locations each Sunday. He recently received a bicycle from our program which has made his travels quicker and easier.

The Chingale congregation has just built a new building that they are very proud of. They made the mud bricks themselves and fired them in a large pile that burns for many hours to make the bricks harder and more resistant to water. They dug and poured the cement foundation with concrete they mixed by hand. The walls were then built on the cement foundation. They got the new corrugated iron roof on in time to protect them from the rains of the rainy season which began before I arrived. I understood the importance of this on Palm Sunday when we walked around the cornfield and across the large open area with small rivers running across it. We tried to jump from one clump of vegetation to the next, but sometimes there was no choice but to march across the mud. It was not raining when we arrived, but the rain that started during worship left almost an inch of water standing on the ground!

An additional 40 bags will cover the homemade bricks to strengthen the walls and prevent them from softening with the rains. The doors are still missing but hoped for. They trust that God will provide for these things.

While the physical facilities may be rudimentary, this is clearly a house of prayer. As we arrive, the congregation greets with singing and handshakes. They carry our bags to the vestry where the elders gather for prayer before worship. While we prepare, the choir is singing in the sanctuary. The congregation joins in the singing as they arrive. As we enter the sanctuary, a chair is found for Rev. Kanjerwa, the clerk of session, and me. The rest of the elders sit along the walls behind us on bricks like the rest of the congregation.

This will be a busy Sunday. In addition to the normal service, we will celebrate baptism of infants and one adult, ordination of a new session clerk, Communion, blessing of new members of the women’s guild and the reinstatement of seven members who have repented after being excommunicated for immoral behavior. There are about 40 children and babies in church along with about 35 women and 35 men. Thirteen elders are sitting with us, and eleven members of the women’s guild are present in their white headscarves and blouses.

Worship is lovely. The young children sing, as does the adult choir with several children who join them. The music is in beautiful harmonies and rhythms and sung with enthusiasm to worship the God who loves us all. I told the children the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. I showed them pictures of the people waving palm branches from the picture Bible I brought for them. They were absolutely glued to the pictures in the book, something that is virtually unavailable in Chingale, even in school. Babies were baptized, people welcomed, hymns sung, and prayers prayed. We read from the Gospel of John about Mary anointing Jesus at Bethany just before he rode into Jerusalem. I reflected on how only Mary recognized the Lord at that time and understood what was about to happen. Communion was served on homemade wooden Communion ware.

After the final hymns we walked to the vestry for final prayers with the elders. Then we were told that they had prepared a meal for us! Out here, in the middle of a muddy field and quite a distance from anyone’s home, they had carried all of the things that they prepared to feed us before our journey home. They carried water in basins for us to wash. There was nsima, their staple dish similar to thick grits. Pumpkin leaves had been deliciously cooked with tomato and onion, and boiled eggs were brought too. Bottled water had been purchased to make sure that I did not get any illnesses.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has been working in the Chingale district of Malawi for two years in response to an acute famine. This was part of a rural county forgotten by everyone. Many were dying daily from starvation, AIDS, preventable illnesses, and just poverty. Many things are better, but these people are still desperately poor. They are poor in money, they are poor in medicines for AIDS, they are poor in books. However, they are not poor in God’s kingdom. They are rich in love. They are rich in spirit. They are rich in their simple understanding that God provides for them, and that Jesus was poor too.

And I am richer to have spent these hours worshiping our Lord with these my brothers and sisters. Thanks be to God!

Kathy Angi

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 332