Assignment Africa: ‘TWR Is My Friend’

“It’s a drop!” Branko Bjelajac said.

We were still in Lilongwe, Malawi, last week for the Southern Africa Partners Conference, and Branko – TWR’s vice president for Europe, CAMENA* and Africa – was referring to the three blog posts I had written during the event. He was saying that I had covered only a tiny fraction of all of the material presented to us by three national partners and five ministry partners from Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

He said it in a good-humored way, but Branko was right. I didn’t even come close. When a little group of us – Jon Hill, Morgane Erisman, Lauren Mock and I – had talked previously about what we wanted the blog to be, we agreed on a personal approach. The goal was not to provide a comprehensive report but to invite readers to see Southern Africa and TWR’s work there through my eyes. It’s what Jon described as my “gospel-travel-writer style.”

But in the rush to get the day’s blog post to my U.S. teammates while the internet was working and before the next item on the conference agenda was underway, I certainly did leave out a lot.

Here then, without attempting to be comprehensive, a few random observations and reflections after the fact, a handful of the things that were left out but not forgotten:

• I was touched by how willing TWR Malawi listeners were to go out of their way to share their stories. Two came to join us for lunch at the TWR Malawi campus on Thursday: Gladmore Pumbna (“Sorry for the last name, but just call me Gladmore”) and Yoba Luhana. Gladmore said listening to TWR programs helped him to be a “true Christian,” taught him how to be a preacher and helped him know how to rear his sons. “TWR is my friend,” he said. “I listen to it every day.” Yoba, also involved in pastoral work, said, “I’m a person that loves TWR so much. … TWR is in my blood. This is my home.”
• Although Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, has a population of nearly 1 million, it doesn’t feel like a big city. It feels like a village that goes on and on. It’s jarring to suddenly come across a huge, modern soccer stadium. It was built with Chinese government money. Perhaps you’ve heard that China is investing heavily in African countries. It’s really happening.
• Malawi has one other truly big city: Blantyre. Overall, though, Malawi is 80% rural. By comparison, the last time the United States was 80% rural was 1860, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
• The tennis courts at African Bible College in Lilongwe have a wall on one side emblazoned with the Scripture: “Enter His Courts With Praise – Psalm 100:4.”
• One of the presentations I hated missing was by Paul Kranzler of Radio Lilanguka in Malawi. Paul and his wife are from Germany and came to Malawi years ago, serving as missionaries as their children grew up. They returned to Germany to launch their children into adult life but later came back, Paul told me. They sensed God calling them to the Yao, the one people group in Malawi that is predominantly Muslim. How to reach them? They decided on radio, although they had no background in broadcasting. That’s almost a retelling of the story of Paul Freed, TWR’s founder. Radio Lilanguka has been on the air since late 2017. In that time, Paul Kranzler said, they’ve been invited by people in a dozen Yao villages to come and start Bible studies.
• Another presentation I really hated to miss was from the youthful three-person team of One Love Radio in Zambia, led by Kaluwa Tembo-Mukelabai. Please pray for this impactful Christian station. Zambia gets 80% of its electricity from hydropower, but drought has severely cut into that power source, making electricity available as few as six hours per day. One Love Radio has a standby generator, but it’s not sufficient to meet the demand.

Visiting Malawi and getting to hear from our partners was a great learning experience for me, and really for all of us who came from outside the region. Branko summed it up well:

“Usually when the people from outside come in you expect them to come with some teaching or some instruction,” he told the group. “I want to assure you that we have come here to learn. We don’t know how you reach your audiences. We don’t know how you serve your listeners, how you help them from day to day. And it’s very inspiring to hear.”

Click here for PART 1, PART 2 and PART 3 of Assignment Africa.

*Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa

Images: (top, banner) Sphiwe Ngwenya, director of Women of Hope for TWR Africa, joins a youth choir greeting us at Christian Teaching Center in the Salima District of Malawi, (middle, right) Paul Kranzler represented Radio Lilanguka, which proclaims Christ to the Yao people group of Malawi, at the conference. [Photos by Dumisani Prince Tembo]