Ten Ways God Has Worked in Ten Years

 


TEN WAYS IN TEN YEARS

Feeding Centers

Financial Assistance for Students

Mobile Health Clinics

HIV/AIDS Support

Vocational Training

Clean Water

Mosquito Nets

Disaster Response

Food Security and Sustainability

Literacy Training for Women

Best Practices to Encourage Giving-Your Ideas!

Downloadable Resources

Bishop Joseph Bvumbwe and Diakonia child Tamara Malelemba in 2004.


“Ten Ways God Has Worked in Ten Years,” is a ten-week effort to address hunger and poverty in Malawi and world-wide through the ELCA World Hunger Appeal.

The appeal will start Sunday, February 27th and run for ten weeks through Sunday, May 1, which is also Companion Synod Sunday!  Each week a different ministry emphasis will be lifted up. A description of the ministry, pictures, and video for available for learning more. Downloadable resources to print are also available. You can even share your Best Practices for encouraging hunger giving on the Best Practices page. We hope to hear from you there! At the conclusion of the appeal, send your offering to the synod office instead of bringing it to the synod assembly. Total giving amounts will be announced at the assembly. Two-thirds of the appeal will again go to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi for its Diakonia Ministry and one-third will go to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal.

So how did the feeding centers and Diakonia Ministry get started? Mabel Madinga, coordinator of Diakonia Ministry remembers being in Nangombe Parish. A little girl was sitting in front of the church, holding her cheeks in her hands, watching Bishop Bvumbwe preach. Their eyes met. She puffed up a bit. Her hair was blond from malnutrition and she was sick. The bishop blessed the kids. When it was her turn, he held her hand and asked her “Where is your mother?” “My mother and father have died. We stay with aunties, but there’s not enough food for everyone.“ A Woman of Prayer in the congregation took the little girl, Tamara Malelemba, into her house and told her “from now on, you stay with me.” The bishop said we have to buy food for these children. There were so many other kids like Tamara. Juliett Phiri, Agnes Matawali (both now deceased), and other women said, “We will feed these children!” They bought Likuni phala (a nutritious porridge) and started distributing it. Thus began the feeding center ministry and Diakonia Ministry.

ELCA World Hunger is a comprehensive and sustainable program that uses multiple strategies—relief, development, education, and advocacy—to address the root causes of hunger and poverty. ELCA World Hunger responds to neighbors around the corner and around the world. Companion synod relationships offer a way to be more personally connected to these efforts. NW Synod of Wisconsin members are very familiar with the feeding center ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi, our companions. For the past ten years, two-thirds of the Assembly Hunger Offering, formerly known as the Quarter Offering, has been shared with the Diakonia Department of the ELCM, to help support the feeding ministry.

In 2003, synod pilgrims met Tamara and her new mother in Blantyre.