Warm Heart of Africa – Malawi
In southeastern Africa where three major countries meet, there is a long, thin, landlocked country affectionately referred to as “The Warm Heart of Africa”. The country is Malawi – and they’ve earned that name because Malawians are some of the friendliest people you will ever meet.
If you are ever privileged to meet Rev. Annie Mdazyola, you will agree. Rev. Annie is the ICCM National Coordinator in Malawi, who is currently providing compassionate oversight for the children benefitting from sponsorship and scholarship.
Initially, ICCM Malawi sponsorship focused on assisting the children of pastors. We continue to do this for 40 pastors. However, in the last several years, we have slowly and steadily expanded the reach of ICCM to include several initiatives, including sponsoring orphans, reintroducing animal projects, and helping local churches strengthen their community preschool programs.
Rev. Annie is in regular communication with the superintendents of the three Free Methodist Church (FMC) conferences in Malawi, working with them to identify effective ways of meeting the needs of our own FMC children and reaching out into the community. In the past year, ICCM has partnered with the church to provide over 30 goats to needy families as a way of supplementing their diets with milk as well as supplying manure for their gardens.
This year we will begin providing goats to FMC nursery schools that are meeting a vital need for early childhood education and evangelism in surrounding communities. The Mwayiwathu Study Center and Nursery School are located along the Malawi and Mozambique border. It is being supervised by the Malawi FMC’s own cross-cultural missionary.
Malawians face many challenges on a daily basis, one of the most critical being that of access to food. Malawi often seems to be caught between either flooding or drought, both resulting in crippling food shortages. ICCM, partnering with the Board of Bishops, has been able to provide relief food supplies for our sponsored families, helping them to manage through the most difficult times.
The Long Road Back
As the horrific events of April 1994 recede into the past for the rest of the world, Rwanda still remembers the Genocide every day. Such evil has rarely engulfed a nation. It cannot help but scar the soul of a people. Rwanda is on the long road back from that hellish time.
For International Child Care Ministries, our tragic date is 2001, the year we had to suspend sponsorship of two thousand children in Rwanda. The decision was painful for all involved, but unavoidable, as the leaders of the Free Methodist Church at that time proved untrustworthy. Many sponsors suffered; certainly many children and their parents suffered. It was our own “worst case scenario.”
Since 2008, we have been working with new leaders in Rwanda. Our new approach began with several initiatives. They include expanding the “cow project” begun in 2001 and still going strong in some areas; providing life-saving water filters for families; and offering a very limited sponsorship opportunity —the children of the Amizero Project, a ministry to mentally challenged kids, are being enrolled.
In a land where reconciliation is seen as the greatest need, it seems fitting to restore our own relationship with our sister Church there, being agents of reconciliation and bearers of hope together. If Rwanda is on your heart, turn the page to see how you can help the children there.
Thank you!
Ethiopia: They Yearn to Learn!
Ethiopia is home to five excellent ICCM schools. Children may be living in material poverty, but their educational environment is rich. One of those schools is at a crossroads, where desperate need meets tremendous opportunity.
The town of Alem Tena, an hour or so from Addis Ababa, suffers from four serious problems. A very hot climate and deep poverty are two of the four — but these are common to many towns in Ethiopia. The third is almost unique to Alem Tena: The water is contaminated with fluoride, with perhaps 400 times as much as our city water systems use for cavity prevention. The visible result is that most of the children have dark brown stains on their teeth. Even worse, their bones and teeth are being destroyed. And yet, this is home. Families live here. Children are growing up here.
Our school in Alem Tena boasts high academic achievement. On regional and national exams, these students distinguish themselves. In 2016, all 8th graders passed the regional exam to 9th grade, averaging more than 80% on their results. But now comes the fourth major problem: no high school. Once students pass 8th grade, where will they go? Our school only goes through 8th grade. Because of sponsorship, the children have had the benefits of a private school and a Christian education. Once they graduate from 8th grade, they must travel a long way to a public school, move to a place with a public high school, or find a Catholic or Muslim school — but these private schools charge more than most parents can pay. Sounds like we are in dire straits!
But there is amazing news. About a year ago, the local government granted a good piece of property to our school for construction of a high school. This gift of land was received with great joy! In fact, in 2014 our Africa Learning Conference attendees had stood on this very land and prayed that God would give it to us. He has!
After a whole year of working through the bureaucratic red tape and planning with architects and leaders, we are ready to build! All documents are in hand. High school can be a reality.
The local government is pressing us to begin construction immediately or risk losing the land. So far, we have managed to build a security fence and a guard house on the property. We have just sent $25,000 to begin construction.
To build the classroom block, bathrooms, and required laboratories, the estimated cost is $167,000. We are now raising funds for this first phase. Phase two will add an administration block and a library. This is projected to cost another $67,000, for an approximate grand total of $234,000.
Is this impossible? Absolutely not! God has helped us complete big projects like this before, through compassionate and generous donors.
Is this a good investment? If only you could see our wonderful high school at Arbegona, another rural Ethiopian community! To help you envision it, look at the photo below. Students are lined up for a tea break in front of a classroom block on which is painted the Periodic Table of Elements. No educational space is wasted! The photo above that is a university-educated science teacher in a lab furnished by parents’ contributions. Students in this excellent school earn top marks in their whole state! We know this is possible in Alem Tena, too.
Will you pray with us for this dream to become a reality? Donated land, visionary leaders, a partnership from ICCM, and construction support from abroad will change the Alem Tena community for the better in a wonderful way!
Schools for the Fulani – What’s the Story?
Our story of ICCM schools for Fulani children first began in Elaite, a small town in Kogi State overlooking Emiworo Village more than 10 years ago!
I’ll never forget these words from the first Fulani man we met, a true ‘man of peace’, Chief Bature. “My grandfather cheated my father when he gave him cows and wives but wouldn’t send him to school. And my father cheated me. He gave me cows and wives, but not an education. I don’t want to cheat my children that way. Please, won’t you open a school for my children?”
And that was when the Free Methodist Church and International Child Care Ministries stepped in with full support, sponsoring hundreds of Fulani children and opening four schools for them in three states, blessing these children, their parents and entire communities with not only the highest standard of education but also with the Good News of Jesus Christ, Who loves them, Who died for them and Who gives them eternal
life with Him in Heaven.
Today, the story continues! All four of the ICCM schools continue to provide an excellent Christian education to Fulani children! There are definitely challenges. More ICCM sponsors are needed, but there are great victories too. In July, Bright Hope Christian Academy, Emiworo, graduated the first class of students with all students writing and passing their college entrance exams!
It all began with, “Please open a school for my children!”
International Child Care Ministries and Schools for Africa, a Global Partner of Free
Methodist World Missions, are planting seeds of peace and the Gospel among the
Fulani people through education, healthcare and more. This is work God loves, and His
promise is for us and for the Fulani.
“Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:18, NIV).
Written by Phyllis Sortor, retired ICCM National Coordinator
Kenya Boys School
At long last, the dream is a reality! Phase 1 of the Dr. Buconyori Free Methodist Boys Boarding School in Kenya is complete. Classrooms, dorms, dining hall, soccer field, and other essentials are ready to go. The first 80 boys are being selected.
The keys are being received by the leaders of ICCM and the FMC in Kenya. The leaders are overflowing with gratitude to God and to all the generous donors, prayer warriors and work teams who made this a reality. We have never been able to offer students a secondary school education. This historic “first” is worth celebrating!
With Phase 1 complete, it’s time to get ready for Phase 2! By early 2018, these freshmen will be sophomores, and 80 new freshmen will arrive. How can we keep the momentum going and be ready for that exciting day? It’s essential for us to move forward! How could we not choose to provide life-altering opportunities for another batch of boys? (And yes, the girls will be next, after Phase 4 of this project. …)
Daniel Shanzuh, ICCM’s National Coordinator for Kenya, gives us these architects’ estimates for Phase 2:
Classrooms and Bathrooms $54,069
Dormitories $59,052
Faculty/Staff Housing $61,123
TOTAL ESTIMATE $174,244
Would you help us launch the second essential stage of this huge undertaking? A generation of students with very few options for a good education are hoping and praying that we’ll be there for them yet again. Please consider a generous gift to Kenya Boys School Phase 2. Thank you!
Feeding the Hungry in Togo
Elisha (pronounced El-ēsha) is a young woman being used by the Lord to bring relief to children in the Adidogome neighborhood of Lome in Togo. At church, Elisha noticed many of the younger children often cried and disturbed their mothers because they were hungry. She talked to her dad, Superintendent Rev. Fosseh Takpale, who is also ICCM National Church leader of Togo, about this situation.
Dosseh encouraged Elisha to share her vision of how to help in a letter to people in and outside the church. After Elisha did that, people began to give money. With the help of Cecille and Christel, two women from the church, Elisha prepares food each week for 20+ children. They usually serve rice with either chicken, fish or beans. Sometimes they enjoy their more traditional food of Akume (made from corn paste) and fish.
Elisha, who is 12, says, “I love kids. … I want to give a chance for poor children to enjoy good food. It is a way also to bring unbelieving children into the church.” Elisha, an ICCM sponsored child, plans to keep this ministry going for as long as the Lord provides. She hopes when these children grow up and become parents, they too will support this kind of ministry.
(This original story can be found in the Missions Alive! study of West Africa 2015-2016. Learn more about this children’s study program at fmwm.org/childrens-resources.)
Changing Futures in Addis Abada
The streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, teem with children. They shine shoes, sell gum, and do whatever they can to survive. Unfortunately, these kids are vulnerable to traffickers.
Child slavery is big business in Ethiopia, where almost 400,000 people, mostly women, and children, are held against their will and forced to work in ways they do not choose, for no pay or extremely low pay. Often children or teens from impoverished rural areas go to the city to find work but end up being tricked or lured into forced labor.
For several years, Amanuel Light & Life Free Methodist Church in Meganagna, a sub-city of Addis, has been supporting 50 orphans and impoverished children in their neighborhood. Many of these kids have lost one or both of their parents to HIV/AIDS. Compassionate church members have volunteered their time every Saturday to run a program with tutoring, games, singing, and lunch. They have done what they could to pay school fees for the children since the greatest safeguard for children is to be in school and be preparing for a better future.
The pastor, Superintendent Mekebib, has asked ICCM for help, as the needs are overwhelming. ICCM’s 2016 Freedom Sunday project will partner with this church. Sponsoring these children will give them the benefit of education, meals, after-school tutoring, child development activities and access to medical care. They and their families and church members will also learn about trafficking and will be empowered against exploiters.
ICCM’s Freedom Sunday offering will provide funds to staff the project and purchase necessary equipment. The ripple effect of this intervention will benefit the children, their families, their church and their community.
We are honored to be a part of the Set Free Movement, joining forces with others to blow the whistle on human trafficking and do all we can to prevent it. We encourage churches to observe Freedom Sunday to expose this evil and join in prayerful community action to combat it in all its forms. ICCM is committed to the holistic development of children, strengthening them and their families and preventing them from being easy prey.
To learn more about this project, watch “The Addis Project” on our website. For a powerful music video, see “Prayer of the Children” on our website.
To sponsor one of these children or receive a Church Action Kit to present this project at your church, please call 800- 342-5531 ext. 502
Brook Hills FMC – Liberia Connection
In February, Brooke Hills Free Methodist Church (BHFMC), Wellsburg, WV, took another bold step in their growing partnership with the Free Methodist Church in Liberia, Africa. Pastor Bryce Grieco and two leaders from BHFMC accompanied Africa Area Director, Mike Reynen, and Liberian National Mission District Leader, Rev. Rufus Kahn, to a newly formed school in Grand Bassa County. While at Zuezohn School the team was able to register 30 children for ICCM sponsorship.
Judy Ennis, a recently retired school teacher, taking part in her first ever foreign mission opportunity, explained the local church’s excitement about the Connected Community with Liberia. “There is something both beautiful and practical about being in on the ground floor of ICCM child sponsorship in the nation of Liberia.”
The faith family of BHFMC is committed to sponsoring all 30 children and hope to add more in the future. Zuezohn School was chosen by the Free Methodist Mission District Board of Administration as the school most in need of ICCM sponsorship. All involved believe connecting with ICCM will only strengthen and grow the school and the Free Methodist Church presence in the community by providing funds for teachers, food, supplies and uniforms for the children.
Mike Rice, Global Impact Director at BHFMC, was truly impressed to witness the interest and excitement created within the village of Try and See during the two days of ICCM registration. When given opportunity, many parents shared how they believed this connection between ICCM, Brooke Hills, and the Free Methodist World Mission Church in Liberia would change the lives of their children in addition to raise the overall morale in their remote jungle village.
