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The second Sunday I was in Malawi, I visited a village
church about 35 or 40 miles SE of the mission. I wanted to go to this
church in order to see its elderly preacher, Dickiman Papaya. Brother
Papaya studied in our Bible school in the 60's and was a well known church
leader during all my years in Malawi. I knew I would likely never see
him on earth if not during this visit. Here we are about to board the
pickup for the trip. Several of the students from my course accompanied
us ("us" being myself and a mission staffer, Brother Jeketi,
who drove).
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We started off on the paved highway leading back toward Blantyre. |
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Later we followed a dirt track through the villages.
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On the way we passed through the site of Providence
Industrial Mission and saw this very historic old church building. It was
built in about 1932 to replace one dynamited by the British colonial government
after the African leader of that mission led an uprising against the government.
A British estate manager in the area had hated and harassed the mission
leader. The rebels killed the manager, beheaded him, put his head on a pole
and stood it up in the church while they had worship. In my early days in
Malawi I knew an elderly preacher of Churches of Christ who had known the
rebel leader and actually sat in a secret meeting where the rebellion was
discussed, though he didn't join it. This brother, George Masangano, spent
seven years in prison because he did not tell the government what his friend
was planning to do. Masangano led church work from inside prison. The church
was outlawed during those years and held worship and baptismal services
in secret. |
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Eventually we reached the compound where Brother Papaya
lives. I had no way to get word to him that we were coming, so our visit
was a total surprise.
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We found Brother Papaya sitting in his home-made
folding chair under a tree, dressed in his Sunday white shirt and black
trousers. He had not yet donned his tie or shoes. When he saw us, he was
overjoyed and could hardly believe we had come. |
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Brother Papaya and his wife posed for the camera before
finishing their preparations for church.
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Once they were all dressed up, we had a picture
together. **Brother Papaya has asked if we could provide him a bicycle of
the type that can be propelled by hand. He believes he could still get around
with that type of cycle, which is available in Malawi. Click
here for details. |
