It was another long drive over rough dirt roads to get to Zowe. The village is about 30 miles from Zambia and may seem like it is at the end of the world. To get a cell phone connection, one must walk to the top of a nearby mountain and place the call from there. It is also an area where traditional religion is strong.
Some amazing things are happening in Zowe. A United Methodist Church was formed about a year ago at the invitation of the leader of the project. The headman has given an excellent plot of land for a church. The people are molding bricks and have big dreams. Some of the growth of the church is due to a series of amazing spiritual victories.
A man in the village was widowed. He was drinking heavily and felt near the end of the rope. He contacted pastor Copeland and asked for prayer. We don’t know all the details but the man has been sober for several months and is now a leader in the congregation. Some people ask what kind of pill he took. He tells them there were no pills, only prayer. A life has been reborn.
Another man in the village wanted to be part of the church but he had two wives. He knew that he could attend but would not be considered for any leadership in the church if he had two wives. He want to some of the leaders. They said they did not have any advice for him but they would join him in a seven-day fast and prayer. At the end of the seven days he traveled to Zambia where his second wife lived. There were no children through this marriage. He did not know what he would do. When he arrived, the family of the second wife met him and told him that he lived too far away. They were rescinding the marriage to make her eligible to be married again.
The stories of these miracles have been spread. People are attracted to a faith that can change lives. But there are other ways lives are being changed in that village. Several years ago students from Eastern University outside of Philadelphia (and home base for Tony Campolo) came to Zowe with one of their professors, a native Malawian from the Zowe area. Two years later a small group of students with a dream came back to do a feasibility study. The Zowe Community Development Project was born.
Two years ago, two graduates that were on that project came back to live in the village. One went home after a year. We had the privilege of meeting Melissa, who is completing her second year and plans to stay one more year. She is from Downingtown, PA and is supported by her home church, Downingtown UMC. Her “boss” is the Malawian director of the project.
The team built a clinic and arranged for a doctor to come once a week. They also have a healthy child initiative for “under 5’s” where mothers and children come once a month for health lessons and weighing and measuring the children. They built a maize mill and hope that it will generate income to help sustain the project. They prepare and feed a nutritious maize/soybean/groundnut porridge to about 400 children five mornings a week before school with the able help of a large corps of mothers. There are two staff residences in addition to the clinic, all of which are solar powered for lighting and refrigeration of medicine.
With the church, clinic, maize mill, scholarships for promising students and other activities, they are bringing a holistic gospel to this far corner of Malawi. They are making a difference.
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