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Ten Ways: Feeding Centers
Feeding Centers
Feeding centers have been a life-saving ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi for many years now. In the early 2000s, Malawi was besieged by drought, flooding, and subsequent poor harvests. Many people died of malnutrition and hunger. Children were particularly hard hit.
In those early years, many feeding centers were opened and supplied by the national church. Truckloads of dishes, soap, cooking pots, oil, sugar, salt, and Likuni phala (a condensed porridge mix) were delivered throughout the country. National staff such as Mabel Madinga, Rhoda Majuni, and Esther Gondwe held training sessions for the many volunteer women and men who then ran the feeding centers. Fifty children from a village area were selected to eat at each site. They were deemed the children most vulnerable, and were chosen by a committee of both church elders and village elders. They did not have to be Lutheran, just at-risk. Not all were orphans. Some were children of extremely poor families. The same 50 children were fed throughout the “hunger” season, October through late March. Their weights and health were tracked so that progress could either be seen, or medical intervention provided. Thousands of children have benefited over the years.
In recent years, as Malawi has benefited from more normal rains and a government sponsored seed and fertilizer program, the number of feeding centers sponsored by the national church has decreased. Many individual congregations and parishes are now running their own feeding centers, sometimes even growing their own crops to be able to feed the children.
Will the feeding centers continue? “If we have HIV/Aids, we will have feeding centers because of the orphans. We can’t run away from orphans. We want children raised in their own cultures, not orphanages. The role of Diakonia is to help communities and families raise their children. Thousands of kids and people have already been helped.”
(Mabel Madinga, coordinator of Diakonia Ministry)
Kids not only eat at the feeding centers, but also receive medical attention, bathing, clothes washing, and a pre-school type education.
Prayer Petition - Feeding Centers:
God of all nourishment, we lift up to you today the ministry of the feeding centers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi which feed not only the bodies but also the minds and souls of the children they serve. Bless this ministry, bless these children they serve. Bless this ministry, bless these children and bless the workers so that your ministry can be strengthened in the tending of these children of yours. Amen.
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