A.L. Gibson

The “Mother of Malawi” in this book is Annie Chikhwaza, who was born in the Netherlands, but eventually came to live in Malawi. From the time she was a young child, she was drawn to the marginalized of society, wanting to take care of them. But she has had a very hard life too. She was molested at age eight and it continued for many years. At fifteen, her parents felt they couldn’t deal with her and sent her 100 miles from home to work in a psychiatric hospital. Over the next few years, she became more depressed as she worked with the mentally ill patients, especially when one committed suicide. She herself became suicidal and tried a few times to commit suicide and was sent back home to her parents. While they were waiting to commit her to a hospital for the mentally ill, she went to a gospel meeting and accepted Jesus as her Savior. And she became a fervent evangelist.

But her life didn’t become easy. She met and married a man only to be abused by him both mentally and physically. Eventually they got divorced and she went to South Africa and then Malawi. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world – depending on the study, in 2016, they were either #3 or #6. In a nation of 12 million people, Malawi has 1 million orphans and Annie felt drawn to helping them, many of whom had HIV/Aids. She met her second husband in Africa. But her husband’s children thought she was trying to steal their inheritance and tried to have her killed. Through all these problems, she kept her faith in God and finally started Kondanani Children’s Village. She started with babies and as they grew added a nursery school, then an elementary school, etc. This book tells her complete story - all the problems she has had in her life and how she kept her faith and belief no matter what happened to her.… (more)