Letter from Austin Katunga
Mpachika CCAP Church - dated 4th June 2007

This is an extract from the letter sent to John and Jennifer following his stay with John, Jennifer and David

Warmest greetings to both of you and all St Mark’s Church from myself, as Session Clerk and my Congregation.

To start with I would like to thank you very very much for the cordial reception rendered to me as my host during the time I was there in Aberdeen.  Both of you, including David, made my stay there very enjoyable and unforgettable.  I think I will never forget what you did for me personally for the rest of my life.  May the Almighty God continue to bless you abundantly as a family.

John and Jennifer on 24.05.07 as you left us at Aberdeen Airport, the flight to Amsterdam took only 1½ hours and we arrived safely.  We stayed there in Amsterdam for almost 10 hours.  At 9.40pm we boarded a flight to Nairobi and we reached our destination at 6.30am on 25.05.07.  We boarded a flight to Blantyre via Dar-es-salaam at 9.10am and by 11.30am we were in Blantyre.  Members from Mpachika Congregation and our family members welcomed us.  It was and will be an unforgettable trip.  Indeed we really appreciated our stay as we covered a lot during our visit such as spiritual matters, visitations, discussions and cultural matters and indeed we took home to our Congregation spiritual encouragement and challenge needed for the sustenance of the Partnership and an understanding among ourselves as it gave us a rare opportunity of being together and learning the attitude of each other.

Brian is OK and he was among the people that came to welcome us at Chileka Airport.  Matherio was involved in a car accident on 01.06.07 at a corner near our Mpachika Church.  He was driving towards Limbe but now he is well.

All Mpachika Church members are thanking you indeed for the financial support ie the cheque presented to us the time we were there.  The money has been banked and shortly we are expecting to start on the construction of the kitchen.  As everything gets started we will be informing you of every move.

Lastly but not the least we are very grateful indeed to you as a family for the support given to us individually and to the entire Mpachika Congregation.

We at Mpachika do not take this for granted; we know that it came from different well wishers in the Church who wanted to make a difference to the lives of Mpachika Congregation.  We humbly ask you to extend our heartfelt appreciation to the entire St Mark’s Congregation and not forgetting the Presbytery of Aberdeen.

Greet Rosalyn Rennie, Margaret, Alex and all too many to be mentioned. 

Regards  Austin

Austin's letter appeared in the Autumn 2007 edition of the St Mark's Messenger, our quarterly Church Magazine.  We also printed the following two poems from Tinkhani Tembo and Hazel Tembo.

The Well

1. This is the well
Where you can draw
Spiritual water
And feel well

Three is great my friend
When one finishes praying
He/she prays in the name of
Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
Three is great
Three is great my friends

Malawi September 2006

As many of you will already know, Rosalyn and I will be setting off for Malawi on Thursday 14 September taking your good wishes to the folks of Mpachika Church. We will also be taking some money with us, which is your donation to help Mpachika continue the work in their parish of helping the poor and the less able to live and feed themselves.

On Saturday 8 July, there will be an evening of fun in the church hall when we will watch the film "The Sound of Music" and you will be able to sing along to it and even dress up and enjoy being part of a fun evening. Tea and refreshments will be served and although there is no charge for the evening, a donation to Malawi will be asked of those who come along. I am hoping that as many of you as possible will come and so that I can cater for everyone please put your name on the sheets in the vestibule for me.
The Minister

The latest news (Spring 2006) from Malawi comes direct from Caroline Kandiero in Mulanje.

For the past two years, Malawi as a country has been experiencing food shortages.  As an African continent, not only is Malawi affected but many other countries have the same problem due to either dry spells or diseases.

In its effort to save the many lives of rural Malawians who are badly affected, considering the economic situation in the country, the government of Malawi sources funds and food items from donors as well as well-wishers.

The World Food Programme (WFP) came to the rescue and through many organisations in the country, like Oxfam, World Vision, Concern Universal and ADRA Malawi in collaboration with the government has managed to distribute food commodities to about 4 million people who were at the brink of death from August last year.

Here in Mulanje, which is under Oxfam care, the targeted beneficiaries are 72,594 and are picked from all the traditional authorities around the district.  Those targeted are those that keep orphans, orphan headed families, landless without income, small landholders with severe crop losses due to floods or dry spells and households keeping chronically-ill and elderly people.  The beneficiaries started receiving their entitlements in August and they will end this month (March).  That has been 50kg bags of cereals of maize, rice or sorghum per month.  But later increases in commodities of pulses were also given out - mainly peas and beans.  The pulses were given as 5kg per household and later increased to 10kg and at the meantime it has been scaled down to 2kg per household per month.

Apart from the cereals and pulses there was also an addition of vegetable oil in the month of Novemeber and each household was receiving 2 litres per month, but as of now each household is getting 4 litres.  Each household is supposed to have a single ration card no matter how big or small it is.  This is so, in order to reach out to as many hungry people as possible.  Though the entitlement might sound enough on paper, in reality it is not enough to cater for a rural family, which normally has a minimum of seven members and mostly goes beyond ten.

According to African culture, distant relatives matter a lot and many households keep relations and there is also a high rate of orphans being kept by grandparents due to HIV/AIDS, which is killing many youths and is the major cause of high numbers of deaths per household.

As for Malawi as a country, we thank all the donors and well-wishers for their support, as many lives have been saved.  All in all, this year promises good harvests and our only prayer is that the rains should stop in time so that the harvest should not go bad.
By Caroline Kandiero, Mulanje, Malawi