Lam Jun 2019
Dear friends,
God has let me raise the third batch of 100 African orphans and vulnerable children: a hundred in Kenya (June 1999 – May 2015), a hundred in Uganda (May 2015 – May 2019), and I am now in Malawi. Where I now live in the Village, the house is called “Philippi” just like where Paul was imprisoned but… my “working space” is the living room with windows on two sides which allow me to look out into the rolling hills, the trees, and I see the birds, snails, and flowers. It is the next best thing to being outside. The birds: grey heron, Maribou stork, turaco; the flowers: hibiscus, yellow oleander, mauve bougainvillea, violet hydrangeas, and peach roses, and oh the glorious sunrise and sunset—a glimpse of home in heaven! Our Rafiki architect, Chris Moyer, builds excellent missionary houses in Malawi and all the other nine Rafiki Villages!
This is the beautiful scene I see every day from the Village office. A contrast between the tall stately gum trees and the smaller matooke (cooking banana) trees that are growing to keep up with the tall gum trees.
Rosemary Jensen, who turns 90 in July, speaks often of the founding of Rafiki Malawi as a unique, God-given miracle. Rafiki previously had not considered starting a Village in Malawi. Rafiki had not carried out any advance research on this tiny, land-locked country nestled between Zambia and Mozambique in south eastern Africa. But God used a man named Professor Egbert Chibambo, the then Mayor of Mzuzu, Malawi’s third largest city (then population 90,000), to call Rosemary in December 2001. His request, “Please come build a Rafiki orphanage in the city of Mzuzu.” There were no orphanages then. Mzuzu operated seven independent, community-based orphan care centers that catered for nearly 9,000 children. The single mother and the young pregnant street women population was high. The HIV/AIDS rates were estimated at twenty-three percent of Mzuzu’s population.
Malawi is among the poorest countries in Africa. With a population of seventeen million (2018 estimate) and the second lowest literacy rate (after Mozambique), the average per capita household income is only slightly more than 300 U.S. dollars annually. Statistics show that an estimated 1.5 million of the population are orphans, a result of the AIDS epidemic.
Rosemary participated in a series of visits with meetings, more visits with more meetings—Rafiki claimed Genesis 13:17 “Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” God gave Rafiki 175 acres of land, a rolling knoll with magnificent 360-degree views of the mountains, and pine forests that hug Mzuzu.
Today, Rafki Malawi has twenty-eight solid buildings: eleven cottages for the children, a boys residence hall for the older youths, missionary housing, the Rafiki Institute of Classical Education (RICE) music and art complex consisting of three huge buildings (including an auditorium-cum-gymnasium), four school buildings with libraries, a computer laboratory, a science laboratory, a large dining hall with kitchen, a playground, a basketball court, and plots for gardening. All these facilities support nearly 100 resident orphans, seventy-six Malawian staff, nearly 300 students who come to school every day to receive a Christian classical education, eighteen teacher trainees in the RICE Program, and a bunch of widows who do not live at the Village.
God also gave Rafiki Malawi a partner with the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) in 2002. The Village was dedicated on April 15, 2005. The first orphans arrived in March 2006.
Fast forward to 2019, Gabriel Ngulube who is the oldest male resident is in Grade Level 12. His female counterpart is Laurine Ngulube (unrelated), also in GL12. Mwawi Mzale is the youngest male resident and is in Grade Level 1. Janet Mhango is his female counterpart and is in GL2.
Oldest, and youngest male and female Rafiki residents, they have only known Rafiki Village Malawi as their home.
Click on the link below to see my June newsletter in its entirety and all the pictures that tell the story of the God-given miracle, Rafiki Village Malawi.
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