Love's Harvest 2010
Helping the rural poor of Malawi grow the food they need on their own land.
We returned to the Kamungu Theological College after breakfast to visit their piggery and walk the land. As we were preparing to take our leave, Retired Bishop Jack Biggers, formerly the bishop of the Diocese of Northern Malawi and now retired in Zomba, pulled up to say hello. Fr. Leslie Mtekateka of Karonga had spoken to him of our project and he wished to meet us and wish us well.
Jane, John Kania and Cindy then left with Fr. Goodwell to meet an Agricultural Coordinator and other facilitators of the Millennium Villages Project to spend the day visiting and learning about that large-scale effort to combat poverty in Malawi guided by the eight Millennium Development Goals. Kate, John Springer, Fr. Francis and Pastor Joseph drove to Mpawa Village, Magomero Parish, Fr. Francis’s church and the site of St. Bart’s NYC One Village at a Time project.
Mpawa village is much futher along that Mpinganjira, with goats snugly in their kholas, and the execution of some permaculture design. Ten of the women are Anglicans in the parish, and twenty others are non-Anglican villagers.
Kate was asked to perform a symbolic harvest of vegetables which were ready to be eaten, and a large prayer circle was made around the perimeter of the demonstration garden.
The prayer circle has now become standard practice for Love’s Harvest! We visited several women’s kitchen gardens, which were quite small but a good start. Having a garden at one’s home is an entirely new concept at Mpawa and the women were ready to be challenged advance in Permaculture. We ate lunch from the garden before driving to meet Bp. Brighton Malasa at the Diocesan offices.
The bishop was gracious, grateful and supportive of our collaboration. He shared with us his vision for the Diocese of Upper Shire and we spent some time reviewing plans for the next phase of Love’s Harvest in 2011. Then we were off to the third village, Mmanga. Pastor Joseph put us all to work planting “soldiers” to defend the vegetables, and after visiting a sample of kitchen gardens we had speeches and prayers in the church before heading back to Zomba for the night. We depart early tomorrow morning for Blantyre and the final leg of our journey in the Diocese of Southern Malawi.
