Hard-hit Malawi has insatiable appetite for the Word of God

MALAWI — The famine sweeping across Malawi, placing three million people at risk of starvation (see Latest News #206), is just one of the enormous challenges that the Bible Society of Malawi is working hard to address.

From a poster His Excellency Dr Bakili Muluzi, President of Malawi, urges his countrymen to change their behaviour in an attempt to slow down the Aids pandemic affecting his country. Blantyre, Malawi. Photo: UBS/Haldor Noss (MAI01C-3/12)

A second challenge that is equally significant and just as devastating is the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The effects are being felt throughout Malawi as people struggle to cope with the dead and dying. The fact that the highest number of deaths is being recorded among the economically active section of the population – normally the most healthy – is lost on no-one.

More funerals

According to one pastor, “We are having more funerals in our churches now than baptisms or marriages. Almost every weekend there are two or more funerals! And these are our young people who should be helping us in our churches!”

The Bible Society of Malawi is working hard to distribute publications with a Christian perspective on living with HIV/AIDS. In the meantime, it must also address the problems arising from the famine. It is greatly encouraged, but also challenged, by the fact that Malawians seem to have an insatiable appetite for the Word of God and that the church is growing very rapidly.

The successful Faith Comes By Hearing program is being taken up by rural communities very fast and it is also being broadcast to the population at large over several radio stations. People are hearing the Word of God and seeking to deepen their understanding of it.

Pastor Booker P Kapalamula, of Falls Baptist Church in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, spoke about another challenge the Bible Society is facing: the price of Bibles at a time of severe economic crisis.

“Not everybody in my church has a Bible,” he explained. “Some have just arrived in the city from rural areas where they had no Bibles. Now they are trying to find a little employment, they have to support themselves in everything, but at the same time they want to buy a Bible.

Need more Bibles

“I don’t think there will come a day when we say: ‘Now the Bible Society has met the demand for Bibles’ because every year we need more!”

The need for a constant supply of Scriptures is also emphasised by Dr Ntike, President of Malawi’s Seventh-day Adventist Church. “If the Bible Society can be supplied with a lot of Bibles, I think that will address problems that we are facing now. It would then be very easy for people to go out preaching the Word of God and giving Scriptures to the people.

He continued, “If subsidised Bibles were available — oh! — people would rejoice and jump and they would preach and they would go out and distribute them!”

Summarising the position of the Church, he spoke carefully and passionately. “We just have to be on our knees and address these issues,” he said. “Otherwise we are going to lose the whole nation.” (WR 372/20 - 11.02)