This spring, 12 BC pastors and conference leaders went on a Learning Tour to Malawi and Zimbabwe with MCC including Jodi and Karen from our church community. One of most challenging and touching experiences they experienced was time spent in the Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi.

Families who have fled war and disaster from many African countries that are in crisis find shelter at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. Many people who enter Dzaleka Camp will live there for years or perhaps even a lifetime. The camp that was built for 10,000 people now houses more than 60,000 refugees. With recent cuts to USAID, food and health supplies are even scarcer and families are suffering.

This place of hardship and suffering is also the unlikely birthplace of the Malawi MB Church. It began with 4 refugees from DR Congo and has grown to 20,000 people with 70 congregations. MCC and the MB Church of Malawi are partnering to save lives and bring hope to residents in Dzaleka Camp.

Suzanna is the mother of 10 children. While she and her family were still living in DR Congo, someone threw an explosive device into their home and now six of her ten children have significant disabilities. They fled the violence and walked for a whole year to get to the refugee camp in Malawi. Her husband left Suzanna and the kids soon after they arrived in Dzaleka.

Life in Dzaleka Camp is particularly hard for Susanna. She and her family are isolated and ostracized in the camp because they are considered “cursed” because her children have disabilities. Others do not want to associate with her. It is difficult for her to access assistance since she cannot leave her shelter because her children need her undivided attention to keep them safe.

Karen Heidebrecht-Thessen shared what moved her during that visit: “I had the opportunity to sit down on the bare floor of Susanna’s shelter to hear her story. What astounded me was the gratitude she expressed in the face of such obvious need. When she talked about the MCC comforter she had received, a smile crept across her face. You can see that it is already well-worn from being shared among a family of ten kids. She also became energized as she spoke of the MCC Relief Bucket she had received.”

Our visit with Suzanna really impacted us. With USAID funding cuts to aid to Dzaleka Camp, she is no longer receiving food assistance and had actually completely run out of food the day we visited her. We couldn’t just walk away and so we took a collection and were able to gift her with a supply of food for the next month. But we decided we needed to do more for families like Suzanna’s.”

We are inviting people to come together to make a difference in the lives of families in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi- families who bear deep trauma and yet radiate remarkable hope, We are wanting to take our compassion and translate it into practical action by filling an entire shipping container with relief buckets tailored to Dzaleka camp’s most needy families.

Our overall goal is to come together and collect at least one whole container of Relief Buckets for Dzaleka Camp (more would be even better!) and we are inviting YOU to be part of this.

Details and Logistics

You can participate in several ways.

Give – each bucket of blessing costs $65. Your family or school classroom or business might be willing to fund one or more. You can give online (just choose “Buckets of Blessing” from the drop down menu), via e-transfer (send to donate@thegatheringchurch.ca and use the notes section to indicate your gift is for the BUCKETS OF BLESSING project). Cash and cheques are also accepted (please place in an envelope and indicate that your gift is for the Buckets of Blessing).

Purchase the Contents yourself – This can be a great option for parents or grandparents to do with kids. They may struggle to conceptualize displaced persons but they can help in practical ways. Here is the list of items that a kit contains (New items only, please)

Bars of soap (4 large)

Shampoo (600 mls)

Laundry soap (4 large bars)

Toothbrushes (4)

Bath towels (4 medium-weight)

Nail clipper (good quality)

Bandages (minimum 40)

Sanitary pads (28 pads minimum)

Packed in a 20-litre plastic pail with lid

Packing Party – On Tuesday, Oct 28 from 2 PM – 9 PM we are going to have a packing party here at the church. All purchased contents and all the contents that MCC purchases will be on-site and we’ll see how many buckets we have raised for families like Susanna. We’ll load the buckets onto pallets – a pallet includes 42 kits and costs $2,730. We’re going to see how many pallets we can raise between now and the end of October. So a half a shipping container is 9 pallets – that’s $24,570. We are doing this in partnership with other MB churches like Clearbrook just up the road. So we are going to see how many shipping containers we can send to Malawi as BCMB to our brothers and sisters in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp.

If you want to learn more about the plight of people who are displaced, we are also going to be leading an immersive learning simulation on Thursday, Oct 16 at 7 PM here at the church. Click here for more info on that.

For more information, please contact the church office. We look forward to seeing many lives changed as a result of your generosity.

Buckets of blessing

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