Mission Moments: Malawi
Tears of the poor
By Gary Fallesen, Climbing For Christ’s founding president
Damson Samson, Climbing For Christ’s missionary to East Africa, began meeting with the many widows in his home village in southern Malawi at the beginning of the year. Every Sunday he will pray for them and try to encourage them.
Malawi is badly in need of encouragement during these difficult days of drought and food shortages.
On a recent Sunday, Damson shared with the many in attendance, “It’s my prayer for you not to die before you have accepted Jesus Christ.”
He witnessed many who were in tears.
“They told me how they have been visiting the sick in the village and they were challenged with the situation of how humans can suffer so much,” Damson reported. “People are spending two days without food. Others are eating maize (stalks); this (stem) is all that remains of the pounded maize.”
The hunger is great. We pray that during Mission: Malawi 2015 we may be able to deliver food and introduce many to the Bread of Life.
Damson shares with widows (and others) on Feb. 21.
Damson, who began in ministry caring for orphans at Pastor Duncan Nyozani’s Far & Wide Children’s Home (where we first met), knows the meaning of James 1:27. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
Climbing For Christ linked the James 1:27 verse with Project 1:27, which started in Malawi in 2010 and expanded to Nepal the following year. This project (allowing supporters to sponsor children in need) has served dozens of orphans in those countries, and beyond.
Damson, though, has taken it one step further. He has included widows.
“The situation (of famine) is also pushing many to join the project,” he said, referring to his weekly meetings, “hoping they might have a chance to get something little by the end of the month.
“In most visited houses, (we find) that most of these widows are sleeping on the floor, lacking mat. Not mattress but mats. It really touched me and made a prayer to see God holding them.”
Damson’s own family has been affected by the food shortage. Most Malawians (80 percent of the country’s population) are small-holder farmers. The land they work is smaller than the average size of arable land in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). “Malawi’s landholdings are generally small and densely cultivated, causing overuse and degradation of marginally productive agricultural land,” the WFP says.
That’s in a good year.
Malawi is facing El Niño-related weather problems, plaguing agriculture and driving up food prices. During this lean season (December-March), when last year’s harvest – if there was one – has been depleted, the country finds itself on the brink of famine.
“Whatever little we get, many are look at our mouth,” Damson said about his family. “Then we can’t close our eyes, but look at those in need and do something for the sake of their lives.”
One of the widows in the group Damson serves died recently. He was saddened, thinking perhaps if she had more to eat she would not have fallen ill.
“By His grace, I led her to Christ Jesus,” Damson said, “and she accepted (Him) as Lord and Savior of her life.”
We give thanks that she is experiencing the vision God gave John. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
Damson knows the concerns of those “former things.” One day his youngest child, Elaine (named after Climbing For Christ staff member Elaine Fallesen), was coughing and needed to visit the hospital.
“I have just sold the last bag of maize we had to pay the bill at the hospital,” he said.
“It is miserable to see the hope of Malawi going down as we do not have rain and the maize plants are dry,” Damson lamented.
He asked that as our Mission: Malawi team visits we might provide a word of encouragement – “and keep their faith running.”
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