Hope in the Children with Fr. Ephraim Peter Madeya TPMS Malawai

We are so blessed to get to speak with Fr. Ephraim Peter Madeya, National Director of Pontifical Mission Societies Malawi.  You will be inspired to hear of Malawi's National Children's Congress, an event created by the children of Malawi and supported by TPMS to bring together this vibrant community of children to share their stories and love of Christ.  


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Transcript

Katie (00:00.866)
Welcome to Frontiers of Faith, a podcast of the Pontifical Mission Societies. I am Katie Ruvalcaba, and today I have with me an absolutely incredible full house of mission-oriented people. We have, first of all, Maggie Murray. Say hi, Maggie. If you guys don't remember, Maggie is probably going to be our co-host going forward here. She is the Assistant Director of Communications for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.

Maggie Murray (00:14.128)
Hi, how's it going?

Katie (00:26.104)
But our star guest of the day is Father Ephraim Peter, the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Malawi. Say hi, Father.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (00:35.664)
Hello.

Katie (00:37.806)
Father, you're somewhat new to your role, right? You've been there about a year.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (00:44.344)
Are you monkey? We met I think last year.

Maggie Murray (00:47.218)
Yes.

Let's go back a little bit, Katie. Just take it from the top.

Katie (00:53.538)
Okay.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (00:54.938)
Get it.

Katie (00:56.844)
No worries. Hey, so Father Eframpeter, have are relatively new to your role as the national director in Malawi. Is that right? About a year?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (01:07.14)
Yes, I am the National Director of Malawi. I took over from now Bishop Vincent Mako, the Augustine Bishop of the Archdiocese of Lidongwe.

Katie (01:20.888)
And how many years have you been a priest?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (01:23.734)
I was ordained in 2011 on 20th August, so now it's about 14 years in crystal.

Katie (01:33.038)
We've heard amazing things about the church in Malawi, especially about how many seminarians you guys have. I think what Bishop Vincent had told us was something like 300 throughout the country, which is mind blowing to Americans. How did you feel the call to the priesthood?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (01:50.822)
Of course, I was feeling the calling to priesthood when I was young. Of course, I'm coming from the Christian family. My grandfather was a Catechist. And through the family of this grandfather of mine, there was a priest. My uncle was a priest. Of course, he died after a few years.

through the interaction with him and other priests and I was called to join priest work through the minor seminar.

Katie (02:29.102)
Beautiful. Now the term catechist, think means something different for you than it does in America. Can you tell us what a catechist is in Malawi?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (02:39.014)
Of course, the Catechists, they do lot of work in Malawi. They assist the priests in the area of animation of the Christians and also preparation of the sacraments of the Christians and also the Catechumens. So they are the people who are on the ground with the people assisting the priests in different areas. As you know, the church in Malawi, we have a very big

area with regard to the parishes and they are divided into centres or zones and each zone they have their own categories to links with the parish when it comes to the pastoral activities.

Maggie Murray (03:25.338)
very organized.

Katie (03:25.58)
Maggie, what was your experience in Malawi when you got to meet with Father?

Maggie Murray (03:31.18)
it was great. I, I've got, I feel like I'm thinking about what was, you know, what was happening like a year ago and all of the, it was great to like meet some of the catechists when we visited some of the parishes. but it's also, you know, it's so exciting to see so many seminarians and all the new priests that were, that were in Malawi. And, you know, I'm, I'm hoping that they're all doing well. So pass my regards along to them, Father Peter. but,

Fr. Madeya, National Director (03:56.23)
Yeah.

Maggie Murray (04:00.912)
Yeah, no, it's very exciting to hear, you know, just, guess that these catechists, play such an influential role and that's so different from what we're used to in the US. And I know that like that had struck our group really deeply when we were there, getting to meet some of them and talk to them. And they really do kind of stand in as these like religious leaders, or at least like kind of.

They're missionaries in their own way, into their diocese because in these areas where they don't have access to a priest regularly. know, Father Peter, think we met some people where it's like there were chapels or small zones that weren't seeing a priest for like maybe like once every three weeks. So the catechist is like really that pivotal role for these people.

to receive access to their faith and to evangelize to people and then, you know, eventually to receive the sacraments once a priest is able to come and visit them. So, yeah, it's really interesting.

Katie (04:58.69)
Yeah, remember Pope Francis made a great gesture to the catechists in the world about maybe a year or two ago. And I remember people in the United States being confused by that because we think of catechists as being like a Sunday school teacher. But in other parts, the just there's, I was a catechist at one point, but I never went to anybody's house. I never stood in as anybody's, you know, spiritual leader apart from, you know, the priest.

So that role is so important in other nations, especially Malawi. Father Peter, what are some of the unique challenges or opportunities that you see with spreading the gospel in Malawi?

Maggie Murray (05:31.015)
Yeah.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (05:39.91)
Of course, are number of opportunities. The church is growing. There lot of young people who are joining the church. There are also a lot of young people who are joining the seminary formation so that they can become priests. So these are our opportunities. despite of these opportunities, there a number of challenges.

in the Church of Malawi, which is coming also from the opportunities that we have. For example, we have a large number of seminarians who are joining seminaries, but then in terms of sustaining them in the seminary, now it's becoming a challenge. Like recently, they failed to open the philosophical seminary last week because of there was a challenge of power.

Unfortunately, they have rectified the problem and they are going back to school now. But even if they are going back to school, most of the dioceses, they fail to sustain a large number of seminarians we have because of lack of support. That's the challenges with the Pontifical Society of St. Peter the Apostle. On the other issue, there are also challenges.

with the cut shortage of enough resources for the Christians. So it's very difficult for the Christians to support the church in Malawi. Especially this time, Malawi has been affected with different catastrophes. We talk of cyclones and what, because of this, even the people in Malawi, they have been affected because of these challenges.

And then this also has affected their financial stability at the family level. By so doing, the church also is affected because the church depends much on the Christians to support the church. But all in all, the people there, they have faith. They go to church despite of the challenges they are facing. Like this year, we have a challenge of hunger and I'm sure

Fr. Madeya, National Director (08:06.01)
This also will affect the church because normally we depend also from what the people they are producing to learn the church in a number of ways. But because of these challenges, we face challenges, yes, but also there are some successes. We are together with the people when they are suffering as the the goal of the church is.

Katie (08:31.446)
Maggie, sort of things do the Pontifical Mission societies in the United States, what sort of things are available for us to be able to help support Father Peter and his church in Malawi?

Maggie Murray (08:42.468)
Yeah, I mean, I know that we visited one of the sites that was affected by Cyclone Freddie when we visited last year. it was like Father Peter is doing a good job painting that picture, but it's truly astounding to think like to see it. you know, entire villages basically wiped out that are, you know, and then like the church is one of the only few buildings left standing that has become this like beacon on a hill for these people.

So like with TPMS, I know that we've we have absolutely are supporting, you know, lot of seminarians in Malawi through the Society for St. Peter the Apostle. So that's always a really big campaign for us. We always also like to particularly fundraise for them during our summer appeal in around like June or July. And I use one of the stories for that appeal from a seminarian in Malawi. So that was very fun to do. But

Katie (09:23.726)
Yeah.

Katie (09:32.494)
beautiful.

Maggie Murray (09:39.794)
I mean, aside from that, it's, you know, going through the general fund, the resources that we send out to all the diocese in Malawi help in every way, either catechists, priests, material needs. So that's, you know, propagation of the faith. And then Missionary Childhood Association, which I think we'll also talk about later, which of course is its own branch. yeah, so there's a lot of like

Fr. Madeya, National Director (09:49.808)
Yeah.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (09:57.638)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Maggie Murray (10:08.286)
I love talking about Malawi because I think it really hits all of those points of like where TPMS is doing such great work among the people, but then also like in growing the church as a whole. And so that's awesome to see.

Katie (10:19.267)
Yeah.

Yeah, Maggie just brought up really the big thing we want to talk about. This is the Jubilee Year of Hope. And I heard the story of what you're about to tell us about your children's Congress. it's one of the most hopeful things I have heard in a long time. Father, can you tell us a little bit about the Children's Congress and what that is and what's going on?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (10:41.798)
Yeah, of course, through my successor, now Bishop, we organized this children's congress in the year 2020. But because of the COVID issue, the bishops cancelled the congress. But then after taking over from the bishop,

I asked them again about this Children's Congress, especially this year, whereby we are celebrating the jubilee of 2025 so that we can give hope to the children also. So the bishops in their June plenary, they discussed the issue and they accepted us that we can hold the Children's Congress. After accepting us, then we started the move of how this Congress will be like.

Katie (11:30.692)
What started the Children's Congress? Whose idea was it?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (11:35.118)
Of course, the idea came from both national and decision directors and also from the children themselves because the children are pushing that they can meet and share experiences among themselves as the whole country.

So through our different council meetings of PMOS directors, both national and international directors, we accepted the idea of having a children's And then by then we presented to the bishops through our national director by then, the bishop. And the bishops, they accepted this because it's one way of deepening the faith of the children.

and also deepening their spiritual and moral values among the children, but also a way of interacting with each other because when they are meeting as children, they can share different experiences from the parishes and also from the dioceses. So the children also themselves, they are like the beginners of the idea of the Children's Congress and we accepted that idea through the diocesan and national council meetings.

Katie (12:45.988)
That's beautiful. When is this to take place?

Maggie Murray (12:47.168)
Yeah.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (12:51.466)
Of course, we planned that this Congress from the Bishops, of course, they advised us that the Congress should take place on the Central Press. And in Malawi, as you can see, Malawi is, we have the Central part of Malawi, the North and the Southern part of Malawi. So the Bishops, they decided that the Congress should take part on the Central Press in the capital city of Malawi. That would be the long way.

and we have selected to Niposco parish to host the Congress of the Children. And of course the parish has accepted the diocese, that is the Archdiocese of Llangwe. They have also accepted to host the Congress because it's like a central place whereby people from the north and people from the south, they can come so easily to attend to this Congress. So it would be at the central place, Llangwe Archdiocese.

Maggie Murray (13:46.458)
Wow. And is that going on now or is it happening soon?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (13:50.99)
Very soon. Of course, now we are in the preparation stage. We have set in place different committees to run the Congress. We have the committees of Ritage, the committee of Publicity, the committee of Protocol, the committee of Entertainment, the committee of Accommodation, Transport Committee, Health and Social Welfare Committee.

Maggie Murray (13:57.767)
Okay.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (14:20.902)
security and also the issue of safeguarding the children. The safeguarding issue will be there. We have also a committee of safeguarding committee of the children and then also not forgetting food for the children. So we have all these committees. They are set in place because we are in 2025 and we have to pull our socks so that very soon it will be end of July. The congress will take place from 30th to 4th August.

July to 4th August. That's the term for the Congress. About five days, but four days it's literally for the Congress and different lessons and also activities of children.

Katie (15:03.588)
That's beautiful. If you could share one mission, or I'm sorry, one message with Catholics throughout the world about the mission in Malawi, what would it be?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (15:15.494)
the mission.

Katie (15:18.008)
Yeah, what message would you want to tell the people who listen to this podcast about the church in Malawi and the missions in Malawi? Is there something you would like us to know?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (15:25.114)
Of course, the church's morale is growing and listen to me, we have experienced a number of young people who are interested in the church things. Like, for example, last Sunday, we had a bifan celebration over the whole country and the bishops were part and parcel of celebrating the masses of children and the

This is the time whereby the children took an active part when it comes to the issues of the literature. They were active, they sing, they shared what they have. for my own experience, was in the Dasses of Mangochi. I had over 1,282 children during that Congress, all from the Dasses of Mangochi. So...

Maggie Murray (16:19.186)
Wow.

We're not used to that many kids around here.

Katie (16:22.24)
Wow, that is a lot of kids.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (16:24.622)
Yeah, yeah,

Katie (16:26.724)
my goodness. I'm imagining how loud that was. Like there's just the joyful noise that children make. I can imagine that was a loud experience for you, Father.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (16:38.33)
But it was nice. was nice. And also from the directors, of course, they were sharing with me the good experiences that they had a large number of people from all over the dioceses. if you can put by average, only last Sunday we gathered over 10,000 to 15,000 children of Amarawi for the children, not for the children's congress, but for the celebration of holy childhood. They were all over Malawi.

Maggie Murray (16:38.994)
you

Fr. Madeya, National Director (17:08.036)
We can see the church. We have hope. It's a year of hope. We have hope through the children.

Maggie Murray (17:11.175)
Yeah.

Maggie Murray (17:16.911)
That's awesome. I can only imagine that if you got 15,000 kids for the epiphany that the Children's Congress is going to be huge.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (17:23.782)
Of course, because of maybe some logistics for the Children's Congress, what we have done, we have a bit the number. it's because of space. We cannot manage to host more than 15,000, being the first Congress. So we want to try with about 2,000 children. So we're expecting each and every parish.

to send four children, girls, four children, boys. At least, Perapaish want to have at least eight children. And we have about 215 parishes in Malawi. So, they say eight children. We're expecting about 1.7 children. And then with their animators and those people who are going to take care of the children, we want to have a group of 2,000 people.

including the animators.

Katie (18:27.812)
I was going to ask you about what strategies you have for the future of the church, but listening to how much involvement you have with the youth and with the children, it seems like that's sort of taking care of itself. What do you think Malawi is doing right when it comes to children? What could we steal from you? How could we copy what you've done with your kids? How do we get that kind of exuberance in our kids here in the US?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (18:57.382)
Of course the first thing is to animate the parents so that they can know that they have a responsibility towards the children. after animating the parents, then we have to involve now the children when it comes to the issue of the Catholic faith and other issues, even take care of the environment. And we have to give them, the children, different programs which entertain them also.

And through these programs, we can also share our spiritual messages we have so that by so doing, the children can little by little start loving the church in a number of ways. And I'm sure in Malawi, this is what the directors are doing. Now and again, they have different programs for the children throughout the year. And this has developed a certain experience in the children and also in the church.

We have seen that a number, a lot of children at the age of seven, eight, they are taking active part in the literature reading, the first readings, even the second readings, singing, they are taking part in the singing during the literature. And the issue of dancing, Mark knows that. It's part and parcel of the activity they dance. So at least the issue.

Maggie Murray (20:17.584)
Yep.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (20:23.91)
what we can is animating the people. Animation and formation should be a priority if you want the church to grow through the young people. That's the message I can say.

Katie (20:37.028)
That's wonderful. Well, before we let everybody go, Maggie, did you have any other questions you wanted to ask to Father Peter?

Maggie Murray (20:45.042)
Well, I mean, we kind of touched on it earlier, but I know that we talked a little bit about how some of the recent natural, how the weather has really been a big impact on how the people in Malawi are doing and that hunger is going to be an issue this year. And when we visited, we visited the Palombe district and were kind of conversing with some of the victims of cyclone Freddie on how

How are, how is everybody doing? has, you know, had there been progress, I guess, in kind of helping to rehabilitate those people or has, you know, the weather and kind of the storms of the last year really made that much more difficult? You know, is it, is there, is there kind of some improvement with how they're all like, how the resources are? Let me go back and kind of just cut that out, Katie.

Fr. Madeya, National Director (21:40.942)
Of course, I was talking with the Bishop of Mangotchi, Bishop's team. Of course, he was also sharing the issue of Upalombe, the same area, Upalombe area and Blantyre. Because of this climate change, the issue of life sustainability, this year also it will become a problem.

to the children and also even to some families in Malawi, the southern part of Malawi, because they planted their crops a bit earlier in November, but because of climate change, there were no lands, and then the heat has affected the crops of the people. So that one would be a challenge also. And this also I can see.

It will be part of the challenge of the Children's Congress for some children, of course, because our budget for the Congress is not less than 341 million Malawi Kwacha. So to get this amount of money, it means the children have to get involved through their parents. Of course, different people will be asked to help us, but if the environment

can continue the way it is, it can also affect very much our Congress. So we can see the environment also can affect our plans if we are not careful.

Maggie Murray (23:19.058)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well.

Katie (23:20.388)
And for the people who are listening, the budget that you were just talking about, you $341 million. That comes out to just under $200,000 in American money in case people were not sure what that was. That's the budget that we're dealing with. And I'm hearing like, is that thunder that I'm hearing on your end, Father? Are you guys having a storm right this second?

Fr. Madeya, National Director (23:40.806)
Of course we are having a bit of showers. We are having a bit of showers. Yeah.

Katie (23:44.708)
I was listening to it and I heard the thunder earlier. was like, I'm not editing that out. That's staying. I like that thunder. Give people an idea of what the actual weather situation is in Malawi. But Father, thank you so much for joining us. Before we go, is there anything that you would like our audience to be praying for, for you and for your church in Malawi?

Maggie Murray (23:51.258)
Hahaha

Fr. Madeya, National Director (24:05.83)
Of course, what I can say as a National Office of PMOS in Malawi, I'm asking the people first of all to pray for the Congress, who want the success of this Congress, because it's the first of that kind in Malawi. We have never had a Congress of children. This will be the first time. So at least we are asking for prayers to all the people who are listening us.

so that the Congress can be successful. And then the other issue, so we are appealing for the donor support to the donor community to support us with their material things so that we can use the material things for the Congress of Children to be successful. And this is what the bishops are expecting. I'm sure they are afraid, but I'm sure with the prayers and also with the...

different fundraising activities we can have, I think the Congress will be successful, by the hope of God.

Katie (25:15.574)
we'll be praying for you in this Jubilee year of hope. This is one of the more hopeful things that we've heard about. Thank you so much for joining us, Maggie. Thanks for getting here so early in the morning, and I hope you guys have an excellent week.