Ever since Dr Joster Jumbe saw ‘Farming God’s Way’ in Zambia, a programme where pastors in training are taught to support their future ministry by working the land, he had a vision to apply the same principles when developing EPW’s Malawi hub.
So when in 2021, the office and storeroom were being built on the outskirts of Zomba, the former capital city of Malawi, he established a banana plantation on adjacent land. Alex Mandala and Paul Daliken doubled as EPW hub security guards and farmhands.
Banana sales soon began to subsidise staff wages and the distribution of theological resources to rural pastors in the region. Indeed, this endeavour was sufficiently successful to encourage Joster to sacrifice part of the plantation last year to make way for four, more lucrative, fishponds. This coming August the first batch of fish will be ready for market and Joster anticipates sales of 10 million Malawi Kwacha a year, approximately £7,500.
EPW is right behind this type of sustainable ministry, and it is hoped that when our current 3-year commitment expires, a substantial proportion of the hub budget will be self-generated. And to make sustainability more robust, EPW recently arranged an interest-free loan, through a helpful donor, to install a borehole on the property to guarantee a constant supply of water rather than rely on unpredictable rains to keep the fishponds full.
Joster has allocated space on the campus for four chicken sheds and has been granted permission to install beehives on neighbouring rough land, all of which should enable Joster and his trusted assistant Victor Pelete to spend more time visiting Chichewa-speaking communities throughout Malawi, Eastern Zambia and Northern Mozambique encouraging, training and equipping pastors who have minimal resources and practically no theological training.
Pastors like the 15 they visited in Doa, Mozambique in May. Despite inevitable transport difficulties and late arrival, Joster and Victor found these local pastors waiting patiently for them under a Neem tree. “They never received theological training,” reports Joster, “Normally they imitate what they have heard others preaching in a church. We trained them to preach from the bible and give them simple books in their native language to help them prepare sermons. Many of them have never seen a bookstore in their lives.”
Please pray for the Malawi Hub:
Give thanks for:
- The original vision of ‘Farming God’s way’
- Fine weather yielding good crops
- Joster’s entrepreneurial flare and Alex’s skill as a farm manager
- Growth in book distribution
- Safe arrival of a pallet of books from Swindon
- A new truck, part-financed by EPW
Pray for:
- Plans to translate PTI’s pastor training programme
- The reliability and nurture of the new borehole
- For Victor to be free to attend a EPW training conference in Zambia
- The teams witness to the growing Muslim presence in the country
- The hub’s imminent connection to the electricity grid