May Malawi Update

Seeds of Friendship, Wonder, Hope
By Anita Labelle (Hayhoe)

This May, I am full of gratitude to be in Malawi with my parents Chris and Dan Hayhoe, my husband Andre, and our two boys Nolan (13) and Xavier (10). This means three generations of Hayhoes (now Labelles) together on the roan-red soil of the country that my parents have grown to love so deeply. Many years ago they passed that love down to me, and today my heart erupts as I watch it grow again in my children.

Every day now I watch that seed grow: Friendship, wonder, awe, connection, hope. I watch it grow and as I do start to think about seeds, what they hold and what they can become.

One example takes root as we watch the final stages come together of the Sunuzi Health Centre (SHC) that the Malawian people are building with Future Vision Ministries.

Until now, the 30,000 people living in the Sunuzi area have never had nearby access to consistent, free health care before. Instead, when people get sick, they are forced to make a terrible decision: stay home and hope they recover, visit the local witchdoctor, or attempt what to them is often a near-impossible journey to the nearest public hospital – a distance typically attempted on foot or by bicycle because public transportation costs more than most families in the area have in a month.

As a result, many die from preventable and treatable illnesses because they simply can’t physically or financially make the journey.

Yet there is hope. Over the past year, the local Malawian people have worked tirelessly and the structure for the health centre has been built (including staff housing), staff are being hired, and rooms are just waiting to be furnished.

As I watch the ongoing growth, I start to imagine the health centre as a garden of Malawian seeds, each room planted with purpose, healing and hope.

Together each of the rooms becomes a seed of care with infinite potential for growth and life. In addition to those listed above, other rooms in the centre include:

• Outpatient Department
• Children under-five clinic
• Family planning
• Laboratory
• Psychosocial counselling
• Emergencies and Treatment
• Antenatal/Perinatal
• Postnatal
• Eyecare and Non-communicable diseases

I imagine all of these rooms growing side by side like a flourishing Malawian forest. Each seed a vital service, together forming one living health centre devoted to restoring life, nurturing families, preventing illnesses, and strengthening the communities through compassionate and holistic care.

I share these imaginings so you can see the growth here, and also to offer an idea:

Might you be able to “seed” a room in the hospital? Your support would bring care and healing in tangible forms, filling each now-empty room with medical supplies, equipment, furniture, and medication, and transforming the space into a sanctuary of life, hope, and recovery.

To help imagine this more fully, Gloria Kantikana, the Malawian medical professional heading up the clinic, has put together a budget showing the breakdown for each of the rooms (calculated at today’s foreign exchange rate, which does fluctuate).

Incredibly, initial room outfitting (all medical equipment, instruments, furniture, medications, and disposables) ranges from the following:

I’m hoping you can step into my imagination and picture seeding these rooms – the baobab room, the mopane room, the Malawi cedar room – all trees that grow strong and proud on Malawian soil.

Each tree a room. Each room hundreds, thousands, of lives.

If this sounds possible to you, or to a group of you working together (a family, a church group, a group of professionals) please take a look at the list of rooms and costs to seed each. Then reach out to Future Vision Ministries to get things growing!

(Image: Xavier Labelle/Hayhoe and SHC Administrator Gloria Kantikana giving Malawi a combined four-thumbs-up).