Grace Chapel Sub-Saharan Africa Missions

Welcome to Grace Chapel’s Sub-Saharan Africa Missions web page. This area of missions is led by a team of 18 individuals, all with a shared passion to see Christ glorified in Africa. In addition to working with and supporting missionaries and partners in several African countries, we have a major partnership involving the entire GC congregation with World Relief in the small country of Malawi.

In response to Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis, World Relief Malawi seeks to empower local churches to reach out to their AIDS impacted communities, enabling them to affect the health of their neighborhoods with a Christian mindset. Grace Chapel is partnering with World Relief in the Mzimba district of Malawi where 45 churches are being mobilized and are receiving training in HIV/AIDS care, agriculture, child development and youth ministries.

Here you can find information about our current and upcoming projects as well as HIV/AIDS and Malawi.

Malawi 2008 Summer Trip

We are excited to return again this summer to partner with World Relief in Malawi for the fourth summer.  We work in the district of Mzimba, where World Relief collaborates with forty-five churches. The dates for this year's trip are tentatively June 28 - July 9.  The plan for the trip this summer is to run a pastor’s conference, a youth conference, and four days of medical clinics. This will be the third year for the pastor's and youth conferences and the second year we have run medical clinics.  We are specifically looking for people with a medical background, including experience in pediatrics and infectious disease.  We are also looking for people who would feel comfortable speaking at the youth conference.

This year's leaders, Jane Venti and Jennifer Bates, have both been to Malawi twice. Last year they co-led the trip with Gary Ware.

For more information contact: Jennifer at jenniferbates03@hotmail.com or Jane at jane.venti@childrens.harvard.edu

Recent Ministry Activity

• 16 child development centers in Mzimba have planted soya and maize in their gardens and are expecting a bumper yield this year which will help considerably to reduce the problem of food for children.
• Assorted learning materials were supplied to 16 child development centers in Mzimba. These learning materials will help in the teaching and learning process of the orphans and other vulnerable
  children.
• World Relief Malawi provided 300 black austrolop chickens to eight churches in Mzimba in order to improve households’ nutritional and food security status. This will also increase incomes at household level for people living with HIV/AIDS.
• A training session was organized in Mzimba to build capacity on our benefiting farmers on farm planning and management. This was conducted to prepare the farmers in planning, implementation and management of agricultural enterprises. 91 participants from 21 churches attended the training session.

Malawi, a nation of nearly 12 million in southeast Africa, is one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries. AIDS and grinding poverty have combined to decimate its people. Over 1 in 6 have HIV/AIDS, with 270 becoming newly infected and 140 dying from the disease each day. Malnutrition and disease claim the lives of 20 percent of the children before age 5. Those who survive are often left to fend for themselves as orphans, as 470,000 Malawian children have lost parents to AIDS.

The overall goal of our partnership is to love and transform suffering communities in the name of Christ, to the glory of God.