October 7, 2009

Chigodi

Dear Friends,

One of my jobs with Blantyre Synod is administrator of the Chigodi Women’s Center. The campus sits on top of a hill overlooking the crowded market area of Kachere and consists of houses, two dormitories, a classroom, an office and a kitchen. The dirt road leading to the Center is rugged, making for rough driving. But most who come to the Center disembark a minibus on the main road at the bottom of the hill and climb on foot the three-quarters of a mile that remains, carrying their luggage on their heads. The place is not really much to look at. There is no running water. The buildings need repair and a new dormitory stands incomplete due to lack of funding. Many of the resources have “gone missing.” The former administrator did not manage the resources well, which is why I have inherited the job.

One of the two completed dormitories of the Chigodi Women's Center.

When I first arrived, the treasurer of the Synod, who is as new to his position as am I to mine, recommended that we sell the property and decentralize the women’s work to the presbyteries, a cost-efficient approach to resource management. When I mentioned this to the coordinator of the Women’s Desk, a pastor in the Synod, I thought she was going to cry. I knew I had touched a nerve and needed to investigate further. This opportunity came a few days later when a woman minister from Ghana arrived for the Synod’s biannual meeting.

The Reverend Alice Anti was an international guest to the proceedings, but she was also “coming home.” She had come to Malawi in 1994 as the first ordained women to serve in the Synod, a missionary from Ghana. She resided at Chigodi, and it became the center for introducing Malawian women to ordained ministry. It became the rallying place for women’s training and leadership in the Synod. All of the women who attended the Theological College, five of them, met at Chigodi with Alice for encouragement and counsel after they were placed in congregations.

When they found that they were not paid as the male pastors were and were not given housing as the male pastors were, Alice gathered them at Chigodi and with the help of Gertrude Kapuma, a Malawian theologian, they strategized and approached the Synod. Some of the senior ministers felt threatened by this and demanded that Chigodi be closed and locked and that Alice leave the country within 24 hours. Those demands were set in motion, but Alice stood her ground.

International partners and one of the Synod officials intervened, and the decision was reversed. Chigodi became a symbol of the women’s struggle for equality within the Synod. Today, one of those women, the Reverend Mercy Chilapula, who was denied salary and housing, is the vice moderator of the Synod, the second-highest elected position. She was overwhelmingly endorsed for a second term at the biannual meeting by all the pastors of the Synod, 96 percent of whom are men. She has won their support and has taken her place in the Synod, as have the other women ministers. Chigodi equipped them and empowered them to do that. It has done the same thing for many of the lay women in the Synod, giving them training for congregational leadership.

The main building of the Chigodi Women's Center. It houses the office, the classroom, the dining room, and the kitchen.

Chigodi is more than a location and its buildings. It is more than a water problem to be solved and more than a capital investment that could be sold. For those who have been trained and nurtured there, and for those who learned to stand on their own there, it is part of their identity. To sell it would be to sell part of their souls. Places take on lives of their own sometimes. That is true for Chigodi. My challenge is not just to preserve the buildings of the past, but to build on the strength and wisdom of Alice and those first ordained women, to build a future for the continued growth of Malawian women, to refurbish the facility, and to provide resources for programming that meets the needs of a new generation of women in Malawi who are looking for what God has called them to do in his kingdom.

Please be in prayer for how God is going to provide for this ministry and this significant place in the lives and history of the women of Blantyre Synod. Pray for wisdom for me as I move forward in this challenge. If you or your church would like to know more about Chigodi and how you might partner with us for the future, please contact me. I would love to have you join in this exciting part of my ministry in Malawi.