Remembering the Meaning of Easter

Easter is a much bigger holiday here in Malawi than Christmas. There were prayer services through the day on Thursday and today, Good Friday, services were at 6:30 and 8:30 AM. On Sunday, there will be three services. 

I loved hearing the church bells tolling this morning, gently calling us all to worship.  During this season, what Jesus did for us on the cross is paramount in most believers' minds. 

Many people, Christians as well as those practicing other religions, will take a long weekend holiday, and some shops will be closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday. Practically nothing will be open on Easter Sunday. 

It is a beautiful thing to observe as the pace slows to honor the central event in all of world history, the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I was thinking this morning about the respect Easter had, even by many in the secular world, when I was a child growing up in America. In many ways it was then a better America. 

Today's secularized America tends to be decidedly irreverent and has in large measure lost its sense of reverence for the sacred.  There are many distractions, and it is easy to be swept along in the cultural current. 

There is amazing beauty, though, in all that Easter means. The unsearchable God was thinking of us, loving us, and wanting us to know Him. That amazing love compelled the Father to send his Son and the Son to willingly give himself. 

It is through the cross the chasm that separated us from God was breached, opening the way for us to draw near and know God as our Father.  Through His sacrifice, our debt is erased and our sins forgiven. That is what that first Easter was really about.

Famine Relief Through Sweet Potato Farming

Because so many of our friends in the villages, men and women who attend our Bible studies, lost their maize crops due to drought, we knew that God wanted us to help them.  With the help of friends who support this ministry, we are now in the midst of a multi stage project to help them through this famine. 

We knew our friends in the villages would need both immediate relief and long term solutions. Although we have never undertaken such huge project before, when we asked God for wisdom and resources, He has been answering those prayers. 

Two weeks ago, we began with a distribution of vegetable seeds, which will produce       nutritious food for these families in a relatively short time. Afterward, hundreds of people registered for and participated in a class on how to successfully grow sweet potatoes. Participation in that class qualified villagers to receive 300 plants each.   
   
So, very early this morning our team took the two and a half hour road trip to a sweet potato nursery in Balaka,  where we purchased enough sweet potato plants to meet the needs of  our friends in two villages. Then after spending the morning collecting and bundling sweet potato plants, the team returned and met us in the villages. When we arrived we learned that some of the villagers, anxious to have a crop that will feed their families, had been waiting for several hours. 

So, this afternoon we were able to complete this stage of the project in two villages. We are planning distribution in two additional villages tomorrow and one more on Thursday.  After a near total failure of their maize crop, this will give a brand new start to about 300 farmers, and I have no doubt that it will save lives.      

We are only in the first stages of this project to fight hunger.  When the director for Farming God's Way for southern Malawi visits us here in Zomba in about two weeks, we have contracted with him to spend three days traveling with us and giving additional support in their sweet potato farming, with both classroom instruction and follow up visits to their fields. 

Finally, because sweet potatoes take several months to harvest and their new vegetable gardens will take a few weeks to produce food, we are planning distributions of staple foods over the next few weeks to fill the gap. 

We ask that you pray for these farmers to be successful and that God will be honored in their lives. Also, pray that our work will be effective in all of these endeavors. We are grateful for all of you who have already given to help us with this effort, but as you can probably see, this project will be ongoing for the next several months, so please give as God puts it in your heart. 

Sure Foundation Ministry is a 501(c)(3) US registered non profit, so all donations are 100% tax deductible, and all designated giving will go toward this project. 

www.surefoundationministry.com

Sure Foundation Ministry
PO Box 30633
Winston Salem, NC 27018

Boys with a Toy Truck Plus a Little Imagination

After we finished distributing sweet potato shoots today and the people were bundling them to take home, these little boys "drove" their truck into the compound where we were working and "parked" it a little distance away. George and I walked over to admire their creativity and to have a little fun with them.  

First, George took his big wad of keys from his pocket, selected one, then leaned down and started their truck. As the older boy drove it around, I added the sound effects with horn beeping, truck gears shifting, backfires, and brakes screeching. It was fun making them laugh.

Going to Bed Hungry

Today, we were teaching crop diversification, with our main focus being on the benefits of and how to grow sweet potatoes.  Then, on our way home as we were passing through a certain village, a young mother, maybe 18 years old, a girl who had attended my  Dignity classes a couple of years ago, came by the road to motion for us to stop.  

We have been waved down more times than I could count while passing through the villages, and each time, we brace ourselves to be ready to deal with practically anything - need for emergency medical care, a death, or simply someone who wants to sell us produce or a friend who is happy to see us.  So, this girl was actually the fifth person who had stopped us today.  

This girl timidly approached George's side of the vehicle, just by our interpreter who was sitting in the back seat. When we asked what was on her mind, she said, "No one in my family has had anything to eat for three days. Could you please help me?"  George and I discussed her need briefly among ourselves, and when we agreed on a certain amount, we slipped it into her hands and asked her to not tell others, because that is what Jesus told us to do. She nodded her head in agreement, then we asked her to give God thanks, because the gift we gave was from Him. 

For the past week, we have been telling our supporters in the US about the famine that is causing much hunger here in Malawi right now.  These are people we have relationship with, people we know and love. Our goal is to not only help them survive the famine, but that they also get a brand new start and become skilled at growing sweet potatoes, a much more nutritious crop than maize.

We know that many people in the villages are going to bed hungry and that without timely interventions some people will starve. When this young woman came to the road  to beg and we looked her in the eyes, the famine was no longer abstract. The reality of hunger became very real and immediate. 

We are asking that you give generously to enable us to implement these emergency interventions for our friends (250 believers) in the villages: 

Distributing seed for vegetable gardens
Teaching the importance of implementing crop diversification 
Teaching the nutritional benefits of  sweet potatoes 
Teaching how to successfully grow sweet potatoes
Distribution of sweet potato shoots to plant 1/4 acre per household. 
Distributing bags of emergency staple foods

www.surefoundationministry.com 

Sure Foundation Ministry
PO Box 30332
Winston-Salem, NC 27130

Sweet Potato Crop Diversification Project

Our ministry's crop diversification and famine relief program is under way!  Today, fifty-five  registrants were attentive and engaged for the entire three hour session on growing sweet potatoes, and many of them asked very good questions. 

In addition to giving our friends in the village the practical "how to" of sweet potato farming, our expert from the Malawi agriculture department did an excellent job of raising  the villagers sights above survival to believe that if they apply themselves and farm their sweet potatoes diligently, they can not only have enough to eat, but they can have surplus to sell. 

He explained, "That means you will be able to invest and have a business. You can have a better house and eat better food, and you will be able to pay your children's school fees."  Then he gave his testimony how he was orphaned and grew up poor in a village. Someone took an interest in helping him.  Now he is able to train many people to be successful farmers." At the end of today's session, each person was given a coupon that will entitle them to receive sweet potatoes shoots, enough to plant about 1/4 acre.  

 It is through the generosity of Christian friends who have donated toward this project, these farmers who lost nearly all of their maize crop to drought this year are being given a second chance.  These classes, with about 200 people, will continue tomorrow in two more villages.  

As you are able, please give to help us complete this project.  Your donation will enable us to purchase and distribute sweet potato plantings to give each farmer 1/4 acre of a staple crop, sweet potatoes. It will provide enough vegetable seed to each farmer to have a garden.  This is a brand new start. 

Your gifts will also enable us to give each household bags of staple foods for emergency relief that will fill the gap between now and harvest. Some donations for this project have come in, but we still need your help to bring this project successfully to completion.  

Sure Foundation is a 501(c)(3) US registered non-profit, and all of your donations are 100% tax deductible.  $20 will provide all of these relief measures to one farmer.  

Please give generously online at www.surefoundationministry.com 

Send checks to 

Sure Foundation Ministry

PO Box 30332

Winston Salem, NC 27130

or by mail to

Sure Foundation Ministry

PO Box 30332

Winston-Salem, NC  27130

Our work in Malawi is Gospel-centered. Our work includes weekly Bible studies, developing church leaders, training interns, agricultural training, community development projects, preschool nutrition programs, preschool teacher development, children’s ministry, and primary tutoring programs. From time to time, we conduct medical interventions, clothing and food distribution, bring in medical, evangelistic and community development teams to assist us with our work, and Dignity programs for girls. We are now developing an outreach program to minister to the needs of new mothers.

For I Was Hungry and You Fed Me

The Drought and Famine of 2016 in Malawi

We are asking  that you, first of all, hear the need and second,  ask God how you should respond.  Many of our friends in the villages are in great need, and some of the most vulnerable may starve without interventions.  May God put it in each one's heart to respond as they are able.  

The needy I am presenting to you are not strangers to us. They are friends, fellow believers.  Some came to know Christ through this ministry, and we have worked with them for over three and a half years.  

I am writing to ask all our friends to help us with a very special need. Each year, farmers here in Malawi suffer through several months of what is called “the hunger season,” the time when their stored food reserves from last year’s crop runs out and before a new crop can be harvested. 

Each year, cycle after cycle, there is not enough stored maize to last all year, so there is always a deficit. Farmers end up with both their pockets and their stomachs empty; consequently, the poor never escape poverty. They suffer hunger and some die. 

Near the end of the growing season,
this is a drought damaged fields that never matured.

From year to year, Malawians have seen the weather systems becoming more and more unpredictable. Last year, monsoon rains pounded Malawi for days on end. Consequently, farmers suffered a near total loss of crops as a result of the widespread flooding that destroyed their homes and fields. 

Alice and I standing on the ruins of her little mud brick house 
she lost in last year's floods.  Our ministry friends gave to 
rebuild her house and many others in the villages. 

One of many mud brick homes that collapsed in last
year's monsoon rains.

So, in this last planting season, farmers prepared their maize fields in November and December, once again hoping for a better year.  As usual, after the early drizzles of rain, farmers planted their seed, but the promised rains never came. 

This is a stunted and dying maize field near the end
of this year's growing season.

The early rains caused the seeds to sprout and the shoots to emerge. Some plants even developed enough to produce ears, but as the stalks wilted and browned in the baking sun, these ears never filled out. Each small ear holds only a few kernels at best.  The brown and wilting fields seem to mock the great investment of time, money, and labor the farmers poured into them.   

Last year, there were floods, and right behind it, this year there was a drought, so, of course, farmers had no time to recover from the near total loss of crops they suffered last year.

Once they saw there was no hope of further growth and development of the maize, many farmers left their fields to weeds. Many farmers we spoke with are very discouraged because they are caught in a downward cycle of generational poverty, and they see no way out.  

We know that when the poor are this poor and the needy are this needy, it is practically impossible for them to pull themselves out of poverty on their own.  We were told that many people who are starving are going to the riverbanks and foraging grasses for food. Of course, this exposes them to cholera and other water-borne diseases.

As we drove through the villages and visited our friends there, the enormous need was obvious, so great, at first that we really didn’t know how we should respond.  

We believe in the proclamation of the Gospel, but we know that the Gospel is not all about preaching. It is also about compassion in His name.  We read in the Bible that Jesus went about doing good and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom. He met needs and preached the Gospel, so this is the pattern we follow.

We have done relief measures in the past, distributing vegetable seeds and bags of rice to families, but the magnitude of this crisis is greater now than anything we have experienced. How do we begin?  Where do we start? How do we focus our efforts and our finances?

Distributing packets of vegetable seeds. 

We knew we needed a lot of wisdom, so we asked God to give us wisdom and understanding and to give us the resources we need to respond in the best way for the people we serve and for the Gospel.

We believe that when we pray for wisdom as the book of James in the Bible says, God will give it generously.  As we prayed, God began to give us clarity and a plan that would address both short-term relief and long-term sustainability.

First of all we have to address the immediate need –to find a way to provide food quickly to the 250 or so believers in the villages who regularly attend our Bible studies.  We can’t solve all of Malawi’s problems, so we must focus on what we can do well.  Giving relief to our suffering brothers and sisters, of course, blesses them and brings praise to God.

To accomplish this first objective, we have prepared seed packets of tomatoes and a wide assortment of fast-growing greens. This week, we distributed about 90 of these in two villages, and another 200 to believers in three additional villages.  These will begin to produce food in a matter of a few weeks.

John is registering everyone for the upcoming classes
on crop diversification and in particular, growing
sweet potatoes.  Everyone who registers receives
several packets of vegetable seeds. 

Sweet potatoes are very nutritious (much more than maize), store well, and they are filling. To get the expertise we needed, we consulted with a specialist at the Agriculture Ministry office here in Zomba. With his help we located a good source for the sweet potato shoots in Balaka.   George traveled there yesterday to verify both the quality of the plants and the quantity. We found a nursery there that is prepared to supply quality sweet potato vines to meet the need of the 250 farmers in our Bible studies.

George and Steve, our agricultural expert, traveled to
Balaka to examine a field of healthy sweet potatoes
available for purchase. 

Next, we contracted with a trainer who will travel with us to each of the villages next week and teach the farmers how to grow sweet potatoes. Those who attend all of the classes, both in classroom and in the field, will receive a ticket to receive an allotment of potato shoots. 

For about $20 per farmer, we can supply the 250 believers we work with in the villages with seed to start a vegetable garden and enough sweet potato shoots to plant ¼ acre, giving farmers not only emergency relief, but also a brand new start!

As you can probably see, the timing on this project is critical.  We have already initiated these plans. At this point, we have only two weeks to raise the remainder of the funds needed to complete it. 

We are asking that our friends who can give to do so.  As God puts it in your heart and in your hands, please give generously to supply the needs of the saints. We know God will bless you.

One hundred percent of your giving will be directed to this need, and all gifts are tax deductible. 

Give  securely online at www.surefoundationministry.com

or by mail to

Sure Foundation Ministry

PO Box 30332

Winston-Salem, NC  27130

Our work in Malawi is Gospel-centered. Our work includes weekly Bible studies, developing church leaders, training interns, agricultural training, community development projects, preschool nutrition programs, preschool teacher development, children’s ministry, and primary tutoring programs. From time to time, we conduct medical interventions, clothing and food distribution, bring in medical, evangelistic and community development teams to assist us with our work, and Dignity programs for girls. We are now developing an outreach program to minister to the needs of new mothers.