March 2015 Update

March 2015 Update Meet Chifundo One of the things I love about Children of the Nations (COTN) is that a child receives support, whenever possible, all the way up through college or vocational skills training. This philosophy really ensures that the orphaned and vulnerable children that we work with are equipped to one day be able to take care of themselves, their families, and to be leaders in their communities and nations. Currently, Malawi has 50 students in our University-Vocational Program. For those of you who have ever paid to put a child through college, you know how daunting that can be! Chifundo is an example of one of our students who went through vocational training and is now fully employed, runs his own electrical repair shop, and trains younger COTN children in the skills that he has learned. Chifundo's father died in 1997 and afterwards his mother really struggled to care for him and his siblings. Three years later, he was enrolled in COTN's Village Partnership Program and began receiving holistic support. Chifundo eventually went on to earn a diploma in electrical and electronics engineering from Lilongwe Technical College with the support of COTN. It's because of this support that he is now able to have a job with ESCOM, Malawi's national electricity supplier, as a meter technician. What is really encouraging is that he is taking what he has been given and is giving back to the younger COTN children! Google Training Children of the Nations uses Google for our mail platform as well as Google Drive, Calendar, and Hangouts for our various working collaborations on schedules, documents, conference calls, etc. Just a few of the Malawi staff have much knowledge or experience in getting full use out of these Google products so I've started holding some training sessions for them in this area. I'll also be doing some one-on-one follow-up help with some individuals who are in need of further training. It's going well so far and I am excited to see how this will help to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their work, especially when collaborating with their counterparts in the USA.   What are you feeding him?? We were so grateful to be able to spend the Christmas season in the US, see so many friends and family members, and were blessed by all the love everyone showered on Paul. Thanks so much! After five weeks though, it was good to get back home and into our routine. Shortly after returning, we held Paul's dedication ceremony at our church, trusting in God to help us care for and raise him, which when you think about it, is a huge task and we definitely need God's help with it! As I get started on this newsletter, Paul is now 4 months old to the day. It's definitely true what they say about children growing faster than you can keep up! We're learning to enjoy each day and every milestone. He is so full of joy and constantly smiling-it's infectious! He is really living up to his middle-name, Kondwani, "Be Happy". Paul is trying hard at times to roll over and will probably achieve it any day now. He's gotten so big, we are constantly being asked, "What are you feeding him?!" Just mother's milk up to now! He's more than doubled his birth weight (19 1/2 lbs now!) and so pretty soon we'll start trying out some solid foods like bananas, avocados, and sweet potatoes. Update: It's now a couple weeks since I started writing this newsletter and Paul is now 22 lbs, has rolled over a couple times and has started getting his first tastes of banana, avocado, and carrots! For now Madalo has gone back to work part-time so that in combination with my ability to work from home a few days a week, someone is always home with Paul and our new nanny. In other family news, Madalo has applied for a Master's of Science in Nursing program at the University of Malawi College of Nursing. We're not yet sure how it would work financially or with our schedules, etc. but we would appreciate your prayers as we will need to make some important decisions if she gets accepted.   As always, we really appreciate each one of you who takes the time to read our updates and pray faithfully for us. Feel free to share this newsletter with your friends and family as well so that we can add to the network of people in the COTN family!   Much Love, Jeremy, Madalo, and Paul Follow along on Facebook! Partner with us by supporting Jeremy's salary or giving towards the purchase of anew truck for COTN Malawi's Village Partnership Program! Children of the Nations (www.cotni.org) is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit and is rated as a 4-star organization for financial management by Charity Navigator. All of your donations will be accompanied by a receipt and are tax deductible in the United States.  Prayer Needs Baby Paul as he transitions to solid food and will probably start teething soon. Madalo as she applies for her Master's in Nursing program. Malawi, which has now been ranked the poorest country in the world according to GDP per capita. Pray that the government institutes good policies that will help spur economic growth for the country.   Please feel free and be encouraged to share this newsletter with a friend or family member who may be interested in the work of Children of the Nations!

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October 2014 Update and Year-End Fundraising

October 2014 Update Meet Michael I would like to introduce you to Michael Banda! He is the newest child to come into full-time family care in one of COTN Malawi's Children's Homes. Michael was referred to COTN Malawi through the Malawi Government Social Welfare Office. He comes from Mchinji, a town one hour West of Lilongwe, just close to the Zambian border. Michael is just 3 months old and his mother passed not long after his birth. The whereabouts of his father are unknown. He came to COTN Malawi severely malnourished and suffering from infection, but since then has been admitted to African Bible College Community Clinic (where Madalo works) for treatment and proper nutrition support. He is gaining weight and getting healthier each day!  Children like Michael are the reason that Malawi runs full-time family care Children's Homes in addition to our Village Partnership Program. At times there are children who simply have no other option and may even die without full-time intervention. Michael now has hope for a future because of the intervention, support, and love he will receive each day as part of a COTN Malawi Children's Home! As a new child, Michael will need sponsors. Please check out this link if you would like to become one of his sponsors.   A New Baby of Our Own As Well! Well the long-awaited day finally came! Paul Kondwani made his appearance just two days after his due date on October 19th at 8:20pm, weighing in at 8 pounds 2 ounces. Madalo was in active labor for about 7 hours, though her water broke and we had gone to the hospital the night before around midnight. It was an amazing experience being there in the delivery room and seeing my son being born before my eyes. I will treasure that experience forever! Baby Paul is now 11 days old as I write this. He is already gaining weight and developing. Madalo is recovering well and both of us are getting as much sleep as can be expected! We love our new son and pray for God's hand to be on his life as he grows. Please pray with us as we figure out this whole parenthood thing! We are currently in the process of getting Paul's official Malawi Government birth certificate which will then allow us to register his birth at the US Embassy, making him a US citizen, and getting his first US passport. Please pray that this process goes smoothly and quickly so that we can travel with him in December to come to the US for Christmas. Year-End Fundraising We are coming up to the end of 2014 which means that we are in the season of raising funds to support our work in 2015. We are so grateful to everyone who has supported us either through one-time donations or through monthly support this year and pray that God blesses you for that sacrifice. For 2014, we have been able to raise $11,725 out of a needed $21,600, or 54% of our needs. The rest is made up from support from the COTN budget, which unfortunately means that it cannot go towards in-country programs. As you can imagine, a new baby brings a whole new set of expenses! Our goal is to raise $24,000 to support us in 2015. The good news, is that through our current monthly supporters, we already have $11,700 or 48% of that covered! Which leaves us with just $12,300 to raise for the whole year! If you are reading this, I would ask that you prayerfully or thoughtfully consider either becoming one of our monthly supporters or to give a one-time donation to help cover this $12,300 needed to support us in 2015. You may be thinking that you can only give $15 or $20 a month, what difference could that make? That translates into $180-$240 for the year and that definitely makes a difference! Anyamount helps if many people join together with us to reach this goal! Click this linkto go to our support raising page and make either a one-time or monthly donation.   Other Ways to Support Children of the Nations As I said, any amount that we are unable to raise to go towards my salary has to then be made up by coming from COTN. This means that those funds are not going towards programs or projects in our countries. So, if you prefer, I would also like to share some opportunities for you to give directly towards those in-country needs. We are always needing more sponsors for our children. If sponsoring a child with a monthly donation sounds like something you are interested in, please take a look at this link showing all of the children in Malawi who are still in need of sponsors. You can choose a child of any age from 3 months old, like Michael, all the way up to a University student needing support for her or his tuition and other college-related expenses. In addition to sponsorship, there are also some great one-time projects we are trying to fund for Malawi in the coming year. Community Health Clubs, new vehicles, continuing construction of our secondary school-so many great ways to get involved! Take a look at this link to browse and find out more about those projects. If you decide to sponsor a child or give towards a project, please let me know. We really appreciate each one of you who takes the time to read our updates and pray faithfully for us. Feel free to share this newsletter with your friends and family as well so that we can add to the network of people in the COTN family!   Much Love,   &    Jeremy and Madalo Macias Like our page and follow along on Facebook! Children of the Nations (www.cotni.org) is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit and is rated as a 4-star organization for financial management by Charity Navigator. All of your donations will be accompanied by a receipt and are tax deductible in the United States.

Prayer Needs For Baby Paul in his first few months and the new mom and dad as they learn to be good parents! For Baby Paul's US citizen registration and first passport application to go quickly and smoothly so that we can travel to the US in December. Jeremy and Madalo as they raise funds for support in 2015. COTN Malawi, as they have recently lost one of their University students to a road accident. Continue to pray for COTN Sierra Leone as they work to keep their campus and communities safe from the Ebola Virus that is currently affecting West Africa.

May 2013

May 2013 New Home For the last year and three months, I’ve been living on the Children of the Nations campus on one side of a duplex. After we got married, Madalo moved in and we spent our first eight months of married life there. It was great to have a free place to stay while receiving my small Peace Corps stipend as well as during the first months of marriage, but it never really seemed like “ours” because it was fully furnished with mostly donated items that weren’t exactly our taste. We were also sharing a campus with the COTN secondary school which could sometimes be a little loud…teenagers! Well, on May 5 we made the move to our own place! It’s about a five minute drive from COTN and just a little over a mile away from the African Bible College Community Clinic where Madalo works so she is able to walk often with no problem. We love our new little place and will be working over the next few months to furnish and decorate it to our taste and get the garden looking nice! We have a guest bedroom with a comfy double bed so if you ever find yourself in Malawi, stop on by! We already had our first house guests, some friends from my first two years in Peace Corps, Terence and Alyssa. They’re back in Malawi doing some research in Southern Malawi for the next two months. It was great to see and catch up with them! Career Coaching Two young ladies who have been raised in the COTN Children’s Homes program reached the point where they were ready to graduate from our program this last month. Both have completed post-secondary school programs, one in community development and the other in tourism. We held a graduation ceremony for them as well as a farewell party in one of the Children’s Homes. It’s so great to see the fruit of years of investment. These ladies came into the program as young girls who were in desperate situations and here they are today, ready to get out there and find their first real jobs!  Madalo and I sat down with one of these young  ladies, Yamikani, and coached her on her  resume, job hunting, interviewing skills, and  starting her own little side business to keep  herself going while job hunting. We hope and  pray that the coaching will pay off and Yamikani  will do well as she moves on from being in  COTN’s full-time care. Men’s Breakfast Something that I have been involved with over the last several months is helping to start a men’s ministry at my church, Capital City Baptist Church. I and a few other men, including the senior pastor, have been meeting every other week to pray, discuss, and plan what a men’s ministry for our church should look like. It all culminated to a kick-off event that took place this month in the form of a men’s breakfast. We reserved a room at a local lodge and ordered a great breakfast for the men to enjoy. Around fifty men from the church showed up and we enjoyed the food, chatting together, hearing from the pastor, and I had the opportunity to lead them in some songs for worship-I even did a couple songs in Chichewa, a local Malawian language! Overall it was a great morning and all the men are excited to get a structured ministry in place. We had group discussions to brainstorm ideas for how the ministry should take shape and signed up six more men to be a part of the organizing committee to plan the way forward. I really believe ministries like this are important in encouraging men to become responsible leaders in their churches, families, communities, and workplaces. Prayer Requests Yamikani and Dorica as they job search and begin to get out on their own. COTN Malawi as they build a new Children's Home with local finances. This will allow them to be on their own property rather than paying rent under a landlord. Jeremy and Madalo as we save up for a car. Jeremy and Madalo raising the last $500 needed in monthly support. Click here to partner with Jeremy and Madalo! Please feel free and be encouraged to share this blogpost with a friend who may be interested! Thanks! Share Tweet Forward to Friend Copyright © 2013 Jeremy and Madalo, All rights reserved.

March 2013 Newsletter

Well as most of you know, we spent 3 weeks in February back in the U.S.! Madalo and I had a great time catching up with family and friends, celebrating our new marriage, holding lots of new babies, going to San Diego and Disneyland, celebrating my 30^th birthday (my first one back in the U.S. in 3 years!), and trying to do a little fundraising in the midst of it all. It was quite the whirlwind and we were thoroughly exhausted by the time we finally made it back home to Malawi. We needed a vacation after our vacation!

Everyone here in Malawi says we had a great time and were treated well by everyone back in the U.S. How do they know? Because of all the weight we gained! Culturally, here in Malawi, gaining weight while away is a sign that you were well taken care of. Wouldn't it be nice if we thought that way in the U.S. too?? I've already dropped ten pounds since coming back!

Although we were tired, I quickly had to get ready for the COTN International President and founder, Chris Clark to visit Malawi along with his wife and co-founder, Debbie. The first few days of their visit they were accompanied by an international board member and his wife, Bruce and Julie Donaho. So far their visit has been great and they have shared a lot of vision, encouragement, and training with the staff here in Malawi as well as learned some things from the Malawi staff. Being the founders, and because in the early days they would spend months at a time in Malawi, the children, especially the older ones, call them “Dad Chris” and “Mom Debbie”. It's a unique organization where the president is also thought of as "Dad" by many of the children!

I feel like I am working with COTN at a key time in its history. Behind are many years of a small, family-style ministry and ahead it is developing into a full-fledged international non-profit while still trying to maintain its sense of family and community. It is definitely a great experience to be part of an organization as it grows in this way!

One of the many new babies we met,
our new nephew, Oliver!

Madalo has gotten back into the swing of her work at African Bible College (ABC) Community Clinic. She really enjoys being a nurse; treating and caring for people as God heals their bodies and spirits. She is such a light to her patients and fellow staff members, always bringing a smile and encouraging words to those around her. I’ve heard more than once from some of the “higher ups” at ABC that she is one of their best nurses!

Much Love,

Jeremy and Madalo

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