Mission: Malawi 2017 By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ Sunday, June 25 Time for church in rural Malawi. I challenged the church at Msema with a message about loving our friends as Jesus loved us (based on John 15:13) and Bill preached to the church at Kambona about praising the Lord through troubled times (Psalm 124). Many on the team also were introduced to worship, Africa style with music, dancing and joy overflowing from the hundreds at Pastor Duncan’s two rural churches. Damson and Gary preaching at Msema, above, ...
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Brick making from mud in the remote village of Singano. (Photo by Gary Fallesen) A survey of construction methods was the team’s assignment on our first full day on the job. We learned how the poorest of the poor turn mud into bricks and build houses that will last one year, and how others with more means are able to use bricks produced in a kiln to build structures that will be inhabitable for much longer (in some cases 7-to-10 years and in others for generations). CLICK HERE for daily Dispatches from Mission: Malawi 2017.
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Reaching an unreached people group: ‘Yes, we can’ By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ The question arose at the 2016 Finishing the Task Conference, where we learned that the Ngoni people of Malawi were listed among the unreached. I asked Damson Samson, Climbing For Christ’s missionary to East Africa and a native of Malawi, if he knew of the Ngoni. “Mainly, these people fled from South Africa after the Zulu defeated them,” Damson said. “Another group came from Tanzania. This group was led by Zwangenda and lived in Ntcheu, while the fi...
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Warming widows with gesture of love By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ Widows warming to new jackets. (Photos by Damson Samson) With winter on its way in Malawi, warm jackets were delivered to the widows served by Climbing For Christ’s Damson Samson. “We had over 150 widows who were blessed to have this support from Climbing For Christ,” Damson said about the May delivery. “In most cases, when you are growing older, your body struggles because of low energy and (lower) immunity. These put the body at higher risk of different diseases.&rdq...
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God’s timing for a meeting such as this Mulanje Massif Chapter evangelism training in Malawi introduces many to Jesus A time of worship at the Mulanje Massif Chapter meeting. (Photos by Damson Samson) The Muslim man attending our Mulanje Massif Chapter training in southern Malawi confessed that he’d never been to such a meeting. He said “it was a good time to have attended this training,” Climbing For Christ’s Damson Samson reported. “He is no longer the same.” The man, Abrahim, became a Muslim background believer. He was one of eight guides a...
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Tears of gratitude and fear By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ   The church at Msema dances for joy during food distribution on April 15. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani) When Pastor Duncan Nyozani told his church at Kambona that last Sunday’s distribution of maize was “the last food aid support from Climbing For Christ some started shedding tears.” For six months, additional funding was provided to help feed our brothers and sisters in Searchlight Ministries as they awaited the current harvest. “All church members at both church...
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Hunger, thieves, and a future harvest in Malawi Food continues to be distributed among our brothers and sisters in Pastor Duncan Nyozani’s churches in southern Malawi even as a long-awaited harvest of maize begins. As always it is a mixture of thanksgiving and pain. “People are busy harvesting right now,” Duncan said. “There is a lot of theft of crops in the gardens in the community. So people are harvesting while it is not fully ready to avoid being stolen by thieves. Thieves are going at night to harvest other peoples’ crops.” Duncan said some...
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Widows worship and give thanks in Malawi Damson and a sister in Christ speaking at a special widows’ worship at a teachers college. As Damson Samson traveled from village to village to visit the growing number of widows being embraced by Project 1:27 (based on James 1:27), he felt a need to gather them together for a time of worship. On March 24, he welcomed more than 100 widows who God has been providing for through Damson and Climbing For Christ. “I thank heaven,” he said, “for we had 22 lives come to Christ.” Damson, who works for the Lord through C...
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Accepting Jesus, not fate, in bone-dry Malawi By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ Malawi 2017 Food Distribution from Climbing For Christ on Vimeo. There is joy and thankfulness when food is distributed each month among members of Pastor Duncan Nyozani’s churches in southern Malawi. But provision for food is ending with the harvest due to come in at the end of April. For some, this is a sobering thought. “The crops are doing well at Kambona,” Duncan reported, “but not at Msema village. We are experiencing shortages of rains in other vil...
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Solving a ma(i)ze of problems in Malawi Treating stalk borer infestation of maize in Malawi. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani) The spraying of maize crops infested by stalk borers continued in February in southern Malawi. “There has been a great improvement in crops after spraying, especially in the Kambona area,” Pastor Duncan Nyozani reported. “But in Msema many will not harvest due to heavy rains damaging the maize crops.” He blamed the soil, noting that “in other parts of the community apart from Msema crops are good.” Climbing For Christ prov...
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The war on bugs By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ   Ready to do battle: armed with chemicals to spray infected maize. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani, Searchlight Ministries) The headline screamed from the front page of The Nation newspaper based in Blantyre, Malawi’s center of finance and commerce: “Army worms affect 20 districts.” It refers to the “devastating” pest, the stalk borer, which has invaded Malawi’s maize fields. While the Malawi government was debating how to respond, Climbing For Christ was answering ...
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Maize growing in Malawi. (Photo by Searchlight Ministries) Stalk borer outbreak latest problem plaguing Malawi By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ Floods followed by drought followed by food shortages and a myriad of problems have left the people of southern Malawi in a quandary. “We do not know what is happening with us,” Pastor Duncan Nyozani confessed. Pastor Duncan, a long-time Climbing For Christ member and ministry partner, asks for prayer for his beleaguered African nation. The current rainy season finally provided relief from a drought t...
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Giving thanks to the Lord, for He is good Members of the Searchlight Ministries church in rural Kambona, Malawi celebrate the delivery of food. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani) “People are always sending you millions of thanks for the food aid that God is providing through Climbing For Christ,” Pastor Duncan Nyozani said after the latest distribution of relief in southern Malawi. Climbing For Christ has helped Duncan’s Searchlight Ministries purchase food each month since October 2016 for hundreds of people suffering from near-famine conditions in one of the world&rs...
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‘Bye, bye to mosquitoes,’ hello to malaria prevention By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ   Zex, right, is counted among hundreds happy to receive protection from malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Malawi. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani) Zex Samikwa was ecstatic to receive a mosquito net. “Bye, bye to mosquitoes tonight,” he declared. Frank Chipesu, another member of Pastor Duncan Nyozani’s church at Kambona in southern Malawi, called the distribution of mosquito nets “a miracle to my family. My wife has a new baby, born la...
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Simple gift of a blanket ends ‘hell on earth’ By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ   Damson Samson, center, with widows after distributing blankets. Malita would sleep “like a chicken” with no blanket, wrapping herself in a mosquito net to stay warm at night. Damson Samson wondered why the 50 widows who received blankets held the gifts to their faces. “Just to get the good aroma,” he realized. Life without a blanket for a widow living in southern Malawi, where Climbing For Christ has ministered since 2010, was ...
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Giving food to the hungry Photos by Duncan Nyozani A Bible in her hand, maize on top of her head, and Jesus in her heart: a mother leaves with her family after receiving food in southern Malawi. The fourth of six months of food relief funding was sent to Pastor Duncan in January and he again provided photos of the distribution of maize among church members in Kambona and Msema. Joyfully taking home food from the church at Kambona, above and below. Food shared at the church at Msema.
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Giving gifts and much more to orphans at CHRISTmas By Elaine Fallesen Family Ministry, Climbing For Christ Striking an Audrey Hepburn pose, Phiri Nakhumwa looked ready to dance her way through Paris in her new beret, pretty-in-pink laced top, striped skirt and flats, while clutching her new red and black plaid school bag. It was easy to see she was enjoying her special CHRISTmas gifts. Esnart shows off her new outfit and school bag, purchased through the generosity of Project 1:27 Malawi sponsors. (Malawi photos by Duncan Nyozani) Phiri, better known in her Climbing For Chri...
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No shortage of Living Water Flooding, drought, failed harvests, and near famine conditions have plagued southern Malawi the past two years. Malawi ranks among the 15 poorest countries in the world, so conditions have been crippling. We pray for a healing rain in this troubled land in southern Africa. “This severe drought has caused lots of devastation in the country,” said Pastor Duncan Nyozani, a long-time Climbing For Christ member and founder of partner Searchlight Ministries. “This is the first time in the history of Malawi to see boreholes drying up due to drought...
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Providing (thankfully) food and (prayerfully) rain By Gary Fallesen, founding president, Climbing For Christ   Some of the many people in Pastor Duncan’s church at Msema, above, and Kambona, below, receiving food in November. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani)   The people of Malawi are praying that the rainy season, which should begin this month, actually comes this time. It has been dry in the hunger-wracked African nation for nearly two years. Climbing For Christ has provided more than $10,000 so far this year for the purchase of food for people in southern Mal...
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Food provided in Malawi by God Bright Muhava. (Photos by Duncan Nyozani) Food was distributed to 100 members of the church at Kambona by Pastor Duncan Nyozani on Wednesday, Nov. 2 and to another 30 members attending Bible study the next day. Hundreds more received food after worship on Sunday, Nov. 6. “May the Lord God be glorified for this miracle of food provision,” Bright Muhava told Duncan. “I was away searching for (work) to get money for food, but could not get any work. But here comes God’s provision.” God is providing Duncan’s Searc...
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