Origins of my trip to Malawi

Last year I found that my writing took me in a new and very unexpected direction. I answered a call for articles in one of my planning magazines, Progressive Planning, for an upcoming thematic issue on social justice and water. I had become more aware of the very sad state of global water supply through my work on the Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns (for the Episcopal Church). Not knowing where to start, I contacted the Episcopal Relief and Development Office in NYC along with several other organizations affiliated with the Episcopal Church. I was beginning to lose hope when I was put in touch with Dr. Tom Gebhard, a water resources engineer and an Episcopalian from Austin Texas. Members of Tom’s parish, St. David’s, were among the founding members of a non-profit, Warm Heart International devoted to outreach in southern Malawi. Warm Heart was then engaged in raising money to put in a well in Mindanti, a small village in a remote section of southern Malawi. Tom and I exchanged many e–mails and a couple of telephone calls over the coming months as I focused on writing my article on Malawi. The article appeared in print in December, and is called “A Bottom–Up Planning Model for a Safe and Accessible Water Supply in Malawi.”

I had the occasion to speak with a physician, Don Thomas. Don is involved in an organization called Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA), founded by The Rev. William Rankin, the former Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge Mass. Readers of this blog may remember that I wrote about GAIA in my November 14, 2006 blog entry.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world where its population suffer from a myriad of fatal diseases: HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB, water–borne diseases, and the like. Don has been to Malawi on several occasions, leading groups each summer. We talked about these issues as affects the need for a clean and safe water supply.

After I finished my article and before it was published, I began to experience what can be best described as a “calling” to go to Malawi. Not only would such a trip give my writing credibility, but also I would be able to complete the work my father started. You see, my Dad, who died fifteen years ago, was a research immunologist with a Ph.D. in microbiology. He wrote his dissertation on one the organisms that cause the water–borne diarroheal diseases commonly known as dysentery. He was offered a post–doctoral fellowship in 1961 in The Congo in Africa. I now understand why he turned it down. There was no way he could take his young family to an undeveloped country that may have engaged in a bloody civil war.

Knowing that Don Thomas travels to Malawi each summer in connection with his work for GAIA, I wrote him at the end of last year and asked him if I could tag along with one of the groups he leads this summer. Don got back to me in early January saying that he was going to ask me if I wanted to go to Malawi. Wow, how about that! Before saying yes, I had some important questions for him. I was looking for certain answers to these questions before saying yes, I got the answers that I was looking for. God at work?

I told a priest friend of mine that I felt a calling to go to Africa and I was trying to find excuses not to go, but that I could not find any. He grinned and said that I won’t be able to.

It took a few weeks to work out all the details. I booked my plane tickets to Malawi last week. I leave on June 10.