Thondwe, Malawi … Infrastructure is a critical term, and an essential element in the survival and development of a culture. Fire services, police protection, hospital care, government protection, and adherence to the rule of law are all needed for a society to grow, prosper and live in peace, safety, harmony and comfort. These are true all over the world. Electricity, phone, and Internet are developments in the recent past that are essential as well, in a world that is linked together in ways that cannot be ignored. Internet needs phone or satellite links, electricity needs highway and river links, and medical care needs international and corporate links that will bring essential resources to a nation. The term “no man is an island”, is as true of nations as it is of individuals.
Today the tiny nation of Malawi struggles from the lack of support services that are critical. Phone service is frequently out, electricity is frequently off, and water is in short supply. Food shortages come far too often, and fuel shortage lead news headlines month after month. Hospital care is primitive, and medical supplies often are not available. All of this comes under the simple headline of “infrastructure,” and Malawi comes up short in nearly every category.
For the people in distant villages, who have never experienced any of the conveniences, this dreadful situation has always been their lives, but for westerners who are accustomed to a different life style some of these things can actually lead to life-threatening situation.
For those who have never visited, or experienced, the lifestyle in a third world nation, but for those who have been there the lives of those who go there to carry out important missions are people held in the highest esteem. One of those families are the Thiesens, a family of Americans who live in third world conditions in southern Malawi, and struggle with the lack of western resources, life saving possessions, and modern conveniences on a daily basis. Something as simple as an electrical generator is so critically important to them. The following unsolicited note was recently received from Mark Thiesen, the American Director for the Namikango Mission and Maternity Hospital in Thondwe, Malawi. He writes,
“ Some time back the Malawi Project provided us with a Honda generator. With Malawi’s aging electrical network struggling to keep up with increased demand, we experience more and more power outages. Several times a week the electrical supply network is forced to shut down service to our area during the peak of demand in the evening hours just when we need power the most. On other days the whole system experiences faults and crashes for 24 or more hours at a time. During these periods we have no lights, Internet, working appliances–and after a few hours– no water. Later food in our freezer starts to spoil. Enter the Honda generator.”
“Once this little marvel is fired up we have all those things again. Era and I have often talked that the little red Honda is our favorite piece of equipment on the mission. We feel more passionate about it than our car or any of the other blessings that surround us. What a thrill it is to see our house light up the smothering African night again with one yank of a cord.”