The first fish are ready for market from an innovative programme based on the idea of training pastors to work the land and support their ministry by selling produce.
The charity Equipping Pastors Worldwide (EPW) – born from the recent merger of the Pastor Training International and Christian Books Worldwide charities – supports majority world pastors who long to be faithful in serving Christ, but who lack the training and resources to do so.
Joster Jumbe (pictured), who runs EPW’s hub in Malawi, has applied principles there from a programme in Zambia called ‘Farming God’s way’. He established a banana plantation which soon began to subsidise staff wages and the distribution of theological resources to rural pastors in the region.
It was so successful that Jumbe turned part of the plantation into four, more lucrative, fishponds. This summer the first fish will be ready for market and he anticipates sales of the equivalent of about £7,500.
Jumbe has now allocated space on the campus for four chicken sheds and has been granted permission to install beehives on neighbouring rough land, all of which should enable him and his assistant Victor Pelete to spend more time visiting Chichewa-speaking communities throughout Malawi, Eastern Zambia and Northern Mozambique. They seek to encourage, train and equip local pastors who have minimal resources and practically no theological training.
