Sabbath, March 26, 2005
OBJECTIVES
To be read on Sabbath, March 26, 2005
The Special Sabbath School Offering will be gathered Sabbath, April 2, 2005
Dear brothers, sisters and friends in the truth, Greetings from Malawi with the Lord’s blessings as found in Matthew 24: 14. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Malawi is a Central African state bordering on Mozambique in the east, Zambia in the west and Tanzania in the north. Malawi covers an area of 118,500 square kilometres including 5 lakes. Malawi’s population of about 13 million inhabitants is comprised of 3 main tribes: Tumbuka in the north, Chewa in central and south Malawi and Zaos in the southeastern part of the southern region. The official languages are Chichewa and English. Dr. David Livingstone, an English missionary, first preached the gospel to Malawi around 1850. Since then many Christian religions have penetrated the country so that today 70% of the population is Christian. The remaining 25% are Muslim, 5% have traditional African religions. The Adventist faith entered this tropical country around 1902 and since then has spread throughout. With God´s help the message of Reformation reached Malawi in 1981 when brother Mwabwagilo from Tanzania passed the message on to his friend in Malawi brother Kayira, who was blind. Soon several other Adventist brothers and sisters including brother L.M.N. Mwalukasa became interested in the Reform message and later that year brother L.M.N. Mwalukasa together with brother Kayira travelled to the missionary headquarters in Tanzania to study the whole truth especially the prophetic testimonies concerning this message of Reformation.
By the grace of God, and the united, tireless efforts of those early pioneers the precious truth was carried to all parts of the country. Today there are 300 members in the South Central African Union. The believers are generally farmers on a very low income who can barely afford many basic needs. The small offerings rendered by the members are used to support the workers including transport with no funds remaining for other missionary activities.
Plans have been made to extend the work into other areas of Malawi as well as spiritually encouraging the Lord’s small flock of members. It has been proposed that 3 field headquarters be constructed as well as churches, church schools, publishing houses and a sanatorium. Some office equipment is also essential such as a photocopier, computers and typewriters with accessories.
In order to achieve our targets before the Lord forever closes human probation, we need the support of the brothers and sisters around the world. God’s mercy to us has been recorded in Matthew 7:7 where we are encouraged to ask,
knock and seek help for our urgent needs. We hope that this promise will be wonderfully fulfilled through you dear brothers and sisters around the world, as your hearts are touched by the knowledge of our needs as described above.
We kindly appeal to your united sympathy with Christ’s work in this region of Africa just as He sympathized with our hopeless situation by suffering a painful death on the cross on our behalf. “Greater love hath no man that this that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13.
May the Lord bless you in a special way that you in turn can be a blessing to others. Please accept our united thanks in advance for your generous financial and spiritual support.