Skip to main content

True Religion is Love in Action



This child is just one of a million orphans in Malawi!

I'm a man on a mission to help save 1,000 AIDS orphans and widows in Africa, and I need help. As Bono says: “Africa is ablaze. We are called to put out the fire!”

“True religion pleasing to God is this," according to the brother of Jesus: "caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself from being contaminated by the values of the world.” (James 1:27)

My particular involvement over the past 25 years has been with CitiHope International—a non-sectarian, Christian, humanitarian relief and development agency working in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Malawi, Africa, is a small, land-locked, Pennsylvania-size country of 13 million bordering Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. Malawi is particularly vulnerable to famine and disease, and suffers disproportionately from extreme poverty and AIDS. Currently, AIDS infects 15% of the population and accounts for over 85,000 deaths per year, leaving 950,000 AIDS –affected orphans.

CitiHope’s mission in Malawi is to bring help and raise hope by supplying nutritional meals to orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children and their extended families; delivering life-saving medicine to hospitals and rural clinics; and providing Pastoral and Congregational Care Training (PACCT) in AIDS prevention and compassionate care in communities and congregations suffering from AIDS.

In 2006, CitiHope International and its ministry partners
• provided over a million nutritional meals to 3,000 orphans in 9 orphan care centers
• delivered $2 million dollars of medicine and medical supplies to 17 hospitals, 7 schools, and 5 prisons
• supported 38 community-based organizations who feed and care for over 12,000 persons at least one meal a day for the year
• trained and equipped 60 pastors and community leaders (20 men and 40 women) in dealing with the social and spiritual issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in their churches
• Identified and funded our first HopeHome in Malawi

So far this year, CitiHope ...


This week, we were offered 2,200 metric tons of rice for Malawi orphans and school children by the Government of Taiwan! If accepted, the donation will flow through Feed the Children (a Christian NGO) who contacted us to see if could effectively use it. We know how and where to distribute the rice, but we lack the fund to transport it to northern Malawi.

CitiHope has an unfunded but well-documented Plan that targets 88 primary schools and 40 community-based social agencies assisting families, including 7 Orphan Care Centers. Total recipients for all this rice will be 35,000 primary school age children and family members and their teachers over a two-year program.

We discussed with Feed the Children how we could accept the donation only if they or another organization would pay for the shipping costs from Taiwan to our
warehouse in Mzuzu, Malawi(a $300,000 expense!) And they are prayerfully considering it.

If a funder can be found to pay the shipping bill, we will joyfully accept the generous donation and distribute the rice as a "Rice for Education' program aimed at keeping children in school by providing hot meals during school and take home
rations each month.

This opportunity is very timely and providential, for we have run out of food to distribute to the orphans. Please pray with us about this critical need and opportunity. I will let you know how it turns out.

I'm a man on a mission in Malawi, and I need help. Join me and the team at CitiHope as we seek to save 35,000 kids from malnutrition and help them stay in school.

As John Wesley said: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

Labels

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

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 The...
Read more

Water Buckets for for washing hands Needed in Malawi

“Sadly, I do think most deaths will be in those countries (Africa, Asia and South America), and the most extreme economic pain..."  --  Bill Gates on PBS News Hour, April 7, 2020 EASTER 2020:  We’re all coping the best we can during this Easter season of hopeful-struggle in the face of the Global pandemic by the name of Covid-19.    “Brace yourselves,” I say to our international ministry partners,“ as new cases in their countries surface and testing begins.   How to help them prepare, put basic provisions in place, and help the people stay healthy and safe.   COVID CARE KITS, our Easter campaign this year, urgently seeks cash donations to help our front-line ministry partners in Malawi, Uganda, and Palestine procure and distribute soap and sanitizers, face masks, and emergency food, in areas most at risk for the coronavirus which has already arrived. WorldHope Corps sponsors two Hope Tailoring Schools in Malawi and Uganda, and a child develo...
Read more

Let the River Flow: Why WorldHope Corps digs village wells

  Sunday Sermon at the The Water's Edge in OB , San Diego, CA. "Woman at the Well" (John 4:7-15) When you think about the gospel story of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at Jacob’s well, I’d like you to picture this Woman at a similar well in northern Malawi. Sitting and talking with Pastor Dennis Singini about water. Her name is Nyang'oma, which means "drum." Her Christian name is Mary Botha. She is 85 years old and lives in a village in the Kampenda area of Northern Malawi. She has cared for 11 children, two of whom have died. And her husband has died. When Dennis and I first met Mary in 2008, her village did not have a deep well or access to clean water. Nor did the six surrounding villages with over 1,500 people. Women and children had to drink with animals from shallow seasonal wells or walk about of 5km away to drink from the closest stream. Sometimes they would get sick and complain of stomach aches. Cholera and dysentery were widespread, and m...
Read more