By Monica Tambala
Lilongwe, Mana: Scripture Union of Malawi (SUM), an interdenominational organisation that seeks to nurture children, youth and families to engage with God through the bible, Saturday celebrated 50 years of existence under the theme growing disciples engaged in scripture at cross roads hotel in Lilongwe.
Addressing the media after the celebrations, National Director for Scripture Union of Malawi, Amon Chanika expressed gratitude for the union’s success acknowledging the hand of God as the driving force behind all the achievements.
“This has been a great time from 1971 till date, a lot has happened and we thank God for that. We initially only had books written in English but now they are written by Malawians in our languages and hence we thank God for the local leadership and the infrastructure development that has been established since the SUM started,” he said.
Chanika pointed out that the Union has over 1,500 Bible clubs in government schools but was seeking to expand their work beginning from the children’s ministries.
“We have 5000 plus schools in government and yet we are only in 1,500 schools so we want to reach the ones we haven’t yet reached but also sustainability is very important and so we want to expand our infrastructure development in Area 14, Kande and Hangers Youth Centre in Machinga,
We as well want to expand in terms of our staffing so that we can reach out to many children, young people and families as currently we only have 15 staff members,” he said.
Deputy Minister of Education, Monica Chang’anamuno hailed the union for reaching out to encourage children, youths and families through the word of God and child safe guarding policies that shapes and builds them into better citizens.
“We appreciate what such organisations are doing in the country, scripture union is working with our children in different primary schools where they do bible reading clubs and bible camps which help our young people grow, be disciplined in their studies and again in their moral character.
We appreciate what SUM was doing because most of the young people that have gone through the scripture union programs are different from other young people, she said.
Chang’anamuno encouraged SUM to continue the work they are doing and promised that as government, they will continue to give them the space in government schools so that they can work with the students.
“Let me take this opportunity to encourage other organisations to continue to work with our young people because scripture union alone cannot go to all the schools across the country therefore other organisations need to come in and work with other schools that are not being reached by scripture union,” she pleaded.
The Deputy Minister encouraged all children present at the event to grow in Christ, be obedient and follow the word of God in their daily lives as the word of God directs and encourages all those who follow him.
She urged everyone to continue to pray for the country.
