Skip to main content

Malawi Summit in Nashville

I was blessed this week to participate in the first Malawi Summit sponsored by the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries to bring together church groups and organizations (like WorldHope Corps) involved in ministry in Malawi.
 
Eight mission groups were represented at the Summit in Nashville, including:, Belmont UMC, Church of the Resurrection in KC, First UMC in Ankany, Iowa, and other active clergy and laity). We compared notes, found out what each other were doing, and asked questions about how we might work together in a more coordinated and transparent way in Malawi.

Most gratifying for me was learning that the WorldHope Corps initiatives--HOPE HOMES, HOPE SCHOLARSHIPS AND HOPE TAILORING SCHOOL--have been enthusiastically embraced and supported by the other volunteer mission groups.  And that there are others who want to put in village wells and support the work in Malawi, each in their own way.

Rev. Herb Mather, a Drew Theological School graduate, and his wife, Sue, who have made many trips to Malawi and aised several thousand dollars for mission projects, organized and hosted the Summit, and made us all feel welcome.


Its a great benefit to be in ministry together, and I look forward to next year's Summit, and to returning to Malawi with another mission team in May, 2011.

I want to include in this mission update with a short note from Rev. Daniel Mhone, Conference Superintendent of the United Methodist Church in Malawi, whose heart was encouraged during the Summit:
 
I write just to appreciate your participation in the Malawi Summit we held in Nashville and God bless you.

To be very honest as Superintendent in the newly legislated Missionary Conference, there have been times when I have personally got frozen in my spirit and thought this is a non starter and we are heading nowhere. BUT after the summit I feel that our cry has been held and there is a future and way out and we corporately take the work of the Missionary and a Methodist family. God bless you and let us carry out ministry to the glory of God.

Stand with us and may God richly bless you.

Rev. Daniel Mhone

CONFERENCE SUPERINTENDENT

Background on United Methodist Church in Malawi:

The United Methodist Church in Malawi is fairly young. Started some 21 years ago by indigenous leaders, it was for 20 years a district of the episcopal area based in nearby Zimbabwe. In April 2008, the United Methodist General Conference, the denomination's legislature, recognized Malawi was a Missionary Conference, with special ties to the General Board of Global Ministries. Today, there are about 100 congregations organized into 22 circuits.

Malawi is a land-locked country of 10.5 million mostly rural people east of Zambia, west of Mozambique, and south of Tanzania. Like Zimbabwe, it was colonized by English-speaking Europeans in the 19th century. It gained its independence from Great Britain in 1964 and become a democratic republic in 1994. Lilongwe is the capital city. The annual per capital income is $800. Some 80 percent of the population is Christian, 55 percent of those Protestant.

Source: 
http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=5416
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Mother Shalom

South Central, Los Angeles, was the neighborhood in the city where Communities of Shalom began in 1992. I met Marx Gutierrez from El Salvador who was there attending High School at the time. He remembers what happened at the corner of Florence and Normandy Streets in South Central, LA, when Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck and beaten while the crowd looked on and the police did nothing; and how the Rodney King beating resulted in a not-guilty verdict for the police and resulted in a major, 3-day uprising in the neighborhood, until the National Guard came in and finally imposed law and order. He can still remember the fires, the bright orange night sky, the mass looting, 45 unsolved killings, the social chaos...And how the United Methodist Churches responded by creating a zone of shalom in 7 neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Today, Marx is a community organizer, and married to Jennifer Gutierrez, Conference Shalom Coordinator in the Calif-Pacific Annual Conference, and Rev. Vilma
Read more

First Generation Lambs Club Reunion

Fifteen of us gathered Saturday night at the Lambs Club for a 35 th year reunion of those who helped start the Lamb’s Church in Times Square in the mid to late 1970’s, including: Rev. Paul S. Moore , Founder of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene, and his wife, Tamara Dr. Michael J. Christensen , charter member and former associate pastor, and his wife Dr. Rebecca Laird Fr. William (BJ) Webe r, former Associate Pastor and Director of the Lamb’s Residency, and his wife Sheila who lived at the Lamb’s Jim and Dustee Hullinger, who were on staff together and made the Lamb’s their home for over 25 years Effie Canepa , who was the church pianist under 3 pastors, and her husband Peter Shirley Close, who attended the Lamb’s in the late 1970’s while studying, performing  and teaching music and voice Carl "Chappy" Valente , former associate pastor Rev. Bob DiQuatto , lead singer of the Church’s “Manhattan Project” and staff member of the Lamb’s, and his son Jason Rev. Gabriel
Read more

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue Lecture Notes: Presented by Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D.,  Associate Professor in the Practice of Spirituality and Ministry,  Drew University;  and  International Director, Communities of Shalom, The United Methodist Church Introduction “There is a little man in Peru, a man without any power, who lives in a barrio with poor people and who wrote a book.   In this book he simply reclaimed the basic Christian truth that God became human to bring good news to the poor, new light to the blind, and liberty to the captives.   Then years later this book and movement it started is considered a danger by [the USA, or Rome], the greatest power on earth.   When I look at this little man, Gustavo, and think about [the President of the US, or the Pope], I see David standing before Goliath, again with no more weapon than a little stone, a stone called A Theology of Liberation (Henri Nouwen
Read more