By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
ALLENTOWN — After sending a minister and his family to Malawi and, later, a team of volunteers, parishioners of the Allentown Presbyterian Church received a visitor of their own this week.
Wellings Mwalabu, 49, of Malawi, a small country in Africa, is a key contact between the church here and in his own country. He said his visit was intended to get a feel of the town and its people.
”Only seven people came to Malawi,” he said. “I wanted the larger community to appreciate where they went.”
Mr. Mwalabu, of Blantyre, is director of programs in the Blantyre Synod Development Commission, a part of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP). He spent four days with church parishioners over last weekend to help cement the partnership between Allentown and the 14-village area of Sakata, a group of villages in the poverty-stricken nation of about 14 million. The site is an hour and a half north of Blantyre, the city in Malawi where the Allentown church’s pastor, the Rev. Stephen Heinzel-Nelson, and his family have been doing mission work since January.
Already in the U.S. for a two-week visit to Pittsburgh as part of another CCAP partnership, Mr. Mwalabu took a four-day detour to visit the borough. He said he had not been to America since he was sent to Maryland 20 years ago to study as part of his work for the U.K.-based charity Concern Universal.
Mr. Mwalabu said starting new charity projects is “a special talent I think I have to be proud of… The Blantyre-Synod also gave me a new project and I had to start it on day one.” After being moved to start three new projects “from scratch,” he is now the head of development in his office, and added he was happy there was nowhere left to move him.
In the area, church members took him to visit sites such as area farms and the Horse Park of New Jersey. Mr. Mwalabu remarked upon the differences between American and Malawian agriculture, saying the latter is done using much more physical labor, while the former seemed to be doing much better.
”People (in Malawi) have limited resources,” he said, and sometimes even farm owners are unable to cultivate all their land.
On Friday, the church welcomed Mr. Mwalabu to a potluck dinner to meet with parishioners. Beforehand, he said he had no set agenda, hoping only to meet people, and added that he “brought greetings from Malawi.”
Monday, he spoke to students at Upper Freehold Regional Elementary-Middle School about the issues facing his home country, including poverty, the lack of basic necessities, like food and water and HIV and AIDS. He said the impacts of these issues are greatest among the very young and very old, and that many elderly people must take in young children whose parents have died.
He said the Malawian church provides necessary support to the people beyond what the government can provide. But the church “needs support from other partners overseas, like the partners in Allentown,” he said.
Malawi is considered the fourth poorest country in the world, and 65 percent of the nation is living below the poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme. The average family income in Malawi is $350 a year — less than $1 a day.
In June, members of the group spent 72 hours on a man-made raft on the Allentown Lake as part of a “flotilla” fundraiser and attended the area’s Freedom Fest Fair. Nearly $13,000 was raised to purchase mosquito nets and building supplies for the trip. Before traveling to Malawi, the church purchased 200 such nets for villagers to help combat malaria, a big health risk there.
In August, volunteers from the Allentown church spent almost two weeks in the Sakarta area working primarily on making bricks to construct a preschool and orphan care center.
”I’m just looking forward to opportunities for further cooperation between Allentown and the church back home,” Mr. Mwalabu said. “I hope this will not be the end… I think it would be a good idea to promote the partnership here, and make it grow here.”

