The Growing Season Begins

As we are at the end of harvest here in the States, the ladies in Malawi are clearing land and preparing for planting. We have secured 8 acres for this year's production and are awaiting the first rains to begin planting.

Here are a few pictures of the land that will be planted this year.

What's been going on . . .

Hopefully as you click through the posts "Alice & Chisomo", "The Remodel", "Winnowing & Weighing", and "Stephen & Wezzie" you will get a feel for what has been going on in Malawi.

Nick and the gang are working really hard to make sure that we continue to care for the women and children in Makalani Village.

All is well on the home front. Jana Kay continues to grow - she's rolling over now! Work is great in Iowa. However, life will be much better once Nick joins us here. Please continue to keep the immigration process in your prayers.

It would be great to have the chance to come and speak to your church, or organization, or group of friends about Malawi! Please give me a call so we can put together a day and time!

We pray you all are having a great summer.

Nick and Bethany for Invest

Stephen & Wezzie

We have been blessed to hire two recent graduates of African Bible College. These two individuals will be serving as full-time missionary staff in Malawi. Stephen Muthala and Wezzie Manda started as full-time staff on July 1. Both Stephen and Wezzie have volunteered with us while they were at ABC, and now they are coming on board to coordinate the ministry programs.

It was a huge leap of faith in hiring each of them. We are in great need of full-time staff; however, we are also in need of covering their salaries and housing on a monthly basis. So as you can see, a big leap of faith!

For those of you who know the need for native missionaries and desire to support native missionaries, we could use your help. We are in need of raising $350.00 per month for Stephen and $350.00 per month for Wezzie. If you would like give a one-time gift or commit to giving on a monthly basis, please make your checks payable to:

INVEST INC
4301 W. 82nd St.
Prairie Village, KS 66208

Please write "native missionary" on the memo line.

Alice and Chisomo

We would like to introduce you to Alice and Chisomo.

Alice Kamwendo and her daughter Chisomo reside in Makalani Village. Alice gave birth to Chisomo on April 15, 2006, not long after the death of her husband.

Nick met Alice and Chisomo not long after he arrived in Malawi in May, as they came forward during an outreach in need of help. Alice appeared quite sick when Nick met her and upon hearing that her husband had recently died, he was pretty convinced that Alice was HIV positive. After confirming that she was positive with an HIV test at ABC Clinic, we immediately had Chisomo tested, and by God's grace, Chisomo tested negative.





As I sit here and write this tears just well up in my eyes. I can't imagine how heart-breaking it was for Alice to not only give birth to Chisomo by herself - knowing that she will be raising this baby all by yourself, then find out that she is HIV positive, and in the meantime, knowing that the only way that she can feed Chisomo is to breastfeed her, and then to know that if she breastfeeds Chisomo, she greatly increase the changes of infecting her with HIV.

During the month of June we were able to provide Alice with formula for Chisomo. However, Alice had not been nursing after she found out she was HIV positive, so Chisomo is greatly underweight for her age. Nick estimates that she now weighs 3-5 lbs. Just to put this into perspective, when Jana Kay was 3 months old, she weighed 12 lbs.

The pictures you see of Alice and Chisomo were just taken the first week of July.

What we need to do is to get Alice on anti-retroviral (ARV) medication - which will not only lengthen her life, it will improve her quality of life as well. Likewise, we want to keep Chisomo on formula so that we eliminate any chance of possible infection.

What we need in order to accomplish this is $200.00 per month. This will help us provide transportation for Alice to get to the clinic and get her medication on a monthly basis and have her checkups and purchase her anti-retroviral drugs. Likewise, it will provide formula and supplement for Chisomo as well as give us the resources to provide Alice with food so that the medication she is taking is effective. This will also help us provide transportation to take Chisomo back and forth to the clinic for checkups.

We lay this request before you asking that you prayerfully consider caring for Alice and Chisomo.

As always, please make your checks payable to:

INVEST INC
4301 W. 82nd St.
Prairie Village, KS 66208

Please write "Alice & Chisomo" on the memo line.

Winnowing and Weighing

Do you remember the old hymn - Bringing in the Sheaves? There is one line that goes "We Shall Come Rejoicing Bringing in the the Sheaves . . ."



We have been rejoicing as we bring in this year's maize harvest in Malawi! Here you can see the women winnowing the maize and Nick, Lawrence, and the African Bible College students weighing the grain before it goes into storage for the upcoming year's feeding program.





We have harvested 50 bags, weighing 50 kgs each (or 110 lbs). These 50 bags plus the 25 bags that have been donated from each of the women who participated in this year's ag project will provide the maize meal for the nsema which the children will eat in the feeding program.

It seems the kids helped out some as well!!

Hillary Joins us in Malawi

HILLARY!!! We have been blessed to have Hillary Tayet join us in Malawi for the summer. Hillary is working alongside all of the students from African Bible College in carrying out our summer programming for the kids of Makalani Village. Hillary is a student at Biola University.

The Remodel

Here are a few pictures of the on-going remodelling project. As you can see we are still working on improving the overall structure of the Resource Center.

All of our Malawi staff and Nick are working diligently to see the building through to completion.

We are praying that we can complete this project in the near future.

Iowa is Home for Now

Who would have guessed? Yep. Southeast Iowa is now home for us. Since we are going to be in the States while Nick gets his citizenship, we are camping out in Iowa at least for a little while. Why Iowa? Well, a contract research company was looking for a research assistant, and thankfully, they hired me. And guess what else, Nanna is our full-time nanny until Nick gets back. We are incredibly blessed to have her helping us out.

Here is our new contact information:

Nick and Bethany Slangon
PO Box 13
Brighton, IA 52540

641.781.0204

Petition Approved

For those of you who have been following the ongoing immigration process, we received word that our petition was approved on May 23. Now we must wait until the US Department of State notifies the US Embassy in Lilongwe of the approval. Please pray that the Embassy is notified SOON!

Once the Embassy is notified, they will contact Nick. Then he must go for a medical exam, have a lot more papers and $$$ in order to apply for the immigrant visa, and then have an interview at the Embassy. Once his interview is over, he will be granted an immigrant visa and be able to travel to the States and stay as long as he wants.

Nick is on the verge of getting to the States - maybe by the end of the summer! Please continue to pray that this process will be expediated so that we can all be together again soon.

The News on Nick

Nick is now in Malawi! He landed on May 13. We are now awaiting the approval of our spouse petition. Please keep this process in your prayers!

Malawi in May Pictures

Malawi in May

Many months have passed without a word about what's been going on in Malawi. We certainly apologize for our lack of communication. Somehow with the arrival of Miss Jana Kay and with us being on two seperate continents the newsletter has taken a backseat. Be assured, however, that much is happening in Malawi.

Currently harvest is underway. The participants have been diligently cutting the cornstalks and carrying them out of the field. Once the corn has been carried in from the field, the ears will be picked, and the grain will then be shelled by hand, winnowed, and bagged.

The corn harvested from this field that you see here will be used to make nsema for the feeding program. Nsema, as most of you know, is the staple carbohydrate in Malawi.

Again we are grateful to all of you who generously supported this year's agriculture program.

Not only has the agriculture project been a success, the tutoring program has been a marvelous addition to the ministry in Makalani village. We started the tutoring program in September 2005. Throughout this school year we have been blessed to have some incredibly dedicated students from African Bible College trek out to the village week after week to mentor and tutor our kids.

The kids are doing exceedingly well in school. We know that this is due to the tireless efforts of our college student volunteers. As most of you know, all of the kids in our sponsorship program have been out of school since the loss of one or both of their parents. Because of the sponsorship program and the generous gifts from many of you, all 54 of our kids were able to start school in January. Because of the tutoring program, all 54 kids received one on one attention prior to starting school in January and are continuing to perform well because of the on-going efforts of the college students.

Because of the success of the tutoring program in coordination with the sponsorship program, we are in great need of hiring a full-time sponsorship coordinator. This person will be able to coordinate the tutoring program - recruiting volunteers, scheduling transport, gathering supplies, etc. - this person will also be in charge of communication between you and your children. Given the constraints of life in Malawi, it is a process to be able to give the kids the opportunity to communicate with each of you. As we have to have the kids write their letters in Chichewa (as they progress through school they will become better at English, but in the meantime . . .) then we have to translate them into English, and then post them via email or snail mail to you. The sponsorship coordinator will be in charge of all of this, and getting us updated sizes, school information and overall progress reports for each of the children.

We have some ideas on who we would like to hire for this position. However, we must be able to fully fund this position before we can actually hire someone. We need to raise $300.00 per month to provide compensation for the sponsorship coordinator. If you would like to provide all or a portion of this salary, please send your check to:

INVEST INC 4301 W. 82nd St. Prairie Village, KS 66208

As always your gift is fully tax-deductible.

Speaking of the kids and the sponsorship program, we have 8 more kids that have just come into the sponsorship program. Jesus said that when you give to the least of these, you have given to Him.

Speaking of our sponsorship program, it has now evolved to support the annual feeding program. Previously we had focused the sponsorship program solely on education and medical care, and we just funded the feeding program on an as-needed basis. Given the pattern we see in Malawi with annual malnutrition problems, it is vital that we support the feeding program as part of the sponsorship program. As a result, we have increased the monthly sponsorship amount to $40.00 or $400.00 per year. For those of you who have already sponsored a child for this year, we would ask that you prayerfully consider this increase and contribute according to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

As of last month, we have had 8 more kids come into the sponsorship program. Jesus said that when you give unto the least of these, you have given unto Him.

As you look at the pictures of the kids participating in the tutoring program, you will notice that they are still sitting on the ground. THIS IS SOON GOING TO CHANGE!!!! Because of the generous donations of Woodcrest Chapel, we have been able remodel a house in Makalani Village!! Very soon, the kids will be able to eat at tables and study at desks!!! The building you see will soon be home to the Resource Center.