August 2003

Malawi News Update

Dear Friends,

Warm greetings from Malawi!

Amidst a depressed economy (the Malawi kwacha, or MK, continues to decline, now at MK 97 to one U.S. dollar) and increased political corruption, “the warm heart of Africa” is not without people of vision and hope, “hoping against hope” (Romans 4:18-5:5).

On April 27, 2003, the Synod of Livingstonia inaugurated an intensive theological training programme to train 25 candidates for the ministry of the Word and Sacrament. The Rev. Dr. D.S. Mwakanandi, former principal of Zomba Theological College, is serving as principal and a tutor along with six part-time tutors. I was honored to be invited to serve the programme as a tutor of systematic theology and as dean of studies.

The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) has been growing in membership by leaps and bounds. Consequently, membership far exceeds the number of pastors needed to effectively nurture and lead the people. The Synod of Livingstonia alone has 600,000 members and only 85 pastors, or one pastor for every 7,000 members.

Zomba Theological College is currently the only college for training Presbyterian pastors in Malawi. It can accommodate only five Synod of Livingstonia candidates for the Ministry of the Word and Sacrament each year. The synod has a long waiting list of those who have been approved for training.

At the Synod of Livingstonia Assembly Meeting in 2000, commissioners acknowledged that those to be trained as pastors far exceeded the capacity of the existing theological college and moved to establish an intensive theological training programme to equip 50 candidates for the ministry, two classes of 25 students over a period of six years. It is a three-year course of study following the syllabi of Zomba Theological College. The course of study includes: African traditional religion, church history, Greek, homiletics, music, New Testament, Old Testament, pastoral counseling, practical theology, synodical instruction, systematic theology, and practicum parish experience. Each day begins with a time of silent meditation and corporate worship.

The programme currently rents one classroom, a two-room office for the principal and secretary-accounts clerk, a dining room, and a student boarding facility. Students have access to the Lay Training Centre’s library, which has few academic books for the students’ studies.

Resources and funding for the intensive theological training programme have come from the synod’s local churches and presbyteries in cash and kind and from friends of the Synod of Livingstonia throughout Malawi. We have started with very humble means. Students have come without their families, and for most of the first term they slept on mattresses on the floor while bunk beds were being made.

On inauguration day the donations were insufficient to pay the principal and tutors and barely enough to feed the students for a month. Only faith moved us forward, and the people of the synod continued to give sacrificially out of their deep poverty, a small portion each month, which has seen us through, God’s grace working through God’s faithful people.

The students have been learning without textbooks, depending totally on lectures and tutor’s lecture notes, in abbreviated form, made available to them. They are disciplined and committed to their theological training as they prepare for the ministry under extremely difficult circumstances with great sacrifice.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Matthew 9:37-38

Unfortunately, funerals are the order of the day in Malawi, a constant interruption and great sorrow for students and tutors. Living apart from wives and children the students carry the concern for the well being of their families with meagre resources to care for them. With their family members they bear these burdens through the strength and love of the community of faith.

Glimpses of hope along the way

Miraculously, our primary theological textbook, Christian Theology: An Introduction, by Alister McGrath, has been found in Malawi. These are new books at half-price, their availability made known to us by staff at Zomba Theological College. By the grace of God, friends from Scotland were visiting and encouraging us when the good news of this offer came, and they gave us the funds to purchase these books.

Friends from the United States are working with the synod to establish the University of Livingstonia. It is being proposed that the intensive theological training programme become an accredited school of theology of this university, with diploma and bachelor degree programmes.

Malawian friends from southern Malawi have shown up out of the blue with words of encouragement, MK 20,000, and a promise of continued support as they tithe whatever the Lord gives to them.

Pray to the Lord of the harvest, for ours is a great and mighty Lord, one who performs miracles of healing and life through the gifts of God’s faithful people.

Grace, Peace and Hope,

Debbie

The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.48