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October 24, 2008

The Malawi connection

It is in giving that Pittsburghers receive

by William M. Paul
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Reprinted with permission

PITTSBURGH — Malawi, a.k.a. “the warm heart of Africa,” does not appear prominently on America’s radar screen.

That’s not surprising. It doesn’t sit on oil reserves nor is it strategically located. It is not a popular tourist destination in spite of its spectacular scenery. By any tangible measure it is dirt poor. Eighty percent of its citizens eke out a living as subsistence farmers. Malnutrition, malaria and HIV/AIDS reduce average life expectancy to just over 40 years. It is home to an estimated 1 million orphans, many of whom try to survive on city streets.

Malawi, however, does show up on the radar screens of thousands of Pittsburghers, mine included. That’s due to a partnership formed in 1991 between Pittsburgh Presbytery and the Church of Central Africa’s Synod of Blantyre.

Having guided the partnership during its first seven years, this past summer I wanted to return to Africa at least one more time to see good friends and the projects that had been completed since my last visit 11 years ago. I also wanted to reconnect with the part of my heart that remains there. So in June my wife and I gathered gifts, packed our suitcases and took off.

We were thrilled by what we saw and heard. Partly it was our hometown connection. Whenever and wherever our Pittsburgh tie became known, appreciation was expressed: “Ah, Pittsburgh. Thank you very much.”

And why not? Pittsburghers of faith have made an extraordinary difference for good.

Since the partnership began, more than 600 of us, including teams of students from Grove City and Westminster colleges and Waynesburg University, have traveled the 10,000 miles to Malawi.

On alternate years a like number of Malawians have come to Pittsburgh. The purpose is to enter the other’s culture and church life, develop friendships and be of mutual encouragement in faith.

We in Pittsburgh have benefited from the gifts Malawians have brought to us: courageous faith, rich African music, boundless joy in giving and contagious love freely offered.

In turn, the Malawians have benefited from our gifts to them: administrative know-how, practical technology, financial generosity and talents given by committed volunteers serving at various sites for extended periods.

Life in a valley of dry bones

When I first saw Domasi village, it resembled a valley of dry bones. The church building was collapsing. The school had gaping holes in its roof and broken benches in its classrooms. Sporadic teaching prevented students from qualifying for college.

Medical care in the region was limited to a nurse who came monthly to weigh babies and who, by the feel of infant hair, would guess at each child's level of malnutrition.

Today signs of hope abound. Domasi hums with vitality that’s partly due to the generosity of Pittsburghers. A Shadyside family funded a clinic that offers a full range of medical and birthing services. With volunteer help and financial support, the school has been repaired and expanded. The church has been restored.

Through the partnership a nurse practitioner invested multiple years of on-site service, including founding a factory that produces an enriched formula to improve infant health.

Out of his concern for women having to carry water four miles to their homes, a Sewickley engineer designed and supervised construction of a system that brings 850,000 gallons of the country’s purest water daily to the village. It’s available for the clinic, the school, student dormitories and village homes. There’s enough left over to irrigate a five-acre vegetable and fruit-tree garden and to fill a pond growing edible fish.

Bustling Mulanje Mission Hospital has benefited from Pittsburgh gifts of medicine and money. It majors in obstetrics and gynecological care and provides basic medical services, including the distribution of birth control and AIDS information.

Additional gifts of a nurses’ residence (Emily House) and a classroom building (Pittsburgh Hall) have enabled it to become a vital teaching hospital.

A network of mutuality

What have we learned from this experiment in partnership?

In spite of the cultural, educational, economic and national chasms between us, we can see the truth of Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation that the human family is “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”

Our wholeness is tied to our friends in Malawi and, when it comes to the challenges our partners face, indifference is impossible.

It isn’t clear which side has benefited most from the exchanges of gifts. It is clear that when it comes to reciprocity, St. Francis was right: “It is in giving that we receive.”

Partnership has been a vehicle by which we who have received so much can give back, and we who have been loved are freed to love in return.

Perhaps most important for us in Pittsburgh is realizing we have only skimmed the surface of this partnership's potential and the gospel imperative: “to whom much is given is much expected.”

The Rev. William M. Paul is a retired minister member of Pittsburgh Presbytery.