2007- Trip Report of Malawi and Mozambique by Dugald and Morag MacPherson

Our recent trip to Malawi and Mozambique to work with Healing Every Nation was one that was truly memorable and had an enormous impact on the lives of all the team members. The team was made up mostly of young people in their early to mid twenties and most were students. The team leaders were a little older!

The purpose of the visit was in essence two fold. The first was to assist Eddie and Vilma Brito in the work they do through Healing Every Nation in Malawi and Mozambique. The second was to encourage, enable and equip young people to have a vision for short or long term mission opportunities.

In the first purpose we had an opportunity to get alongside the work Eddie and Vilma are doing in Thoera, Mozambique and to visit the work ongoing at two villages in Malawi, Chibule and Nyachikadza at Nsanje. In Thoera three of the team were involved in leading a pastor’s training course and conference which over the 4 days had 70 pastors and the local chief attending. There was also a training session on HIV/aids. The rest of the team spent time running a children’s club with Bible stories, songs and games. This was enjoyed by over 90 80 children each day. Often at the end of the day some of the teenage girls would come around and enjoyed chatting to the girls about life, hopes and dreams. Another aspect of the work we did while we were there was a health clinic where over 60 people were treated for infected wounds, some coming daily for treatment of wounds that were in danger of becoming gangrenous. An eye clinic was also run for the bathing and treating of eyes. One of the team was involved in starting to set up a data base of the children using a computer powered by the sun!

Every day was full and sometimes overwhelming.

At the end of the day when everyone was tired we would return to base camp and there waiting for us would be some of the children who had taken a short cut up the hill. The team would then spend time playing with them and sharing the gospel. After one such evening when some older girls had been making earnest enquiries we were awakened by the beating of bongo drums and loud screaming and incantations. This went on for several hours through the night and at some points we thought was getting closer to our camp, but it was just the wind carrying the sound. It was spine chilling and the reality of witch craft was very evident. At 5am all was quiet but before 6am some people from the neighbouring village came to the camp saying that they had heard there were missionaries there and could they come to pray. One of their men had had an evil spirit last night and had fallen out of a tree and was badly injured. The wake up call was made in the ‘Round House’ - ‘Anyone ready to get up and go to pray with a demon possessed man?’ Considering most of the folk had spent a good few hours through the night in prayer whilst the drums were beating we very quickly had a team willing to head down to the village whilst the others stayed to cover the whole situation with prayer. At the village Eddie challenged the man with the truth of the gospel asking if he had heard of Jesus. He hadn’t but was willing to hear. He was then presented with the gospel message to which he was eager to respond. A crowd had gathered and they were challenged if any of them wanted to hear more about Jesus. Again the gospel was presented and by the time we left to take the man to the hospital (he had been given some preliminary first aid) eight people had given their lives to Jesus.

Every evening we had ‘team time’ round a fire overlooking the Zambesi flood plain. Although by then it was dark we were still aware of our awesome surroundings. These times were precious and certainly went towards preparing us for the next day.

On the Sunday evening the Jesus film was shown (using car battery power) in the local language to about 250 people. For many of them this would have been the first time they had been presented with the story of Jesus. It was certainly the first time most of them had seen a film!

In the other two villages we saw the feeding programme and the ground work that was being laid to improve the education in the villages.

We were greatly challenged by what we saw and also frustrated by our ineffectiveness to do anything that would be lasting. We do hope, however, that we were able to share our love and the love of Jesus and who knows what fruit that may yield.

Some of the difficulties we faced were lack of fresh drinking water, we had not taken enough with us as we hadn’t realised quite how long we were going to be away, dwindling food supplies for the same reason, no local currency with which to buy fuel to go to get more supplies, lack of medical supplies to carry out the basic first aid we were doing, wanting to help with the building work but not being able to communicate, general frustrations over the language barrier, seeing so many needs and feeling utterly unable to help. Several people in the team also suffered bereavements during the trip.

Did we fulfil our purposes? For the first one we hope we were of some encouragement to Eddie and Vilma and also of some help. For the second, most, if not all, of the young people were truly inspired by Eddie and Vilma and affected by the needs of the people and would like to return at some point in the future to help continue the work.

Our experience has led us to wish to continue to support Healing Every Nation in every way we can and we would encourage other teams to go and experience first hand what is being done.

Eddie and Vilma Brito of Healing Every Nation are working in Thoera in Mozambique, and in Nyachikadza and Chibule in Malawi. Some of the difficulties they face are

• Too big a task for one couple
• They are too busy
• They live with no basic home comforts to sustain them
• They do not have financial security for basic needs
• They do not have finances to progress the vision
• The African culture
• Lack of spiritual nurture and support in Africa
• Lack of support from the UK
• It is lonely work
• They do not look after their physical needs always putting the needs of others first
• They are currently using a lot of their time building the foundations of the ministry which means that they do not get the opportunity to use their real talents to the full

The current programme and work

· The feeding programmes are well organised

· The women in the villages have taken on board the training they have been given

· Every effort is being made to add nourishment to the food

· Added nourishment is from sustainable resources

· Good relationships are being built with the local leaders

· The school a Njacasa is being started and good progress is being made with the feeding programme

· They are working well in getting pastors together and giving them training opportunities

· They have a good vision for future projects which include a training centre, health centre and agriculture programme

· They are working hard to bring fresh water wells to the villages

· They have a tremendous heart for the children

Children’s biggest needs in Mozambique

• The gospel
• Clean water
• Nourishing food
• Love
• Education
• Health care

1. Well drilling project begun by Americans to be completed or partners with expertise in such projects in Africa to be engaged.
2. Shower block to be built at the feeding/training centre
3. Funds for agriculture project including training to allow villagers to be self sufficient
4. Training in food preservation
5. Health/hygiene education
6. New building at the training/feeding centre to be used as a classroom/clinic/store
7. Teacher training – through scholarships
8. Scholarships for ‘summer school’ for the teenagers
9. Training a couple of people in basic health care so that they can run clinics
10. Training pastors
11. Bible studies for the women and young girls
12. A ministry to teenagers