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Mission in Malawi - with us

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The people of St. Mary’s first met Fr. John N’goma on August 21, 2016. He was in Pensacola going to school at the University of West Florida and was looking for the closest Episcopal Church. Fr. George Gilbert and Bishop Jack Biggers pointed him in St. Mary's direction. By God’s grace he became a friend of St. Mary's. On several occasions he participated in the Eucharist at St. Mary’s and told us about his congregations in Malawi. Many of his parishioners are in outlying villages and his only means of transportation was a bicycle. He found an old motorbike but it didn’t run and needed tires so the people of St. Mary's sent funds for the repairs and made his travels easier.

St Mary's sent funds for maize (cornmeal) which is a staple of their diet. Then water born illness was taking its tole on the villagers as their sole source of water was the river or a “bore hole”, which is basically and open hole in the ground below the water table. So after searching, we found a company or person that would put down a well with a bicycle like pump to pump clean water out of the ground. St. Mary's sent funding for a number of those.

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St. Mary's then began a program Fr. John N’goma called “Goats for Widows” which gives widows a female goat that is due to drop a kid. The idea is that the first female kid that the goat delivers must go to another widow and that goats first female kid goes to another widow and so on. 

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There is always hunger when they are between crops or a flood destroys the crops or the rains don’t come during the growing season and St. Mary's helps by sending funds for maize to feed the people until things get better. On one particular occasion when Father John delivered maize to an outlying village after a particularly bad flood, the chief broke down and cried in thanksgiving that someone as far away as America sent food for his people who were starving.

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The people of St. Mary’s have been very generous to Fr. John N’goma and our Mission in Malawi through the years as we continue doing God’s work.

(left photo) "You have not lived today until you have done something to someone that he can never repay you." John Bunyan  "Moving around the villages, I was directed to this orphan. Members of the community take time to care for him. He was reached out with food and water guard (to prevent cholera which is now within Chikwawa)." Father John

(right photo) Orphans who must raise themselves.
"Reached out to flood victims. It is a hard to reach area since there is Likhubula River that separates the village with other villages. Thank God the water levels of the river have now gone down and the people managed to cross to get where we were across the river because the car we used could not pass as there is no bridge. The flood victims came with their chief, Group Village Headman Chimphazi". Father John
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