McDaniel January 2025

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:9-13).

We thank God that He has brought us to Malawi, safely! There were a few delays and inconveniences, but His provision was shown again and again throughout the process. Remember all those suitcases from the picture in our November newsletter? Well, not a single one arrived with us to Malawi! Instead, they were loaded on to a plane heading to some other country and our flight to Lilongwe was delayed for several hours, but this allowed for a much-needed overnight stay at a beautiful lodge in Lilongwe. Against all odds (from man’s point of view), every piece of luggage eventually arrived, and almost all our items seemed untouched. Oddly enough, the only item found missing was a single pen that was taken out of a pack of 5, but the agent who took it was kind enough to replace it with an almost identical, though empty, pen that was carefully placed back into the packaging. We were glad to make such a donation in exchange for receiving our bags!

Christmas was a sweet time for us and our fellow missionaries, especially since God allowed for our Survival Training group—Mollie Mitchell (who serves in Ghana), and Joshua Espinosa (who is with us here in Malawi for a year), and our family—to spend our first Christmas in Africa together, along with our fellow missionaries in here in Malawi. As we have settled into our new home, we have come to know a few families at our church and have made many new friends. The reception here has been nothing short of what you would expect from the country that earned the nickname as the “warm heart of Africa,” both inside the Village and in the middle of our busy town. The Rafiki children came to our aid by bringing clothes and shoes for our children to wear until our luggage arrived and quickly invited Elijah and Alaethia to be a part of a drama they’d planned out for our recent graduates’ celebration dinner. It was wonderful to see our new grads celebrated and to see many previous graduates enjoying each other’s company and going to hug the Mothers who had cared for them while they lived in our Village.

Grad night drama

Outside of the Village, some of Rafiki’s Outreach partners have already started distributing the study Bibles sent to them on our last container. Christlike Reformed Baptist Church in Mzuzu distributed Bibles to their members who finished a class on hermeneutics and interpretation. The pastor, Brino Kumwenda, is an Outreach partner who is tied to several theological and pastoral training programs throughout Malawi. One such program, the Logos Institute, distributed Reformation Study Bibles to students in their Certificate in Theology class during an apologetics seminar in the town of Mzimba. These recipients are eager to use their study Bibles during their service as pastors and lay leaders in their various churches, and for their continued study of God’s Word through Logos Institute’s training programs.

Mzimba Bible distribution

Christlike Bible distribution

As our Plant Maintenance and Grounds (PMG) crew continues to work on upholding the standard of beauty throughout the Village, our leadership continues to look for ways to steward our property and care for our students as well as possible. This often requires improvements to be made and repair projects undertaken, like adding additional covered seating for students waiting to be picked up from school, and adding gravel to the parking area beside the RICE (Rafiki Institute for Classical Education) buildings. Materials for the parking lot can be sourced from different quarries in the area, so one of our senior PMG staff members took me to see both the modernized quarry, full of all the machinery that comes to mind when you hear “rock quarry,” and the local quarry, which consists of families breaking apart large granite boulders into impressively uniform pieces of gravel using only hand tools. We are grateful for the Village’s Land Cruiser, which made the difficult journey without any issues, never struggling or losing its footing. Having the right vehicle makes quite a difference! It was also a great opportunity to meet valuable members of our community, such as the man who supplied the gravel during the construction of our Secondary School buildings, whose family still operates the site we visited. God has provided Rafiki Village Malawi with many enduring relationships and helpful partners, and we ask for you to pray that God would use us to further those relationships and to strengthen our ties to this community. As we come to know God better with each day, whether through Bible study or just observing His sovereign hand at work, we long to see others do the same.

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