Planting Malawi October 2008

October 2008

Emmanuel International

Planting Malawi Isaiah 61.3

an update from the VanWoerdens in Malawi

We’re Planted in Malawi [and growing into it]

Our girls at Mulunguzi Dam on Zomba Plateau.

more stories & photos on

vw-mw.blogspot.com (more than 100 photos so far!)

Toe prints in the sand, eating nsima with your hands, frequent power failures, geckos in the house, endlessly boiling and filtering water, the constant presence of guards and househelp, washing laundry by hand — these are just some of the things that are becoming normal to us. Our family is settling in fairly well—no extreme culture shock

and not even all that sick either. The girls love the dirt (which is strange to the local kids and means they’re impossible to keep clean) and they’re making new friends just fine. Lara is enjoying school while Talia stays home with Ezera for now. We’re struggling our way through Chichewa lessons (pang’ono pang’ono, little by little) but basic greetings are getting

easier as we mingle with our neighbours. Because everything is so much more work here (laundry, shopping, cooking, water), it’s been a real relief to have Anastanzia help around the house. There are just so many experiences to share and stories to tell… so we’ve been writing some of them on our blog (there are lots of pictures too!).

Surprised by Disaster [floods, droughts, and famine]

Joining hands with our Malawian friends.

Prayer & Praise: • PRAISE: safe arrival, nice house, good househelp, Lara’s school, new friendships, health

• learning the culture and language, making new friends

• living witnesses to our workers, neighbours, friends, vendors

• plugging into projects, administrating the program, supervising field staff, impact in project villages, transformed lives

• government intervention for looming food crisis, good rains for growing season, no floods, no drought

• seizing opportunities to serve, allowing God to shape us and work through us

The Machinga District is plagued by floods every year and droughts every 3-5 years. These disasters, combined with chronic poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, mean the vulnerable poor living in this area go hungry every year and are trapped in poverty. Andre’s first major assignment with EI is to advocate for the poor living in these disasterprone areas. How? First, by convincing the government that treating every disaster as a surprise and responding with emergency relief is not a good idea. It’s not sustainable; it takes huge amounts of international resources and it causes the poor to become dependent on relief handouts, trapping them in a vicious cycle of poverty. There needs to be a shift from managing disasters

to reducing the likelihood of disasters happening over and over (this is called disaster risk reduction). The next step is to work with the government to develop a disaster contingency plan – to consider, plan for and mitigate the impact of these disasters and build the resilience of local communities. This will enable more sustainable development and facilitate more coordinated disaster response efforts, which help break the vicious cycle of poverty.

It’s about getting at the root of the problem of poverty. EI has been working in Malawi for about 20 years, working towards the creation of safer and more resilient communities in poor, disaster-prone areas through risk reducing interventions like crop and livelihood

diversification, winter cropping, village savings and loans to help women start small businesses, etc. But the recurring disasters often reverse the development progress, increasing the poverty, dependence, and vulnerability of those who are already living in poverty. We’ve all heard the saying, “Give someone a fish and they’ll eat for a day, but teach them to fish and they’ll eat for the rest of their life.” That’s the difference between relief (after a disaster) and development (what EI does). But, to borrow someone else’s words, “The problem is that nobody is asking who owns the pond.” Some of us will give people fish. Others will teach people to fish. But still others must be

see Repaving the Road

Planting Malawi | October 2008

Repaving the Road [disaster risk reduction] looking at who owns the pond and who polluted it. A lot has been done to manage poverty, but at some point we have to ask why people are poor. It’s like when the toilet floods. When it starts to pour out water, you don’t just start to clean up the mess. You also have to shut off the water that is causing the flood.1 Dr. Martin Luther King put it like this:

“We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s road… but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a

beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.”2

“at some point we have to ask why people are poor.”

(continued from page 1)

Here in Malawi, it’s time to stop mopping up the mess. That’s why we’re advocating working towards reducing the likelihood of floods, droughts, and food crises. Because the poor deserve to break free from poverty. They deserve the opportunity to fish and farm and feed their families.

1. The pond, the toilet, and the Jericho road illustrations are all borrowed from Shane Claiborne’s great book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (The Simple Way/Zondervan, 2006). Definitely worth a read if you’re serious about living your faith. 2. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Time to Break the Silence” (sermon, Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967).

Mchinyama [Lunch at the Village

]

James invited us to his village for lunch. So we packed into the Corolla, assured that the car would be able to make it to wherever Mchinyama village is. On the way, James tells us more of his story. His parents were killed in a car accident in 2000 so he lives with his grandmother. She also cares for his 13-year-old sister and 10year-old brother and two more grandchildren. James is 19 years old. Even though half of the people in this area have never even attended school, somehow James has defied the odds, and, despite the loss of his parents, has finished high school and is now enrolled in college for an accounting certificate. That’s how we first met James. He came looking for some money to be able to pay the sitting fee to write his ex-

aminations. I was cautious – everyone’s been asking for money. But James was genuine. Devoted follower of Jesus too. So I told him it was up to him to build my trust, to come back and let me know how his exams went. James came back. And invited our family to his home village for lunch on Saturday. The Corolla was not built for the trail to the village (ruts, rocks, irrigation ditches, loose log bridge), but we make it. We are greeted by a crowd of village children and invited in to grandma’s house. James shows us the house he’s building for his siblings next door to grandma’s. The house their parents had left them collapsed

Andre & Alexandra VanWoerden [Lara, Talia, Ezera] Private Bag 12 Zomba Malawi 265.8.169.382 [email protected] vw-mw.blogspot.com

last spring with the heavy rains and floods. James made the bricks, fired bricks this time, and a friend is building the house. He just needs the door and window frames so they can build up the walls. He already has most of the grass for the roof, which he hopes to get on before the rains come in October/November. After a quick tour around the village and some brief introductions of the extended family we go in for lunch. Rice, relish, chicken, eggs. I’m sure it’s a feast by their standards, with grandma taking care of five grandchildren. Rice is a luxury compared to the staple nsima (maize paste). I ask about last season’s harvest

and James tells me they only got three bags of maize. They have one bag left. We enjoy lunch, knowing what this food means to them. But we don’t drink the water. It comes from the irrigation ditch, where the muscovy ducks are bathing, and we see people doing laundry further upstream. After lunch we look around some more while Ezera smothers a baby goat and entertains all the village children (she would do just fine in the village). As we take our leave, I ask James how much the door and window frames will cost him – 2400 kwacha ($18). I think God would want James and his sister and brother to have a roof over their head by the time the rains come.

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