2013: Issue 1

Dear Friend,

We praise God for allowing us to continue to serve Him in 2013. Despite the increasing economic hardship that Malawi faces, God has been faithful to us and in addition to our core staff, we are also blessed by the faithfulness of our volunteers Esther Chikoja, Alex Mbwana, Wills Sichali and others.

We have started the year at a high note with prayer and fasting, and we trust God for a great 2013. Heavy rains have sometimes made it difficult to travel to the field by car due to flooded streams and muddy, slippery roads. However, this has not stopped the dedicated team going out to the people who rely on us; we have been using bicycle taxis and cross the streams on foot. It has been an interesting experience.

In spite of the tough economic conditions both locally and globally we are excited about all that God has in store for us this year and the last 6 months has seen us take some significant steps in relation to our international presence.  In the US we have been joined by

Chelsea Graves of Star Hill Baptist Church in Baton Rouge following their successful mission trip to join us in July last year. We have also made the bold step of employing a part-time project manager in the UK to manage our ever growing relationship network and work there.

All in all there are exciting times ahead for us this year and those of you who visit the website will also have noticed that we have made a few changes there as well to try and improve the quality and regularity of the news that we bring to our supporters. Of course with all this increased activity we are in need of your prayerful support now more than ever. I look forward to keeping you updated as the year progresses!

Annie Mkandawire
(Project Director)

The Pastor's House at Chapsinja

The pastor's house in Chapsinja is nearly finished and Frank Banda (who has been serving as a volunteer with Hope Missions for a number of months) will be installed as the full-time pastor of the church as soon as it is ready for him and his family. Frank completed his pastor's training with Annie at Lilongwe Bible College and has been attending Chapsinja weekly to lead the church since he started working with Hope Missions.

Progress on the house has slowed recently because of the heavy rains, which have made the road impassable for big vehicles transporting sand and other items. We will resume

work once the roads become passable (probably sometime in March).

Our other field pastor, Joseph Likhoko in Kayawbwa, is our backbone for discipleship in the field and is doing a fantastic job. He is taking a lead in encouraging and training the newly appointed leaders in our other church plants in Chapsinja, Biwi, and, most recently, Nyanga. We have now started having quarterly joint leadership training for all the HMM churches which should help and support the new leaders, particularly in preparation for next year when Pastor Likhoko will take a planned leave of absence.

Support

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Crops grown using traditional farming methods

Crops grown using farming God's way methods

Agricultural Transformation

We are pleased to see that more farmers are embracing the Farming God's Way agricultural methods that we introduced into the Chapsinja area with an initial demonstration plot. Chief Chapsinja has been made an official advisor on these farming methods in his area and beyond, although some villagers are slow to change their traditional farming methods. We have now started a demonstration plot of Farming God's Way in Biwi village, and the villagers are very excited with the progress of the crops.

Mulinga Trees

The Chapsinja community is thankful to Links International for their kind donation

of 100 mulinga trees for planting. The mulinga tree is more commonly known as the 'miracle tree' because just about everything from the tree can be used for local medication.

We are currently organizing training sessions to demonstrate how to cook and use the leaves, seeds, bark and stems of the mulinga trees so that the community can receive maximum benefit from them.

The community has decided to use these trees as the basis for establishing a herbal garden which has also greatly pleased local government agricultural advisors. They have joined forces with HMM and have provided other seeds to be planted, such as ginger and garlic.

Dry Classrooms Once More

We are pleased to report that the roof of Chipili Primary School in Kayabwa that was destroyed by a storm last year has now been repaired thanks to St Joseph's school in Oxford which is linked with them through Starfish Malawi.

The headmaster, Mr Matumba, told us that the repair of the roof has helped the school greatly. For instance, before the repairs, rain was disturbing classes, or children had to sit in the full glare of the sun. Teachers could not put charts on the walls because wind blew them off or the rain would wet them. As a result, attendance suffered. Now that the roof is repaired the classrooms are once again conducive for learning and attendance is back up.

Sports Evangelism

Hope Missions has established a youth team in Lilongwe which will strengthen our sports evangelism programmes in the villages and beyond.

The team will also engage in teaching and encouraging youth in the villages. The team recently played an evangelistic football game at Nyanga village and are planning a one-day discipleship seminar with the youth from all the Hope Missions churches (Kayabwa, Chapsinja, Biwi and Nyanga) in this quarter.

This is an exciting development for us as it give us an opportunity not only to work with the rural communities but to inspire a new generation of city youth to pick up the baton from us in years to come.

Please pray...

There is currently a food shortage in Malawi. This is a challenge for us as we have to look into ways of feeding the children until the harvest period. Normally parents are encouraged to provide some maize for the feeding program but there is no maize in homes to give towards the program.

There has been heavy rainfall in Malawi, causing some floods and destroying houses and crops. Part of the roof of the nursery school at Kayabwa has been destroyed and the nursery school building at Lemesi needs rebuilding, please pray that the community will come together to rebuild and that the resources will be available.

For God's provision and blessing on the HMM staff and their families as they continue to serve others despite significant economic hardship for their own families.

We thank God that HMM continues to win favour with the local authorities for its nursery schools and Farming God's Way programmes, please pray that this will bring opportunities to further the Gospel.