March 2020 update

The work on the church now is finished. Changoima church is now wearing a new face, thank you so much to the Malawi team at Corpus Christ – Tonbridge. Stay Blessed         Fr Francis Changoima Parish

Celebrating the first service in the newly refurbished church – Sunday 15th March 2020

Digging the pit of the new toilet project as you can see in front of the people working are the present toilets

November 2019 update

The priest’s house has been repaired. Parish toilets and church are badly damaged. The church  will need professional help. Materials needed: nails, sheets, roofing, sand and cement.  Approximate costs are £1,500 for the church and £1000 for the toilet block. Local labour will be used.

14th November 2017

Our dear friend Fr Francis Mpatsa has recently been relocated by his bishop to establish a new parish in the small and very poor community of Changoima.

We have known Fr Francis since 2007 and he has proved over and again to be a very able and trustworthy manager of the funds he has been given.

His letter below tells us of the enormous challenge he now faces.

 As is our policy regarding these situations, your team has decided to support him at his new location.

We have left the people at his previous parish in a stronger situation to support themselves than when we first started our aid at Njale,

 His initial report …

Dear Brian

Thank you very much for your email. First of all, receive my greetings. How are you?  I will continue praying for your health. Here I am fine but facing  a lot of challenges. Many things are not in place; at the moment we are praying in a small church. We have not started anything on the new site which is 3 kilometres away from the old site. People have good will but are very poor, very remote, without any source of employment.  Most of the people are small farmers and this year they had no market for their crops.

The opening ceremony went on well but it was raining. We prepared to do the ceremony outside the church but it was not possible so we went inside. Many people turned up and I was very humbled with the Bishop’s remarks. He stated that it was very difficult for him to find another priest who could accept the appointment without setting conditions.

The ceremony started around 10 o’clock in the morning and ended around 1 in the afternoon. You will see more in pictures.

I started distributing the container items while I was at Njali.  Most clothing was women and men and children clothes, I distributed them myself, which pleased many people but my friend was not pleased because he knew  I will be leaving very soon, so he wanted me  to just leave everything untouched since I had only three weeks to leave,  but I didn’t finish and some were left for him to distribute to the people .

The two laptops for the college students were also given to the owners while I was at Njale, I tried to finish everything as we agreed. All desktop computers and laptops sent while I was at Njale I left them there I only took one desktop computer number 149 which I was using in my room.

As I told you that near our campus here at Changoima within 500 metres we have a Community Day Secondary school, since they had not even one computer for the students I decided to give the four laptops to the school for the students to acquire some computer knowledge.

Clothes, shoes, school materials, papers were shared but since there were no proper handovers I can’t say much, but be assured the items will be given to intended beneficiaries and I will send as many photos as possible.

At the moment my only source of power is my pickup vehicle.  I will try to send more information when I charge my phone. I am trying to raise funds for buying a solar system that can help me here but it will take some time.

Lastly be assured I did not take any offence against my friend the only wrong I did was to tell him that your meeting have decided to follow a priest you are working with. I have only stayed with him for only 15 months, I know him he will write you.

Once again greetings to you Tina, Kevin and family.

God bless,

Fr Francis

 

These are our first photos from this new parish…