What's It Like There? Part I

What's It Like There?  

Part I

George and Phyllis Crispi

336-408-2585

www.surefoundationministry.com

A friend asked me a few days ago to give him an idea of what conditions are like in the area of Malawi in which we work. If I were asked to describe it in one word, it would have to be "irony". As I start my morning, hopping off a minibus designed to carry fourteen, but packed with twenty one of us, I cross the narrow two lane road bound a quarter mile away along winding, rocky dirt paths, and across a rickety wooden bridge toward Williex's house.

If it happens to be a Monday or a Thursday, Songani Market will be about four times as crowded as the rest of the week. Vendors protected from the hot sun by booths consisting of four thin diameter posts, and a plastic tarp, are selling anything from rice or corn, to cabbages, to firewood, to a scattered pile of used bicycle parts. There's the aroma of grilled goat meat, and roasted corn. Everywhere there are people gnawing at the ends of sticks of sugar cane. Women carry bundles of wood, or sacks of rice, or 5 gallon jugs of water. What their families eat tonight rides very heavily on what they sell today. Still, smiles abound!

I say irony, because there is no evidence here that any of the hundreds of billions of dollars and pounds and euros ever arrived, other than the shiny new SUV's with dark tinted windows screaming up and down the "highway". Their logos will read UN, or USAID, or European Union, or any of a host of non-governmental organizations. None will stop here.

I will also see my last paved road of the day. Traveling on the back of his motorcycle, Williex and I will head out a dusty two lane road, then a one lane, and ultimately multiple winding dirt paths, until we come to a little village with a broken well. Typically it will have been in that state for two to three years; the record thus far is seven years. The well's presence is the only evidence of any outside attempt towards building infrastructure.

We are greeted warmly everywhere we go. The people already know why we are here, as it is Williex's job to scout out the broken wells in advance. I always want to give them hope, but I also want to be a bit cautious. I think there have been many well intentioned, yet broken promises around these parts, and I don't want to become party to that. I tell the people Phyllis and I have very limited resources, but desire to repair their well with the generous and kind help of our friends back home. I ask them to pray for our efforts., and assure them that we will pray for them.

We have visited twenty eight wells to date, and by God's grace we've been able to restore twenty three of them. Those repairs amount to real relief for almost 5,000 families in about sixty villages. If anyone else is repairing wells in Malawi, it's certainly not in this area. That's OK though; we feel quite privileged being here. According to a U.N. study there are about 7,600 non-functioning wells throughout rural Malawi, so with good health and God's grace we will be here for years to come.

It's early morning, and Phyllis and I are waiting for Williex, who has rented the use of a taxi to drive out to another remote village for a workshop on hygiene and sanitation. Phyllis has worked long hours every day for weeks putting together the curriculum, and she's hoping her hard work has paid off. I assure her things will go very well. First we stop at three different roadside markets, and get 8 kilos of goat meat, 30 kilos of rice, and a huge batch of kale, and tomatoes, onions and spices, as being that we're going to keep the women for several hours, it's only right to feed them. For forty minutes, as we drive down nothing but dirt roads, and with dry red dust kicking up under both rear doors, I think it's no wonder he got this cab for only twenty bucks for the whole day.

As we pull up to the building she's going to teach at, Phyllis let's out a big smile, as the women dance up to the car, singing and clapping. What a beautiful greeting! Once inside we learn that one of the local women is an English teacher, and she'll interpret for us. They make a great team from the very beginning. The women know nothing about germs, or how they're spread. With loads of colorful illustrations, Phyllis is able to hold them in rapt attention.

By the end of the four and a half hour session they have learned how to block germ paths, things to do to cut down the risk of malaria, and other diseases, and how AIDS is spread. They will also take home with them some very practical steps they can implement right away to bring greater health to their children and their husbands. This is the first of two very successful classes she will have conducted on this particular trip. Counting everyone in their families, close to five hundred people will have been helped through these two workshops.

Malawi is the fourth poorest country on Earth, with southern Malawi where we work being the poorest region. 80% of rural Malawians earn under 50 cents a day. Malawi is tied with Tanzania for the worst doctor to patient ratio on the planet- 1 to 50,000. There are twenty dentists in the entire country with a population of thirteen million. It is being deforested at a faster rate than almost any other country. It has the fourth worst record for infant mortality, and the eleventh worst for maternal mortality.

Our plan is to continue and expand our work in Malawi. We are seeing many turn to the Lord through this ministry, and are confident this is truly His call on our lives. Please write with questions or comments.

Thanks and God bless you!

In Part II I'll write about how it all got this way.

Investing in Lives Exponentially

Investing In Lives Exponentially

George Crispi

Sure Foundation Ministry

336-408-2585

www.surefoundationministry.com

On  Saturday, September 10th, Phyllis received a letter from Malawi. It was from Marry Pensulo, the teenage daughter of Stanford Pensulo, one of the indigenous pastors we work closely with there. It was postmarked August 24th, so it took seventeen days to reach us. The postage on the letter was 160 Kwacha, or $1.06 US. That's a little over two day's wages for 80% of rural Malawians.

Marry, a pretty, bright, and optimistic girl was Phyllis' translator for one of the two hygiene and sanitation workshops she had conducted for large groups of rural women during our mission in July and August. She always has a big smile, and is quite outgoing. She has big dreams too; when asked by Phyllis, she said she wants to study to be anaesthesiologist, and move to America.


She's also at a very crucial age, as the typical girl in her situation gets discouraged, marries in her early teens, has four to five children she'll be too poor to properly care for. She will remain subservient to her husband for the rest of her life. There is also a reasonable possibility she will lose two of her children in or shortly after delivery, if she herself doesn't die while delivering her firstborn, due to having an underdeveloped pelvis.


Marry's dilemma: Her father, a man who has devoted his entire life to the spreading of God's word, does not earn the kind of money needed to keep her in school, as all schools at the secondary level require tuition, book fees, and uniform costs. Her simple request is that we assist her with the $300 needed for this year's cost of study. We plan to help Marry in whatever way we can, and even have a possible lead on an in-country scholarship for her, and pray it comes through.



So, what's the point? I simply want to show what else $300 will purchase in Malawi.



WELL REPAIR: $300 will cover about 40% of the typical cost of restoring a broken well in one of the rural villages we work in. Once a well is repaired it will enable the women to draw clean, safe water for their families for ten years, on average. Now,when a well is broken, they often have no alternative but to draw contaminated water from rivers, lakes, and even mud holes. There are more than 2.2 million water related deaths a year, affecting mostly children under five.



Hygiene and Sanitation Workshops: $300 will pay for 3 five hour life saving workshops, for groups of about 30 to 35 extremely poor rural women. They will learn about germs, and how they are spread, blocking germ paths, and be shown many sound practices they can apply right away toward making their families healthier. They'll learn about how AIDS is spread, and how to prevent malaria.  As the workshop takes them away from their heavy responsibilities for an entire day, they'll be given a sumptuous meal of stewed goat meat, rice, and a finely seasoned vegetable dish. They will then return home to share what they have learned with their husbands and children. In all, over 500 people will have been directly aided by these three workshops.


Safe Birthing Kits: When in Malawi this summer, we were able to deliver 120 “birthing kits” to clinics, and midwives. Assembled for under $1 each, they facilitate safer birthing conditions for both mother and child. Malawi has among the worst records in the world for both infant and maternal mortality. These simple tools save lives. $300 will purchase the materials for four hundred kits. We have volunteers who will help us assemble them.



Dignity Kits: As difficult as it may be to fathom, women and teenage girls in these extremely poor rural areas, don't even have the underwear that people in Western cultures, and many of their urban counterparts take for granted.  Sanitary napkins are unheard of. Girls having reached puberty miss on average a week of school each month, too embarrassed to attend. Discouraged, many drop out of school and marry in their early teens.  A major clothing manufacturer has graciously donated over three hundred fifty pair of women's underwear, and we are in the midst of making an equal number of washable, reusable  cotton sanitary napkins for distribution to local secondary school girls when we return to Malawi in January of 2012. Each kit will contain two pair of underwear, and two reusable napkins. (If a girl is given the opportunity to attend two additional years of school, on average, she will marry four years later, have fewer, and healthier children, and have greater economic opportunity for both herself and her children.) Our hope is to continue having clothing manufacturers donate the necessary underwear. We estimate that we'll be able to make the sanitary napkins for $1 per kit.  With packaging, $300 will buy about 145 dignity kits.



Solar Cookers: Malawi is being deforested at a faster rate than any other nation on Earth. As a result, there is much soil erosion, flash flooding in the rainy season, and sinking water tables, with many wells drying up. We are in the research and development phase of delivering an inexpensive solar cooker for distribution, as a means of helping to slow down the loss of forestry. With over 80% of rural Malawians earning under 50 cents, (US) per day, and the prohibitive cost of firewood and charcoal there is the added benefit of giving each household much needed savings. Our ultimate goal is to create small cottage industry for women to manufacture and sell these cookers locally. We estimate that $300 will finance start-up costs for two of these women's  cooperatives.



Solar Lighting: With only 1% of rural Malawi's households having access to electricity, and liquid paraffin being expensive and often unavailable, and paraffin lanterns causing respiratory disease, and severe burns to children, a better alternative is most needed. We have been testing several manufacturers' solar lights with excellent results from two particular models. On an eight hour charge, a typical table model will emit up to eight hours of high quality light. With costs offset by free solar energy, even the poorest of the poor will be able to afford solar lamps with time payments. This will enable students to study into the night, and mothers to take care of sick children and perform other important household tasks. We also see great potential for solar lighting sales becoming another small business opportunity for poor women. $300 can help start three rural entrepreneurs  into fruitful solar lighting businesses.



Cooking Briquettes and Briquette Presses: This is another technology just waiting to be introduced to this region of Malawi to the benefit of countless households. By collecting and processing abundantly available grasses, corn stalks, corn husks, dried vegetable scraps, sawdust, peanut shells, and other dead vegetation, and using only manpower, an entire industry has been created in other nations. Of particular note is Haiti, which has made great strides in turning around its extreme deforestation crisis, while generating above average incomes for many impoverished men and women. In Malawi, where it is illegal to cut down trees, and charcoal has been banned, and everyone ignores the law because they haven't been offered an alternative. we are confident, that with proper marketing, these considerably less expensive briquettes will swiftly find their niche. Materials for four briquette presses which can give twenty to  thirty women full time employment can be purchased and assembled for about $300.



Efficient Briquette Ovens: By far, the most common method of cooking is simply an open fire, commonly known as “three rocks and a pot”. Unfortunately it is also the most wasteful. We have been working on plans for an extremely efficient double brick oven, designed specifically for the cooking briquettes. As the other technologies, these ovens can be priced at a level which would make it available to the area's poor. Red clay is abundantly available, and the ovens would be manufactured locally. We've already discussed plans for manufacture with a local oven maker in Malawi. We estimate that $300 will easily establish three two man teams of oven makers in highly profitable businesses.



Well Drilling: In October, George will be attending a well drilling school in San Angelo, Texas. An ancient Chinese technique for hand drilling wells to a depth of up to 800 feet will be taught. Materials for these wells are fairly inexpensive, and obtainable in a typical hardware store in the Third World. The process is quite labor intensive, so we will partner with villagers where wells are needed. As they supply the manpower, we'll supply the materials and know how. Many of the distances now traveled by women and young girls will be greatly reduced, freeing their time for more beneficial pursuits. For $300 we'll be able to pay for half the cost of our hand-drilling rig.



Bibles: For the most part, believers in the rural areas in which we are working don't own a bible, and if things were to remain just as they are, most likely never will. They are simply that impoverished. Not only will $300 be able to purchase thirty three quality bibles in Chichewa, the local language, but coupled with the projects listed above, many people will begin to afford to purchase them on their own. We also believe many will, as they love the word of God, just as believers throughout the world.



So, what about helping Marry?



Well, we will definitely do what we can for her, and began looking into the possibilities that very evening. As we look at the crisis of abject poverty however, it becomes apparent that when a problem is systemic, the approach to minimizing it must also be system-wide. I have worked in many countries of the world, and just as people in most other places, Malawians are intelligent, and industrious people. The causes of their poverty are manifold, and therefore only a comprehensive, and multifaceted approach to their situation can ever lift them from their poverty.



Our work is being conducted in a number of villages in an area of about 200 square kilometers. Already the documented results of our well restoration efforts are extremely encouraging. The 23 wells we have restored thus far serve on average, 200 families each. With two hours of back-breaking labor , saved fetching water saved per household each day, (a conservative figure), the sum total of hours saved for these 4,600 women over the course of one year is a staggering 3,358,000.



We are in a very real sense indebted to Marry, as her letter helped make very clear the rightness of the approach we believe the Lord has guided us into. Thank you for taking the time to read this paper, and we appreciate any questions or feedback you may have.

Thank you, and God bless you abundantly!

George and Phyllis Crispi

Welcome to Beautiful Malawi

After a 30  hour trip from our North Carolina home we were embraced and greeted warmly at the Lilongwe Airport by Pastor Williex Cholombo and Pastor Stephen Banda, "Welcome to beautiful Malawi!"  On the four hour road trip from Lilongwe airport to Zomba,eagerly Williex asked, "What do you think of Malawi?" I answered, "Beautiful people, beautiful land."
We arrived at our room at Ndindyea Motel here in Zomba, Malawi during a blackout in the city. These are becoming very common I learned.  We were issued candles for our room, so we unpacked by candlelight then took an exhilarating, brief, and cold shower. It may sound like a missionary's hardship, but we came to serve the people in the villages where people who had no water (hot or cold) and  can't afford candles.  So, although we were quite tired from the long trip, we lay on our pillows, praying, talking, planning, asking God for ways to bless the people, precious people who have no status in this world but who are very precious to Jesus.
This morning we traveled to the Zomba Mountains with Williex. All the way along the climbing road we were passing women and children coming down trails from further up the slopes. They were carrying on their heads massive loads of wood, bundles maybe 2 feet across with each trees being 3-7 inches in diameter.   Each load about 8 ft long. Some of the women had babies on their backs.  I asked Williex to stop so I could speak with one young woman who had lowered her load to rest a moment before continuing down the mountain.  I asked her how she would use the wood. She said she would sell it to get food for her family. She told me she left her home  at 4:00 AM without food or water and would not arrive back home until 2:00 PM.  She said after that she would go to collect water for her family.  Water is an hour away from home. She has two children. We passed 50 to 60 women and children along that road carrying the wood, working extremely hard just to survive.
My  heart was breaking for the women of Malawi. I had to fight to hold back tears as I spoke  to her and smiled. I reached into my backpack and gave her a granola bar. She smiled back. God, why are we here? Shall we we tell them Jesus loves them and not show them?  I believe I am feeling God's heart for the precious people of Malawi.
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Clean Birthing Kits Save Lives

CLEAN BIRTH KITS
A woman in Sub Saharan Africa has a 1 in 31 lifetime chance of dying from chidbirth. Malawi is 11th worst for infant mortality and 3rd worst for maternal mortality in the world .

We have assembled 120 birthing kits for distribution in Malawi this summer. July 26-August 12, 2011 we will be in the Zomba district of rural, southern Malawi distributing free clean birth kits to expectant mothers and women who serve as birthing assistants. Clean birthing kits save lives.

For less than $1.00 in materials, we provide a kit that contains all that is needed to assure the clean birth of a child. The kit includes a bar of soap, a single-edged razor blade, string for tying the cord, a pair of surgical gloves, sterile gauze pads, and a large sheet of plastic. We also provide instruction in how to correctly use each part of the kit.

Typically, an expectant mother cannot afford to go to a clinic to give birth and will be assisted by a sister, friend, or neighbor. A woman living in a rural village, far from any medical assistance, will give birth on her cot or on the floor. The cord may be cut with an unsterilized pair of scissors or a kitchen knife and may be tied with any material available, including a thin root or a blade of grass. As a result, many babies die from cord infection and many mothers die from sepsis.

Sepsis occurs when bacteria is introduced into a woman's body during childbirth and her bloodstream becomes overwhelmed with bacteria, her blood pressure drops, and she goes into shock as major organs begin to shut down. All of this is easily preventable with a birthing kit and good instructions in proper hygiene.

Birthing kits are distributed free of charge. A designated gift to this ministry will be used 100% to assemble birthing kits.  Your gift will save lives. Donate HERE 
To learn more about Sure Foundation Ministry and our annual Walk for Water Africa go to  www.surefoundationministry.com