We’re dreaming of a green Christmas!

Apologies to Bing Crosby for distorting his famous seasonal song but after a few years in Malawi it is a green Christmas that we find ourselves praying for as so many of our friends send us greetings with frosty snowy scenes.So please join with us in giving thanks to God that, for the first time since we arrived in 2014, Malawi seems to be seeing a ‘normal’ rainy season. Our first year saw torrential rains and maize ‘gardens’ battered to the ground or even completely washed away, while last year the rains came so late that the hills still lay dry as Christmas beckoned.

But this year we have already had well over a month where every other day or so there has been the steady pouring from the skies that soaks deep into the soil, turns the mountains round Blantyre bright green, transforms the parched roadside into lush meadows, and causes the maize to shoot up.

However, in a land largely deforested through poverty and population density, and after years of soil erosion, please also pray with us that we continue to experience the right type of rain! For a little too much rain in just the wrong place, and the bubbling brooks of Malawi quickly turn into raging torrents sweeping homes, fields and livelihoods away.

And, with two years where the harvests have been up to 40% below normal,and this year’s harvest still months away, please pray with us for the people of Malawi as they enter the ‘hungry season’ where – even in the best of years – food is scarce.

With about a quarter of the population (some 6.7 million people, spread across 24 of the 28 districts in the country) requiring relief assistance through to the March harvest, let’s also pray for the leaders of Malawi – that they would know how best to steward God’s precious resources that are flowing in from well-wishers around the world.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.