Malawi, 2012 – Mukupatila II Village
Dear Friends,
Mukupatila II Village was the 2nd of two villages in the same day that Jordan Beakley and I visited after climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. This was also the last village our 2012 Malawi team visited for well repair and gospel sharing in 2012 and it was the most amazing of all village visits since I began doing and supporting this work in 2009 for multiple reasons as you will see. The Child Legacy repair team of 4 Malawian men had a little trouble finding it at first. It had been GPS located prior to our visit, but pinpointing it was not easy, but we finally located it after passing the village by accident the first time. The first thing striking about this well was that it had been broken for at least 3 years.
(The following photos of Mukupatila II Village were taken on my camera (but not always by me!) except as noted. I hope you enjoy them!)
As we drove up to this broken water well I saw something very unusual that I had never witnessed before.
I quickly grabbed my camera and got this shot – there were 3 women on their knees begging for us to stop and fix their well. One is more obvious than the other. She is near the middle of the photo with the green scarf and just to the left of Pastor David in the blue well repair uniform.
The other women is difficult to see but is just behind the girl in white walking from the left. I had never seen this in Malawi before.
The other lady is shown here in the red dress, next to the one in the green outfit in the previous picture.
Note the young man with the skull and cross bones on the back of the old shirt he is wearing. It will be great to share the gospel at this village!
The crew quickly gets to work on removing all the removable components in this well which will be completely replaced by all new parts.
This well will be thoroughly refurbished when we are done with it!
Jordan and I get to work sharing 5 Bible Stories with the villagers. I learned this Bible Storying technique through Jerry Wiles of Living Water.
Here Jordan shares Jesus Calms the Storm that is found in the Gospel of Mark. Pastor Lester translates The Word for us from English to Chichewa. Do you face storms in life? Trust in Jesus!
Photo by Jordan Beakley
Here I share the story of Nicodemus, found in the Gospel of John. Nicodemus, unlike other Pharisees of his day, recognized there was something unique about Jesus and met him secretly in the night to talk. Jesus said to him “You must be born again, if you want to see and enter the Kingdom of God.”
The man sitting in the front with the white shirt is the village chief. Later he had a big surprise for us!
Photo by CLI crew
Meanwhile, back at the well, the well “guts” have been removed and CLI well repairman Roderick sterilizes the well with concentrated bleach water.
This insures the well water will be safe to drink when the well is operational again.
Photo by the CLI crew
The children keep an ever watchful eye on our team.
After our testimonies were finished and the stories have all been shared it was time to see if anyone wanted to follow Jesus as Jordan and I have.
I am always amazed to see men, women, and children get on their knees and raise their hands with us, and tell Jesus they trust in Him as their Lord and Savior.
As prayers are nearly completed, the crew is also nearly completed with its work on the well.
You can see the new PVC riser pipe going into the well in the background.
As Jordan passes out a gumball to the kids, the chief takes the hand of a somewhat apprehensive little girl as if to say, “it’s ok”, he won’t hurt you.
You will see her again later and understand better why I say apprehensive.
An amazing thing about the kids of Malawi, they are usually incredibly well behaved.
Of course the chief is present, and he probably has their undivided attention and respect!
Photo by Jordan Beakley
The crew has completed their repairs on the well. Since it was only Jordan and I visiting this village, we could not share the Bible stories and repair the well at the same time, so we let the highly experienced Child Legacy well repair team do what they do best.
Here they are cinching up the last of the nuts and bolts on the well head and you can already see water is again after a 3 year “drought”!
Now that is a happy sight!
The water is initially very muddy, but it will clean up in time.
Another view of the (mostly) happy sight.
The one little girl who needed help from the chief receiving a gumball, is still showing some signs of apprehension!
She suddenly started wailing!!
We pulled out the banner that we took to the top of Kilimanjaro.
I am not too sure the kids understood the significance of it as we did!
(So, this gives me an opportunity to say A BIG THANK YOU TO OUR AMAZING CORPORATE SPONSORS whose contributions covered all the donor thank you gifts, the banner, webmaster expenses, and the office overhead, AND AN ENORMOUS THANK YOU TO OUR WONDERFUL INDIVIDUAL SPONSOSRS whose contributions went 100% to these and many, many other water well repairs in 2012!!)
Mukupatila II Village was the 218th well repair in 2012 performed by Child Legacy in Malawi.
This repair occurred on the 11th of July.
Every well repair costs on average $1000. At this point $218,000 had been donated to repair broken Malawi water wells.
Note the little boy in the white shorts – his stomach seems a little distended – I am not certain, but he may be suffering from some malnutrition.
A big surprise came when Pastor Lester said the village chief wanted to give us a gift! This had never happened to me before in Malawi.
Suddenly, a women came up with a bucket of peanuts. They said they wanted to give us the peanuts but they needed the bucket back!
Into the back of the truck went the peanuts.
But the really big surprise of all the village visits was when we heard that the chief had another gift for us – a live chicken!
The next thing we knew was that the kids were chasing down a chicken for us!
The kids eventually caught the chicken and gave it to the village chief.
Here he proudly displays it with his wife and the young man who may have been his son.
He was so grateful for water and Living Water, he gave us one of their most precious commodities – food. We had to graciously accept the gifts, because that was a sign of their great appreciation and we didn’t want to refuse that.
I will never forget this village’s amazing generosity for as long as I live. This is all thanks to you, the donors who make Child Legacy’s water well repair ministry possible!
Pastor Lester and well repairman “Sho” pose with our new friend, “Chicken”, with the chief standing between them in the background.
Some of the lovely people of Malawi – a couple of these ladies have young ones on their backs, an extremely traditional way of carrying babies in Malawi.
Photo by Jordan Beakley
As we left the village, Jordan Beakley captured what is probably my all time favorite photo from Malawi – these rural village children chasing our repair truck as we leave Mukupatila II village. Thank you Jordan Beakley for capturing their joy!!
Restoring clean, safe drinking water and sharing Living Water to a impoverished village – life doesn’t get much richer.
Blessings to you all!
Mike Navolio
Thank you for all the amazing donor support for clean, safe drinking water for the people of Malawi through the first 3 Clean Water Climbs! See my note below if you would like to help out with our 3rd Annual Mt. Kilimanjaro Clean Water Climb fundraising campaign! It’s not too late for those who are thinking about helping out!
www. cleanwaterclimb.net/meet-the-climbers-2013/
