Dear Friends of the Mission, Rejoice in the Lord always!
So far your love for the Orthodox Mission of Malawi has been immense. We are deeply grateful for that and wholeheartedly pray that God grants you His blessings a hundred fold. For us it is a great responsibility to make good management of the donations coming from the friends of our mission, but is also a great joy, since we take every contribution of yours as a support of the work we do sent from above…
In every project we envision and try to implement for the relief of pain of our Malawian brothers, our heartfelt desire and request in our prayer is that God always blesses and supports our plans provided this is done for the good of His Church. Only in this way, dear brothers, do we continue our humble work, that is, with the certain belief that every single work here in Malawi is a work of God. Based on that, we are often more daring to ask for support for God’s work than we would be if we asked for our own projects, and we are confident that God informs all of you accordingly…
The needs of our Mission here in Malawi are known to you. Pain, poverty, hunger, diseases,Β epidemics, death, lack of proper godly education, exploitation of man by man, unemployment, despair in general and the maintenance of a hopeless unorthodox establishment, are large and deadly for the soul wounds, which afflict the whole Β country. Despite the fact that hope fades easily within the grim reality we experience here daily, we try to stand by our suffering brothers offering sympathy and support to each one personally, without seeing them as another β€caseβ€ or as β€numbersβ€. With the help of God and yours, this is something feasible now in our 35 Orthodox parishes.
The money you offer us for our Mission, dear brothers, becomes daily meals for 300 children in our parishes, assistance for poor or sick families, visits to prison in support of the prisoners, fees for some cases of poor students.
But above all, what is really costly, besides our great effort, care and labor, is our struggle to support all of these parishes with visits, systematic catechisms, baptisms, production and distribution of printed material and much more.
If one estimates the cost of the fuel required in order to reach our parishes which are scattered in the country, one finds out that the maintenance and running costs of our mission are actually very high, and only through the intervention of God, Who acts in the hearts of His instruments, can such large amounts of money be gathered for the smooth continuation and implementation of our activities and projects.
We therefore thank you once again for your support, trust and help so far. May God always bless you abundantly and sanctify you.
Fr. Ermolaos Iatrou
