Our partnership with Pastor Robert Manda and his New Life Church and the Pastoral Training Institute of Africa along with our prayers and investments in these ministries have had a very significant impact on equipping people and sharing the Gospel with the people of Malawi. New Life Church now has a membership of over 500 and the Pastoral Training Institute is now training its third cohort of pastors and has planted 30 churches in villages across Malawi.
We had a team of five visit Malawi in June 2019. While we were there we were able to attend Sunday worship with them. We worked alongside them to build a playground for the children and planted a large garden. The women on our team had a very unique experience as they visited nearby villages of church members and served elderly women in need. We also visited the Rafiki Village in Mzuzu and along the way visited several new church planters.
Dave Aupperle is the White Clay Creek advocate for this ministry.
Click here for the latest video update from Pastor Robert.
Robert Manda Biography:
Robert Manda was born and raised in Mzuzu, Malawi, Southern Africa and now resides in Lilongwe, Malawi with his wife Sheila and two daughters, Mercy 7, and Joanna 2 years old.
Pastor Robert comes from a strong Presbyterian heritage. His great grandfather served with Dr. David Livingstone, his grandfather was a Presbyterian preacher, and his brother-in-law has served as General Secretary to the Synod Central region of Malawi. He has been Pastor of New Life (Presbyterian) Church in Lilongwe for the past 10 years and is currently serving this growing church that now has over 500 members with attendance of more than one thousand each week, including children.
Robert graduated from the African Bible College in 2007 with a degree in Biblical Theology and a minor in Christian Education. He then served as an intern with UrbanPromise International in Camden, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware, USA during 2007 - 2008. After receiving his Masters of Divinity at Kosin University in South Korea in 2014, he returned home to continue serving in New Life Church in Lilongwe, Malawi.
His passion for ministry, (from 2 Timothy 2) is to see many gospel centered churches being planted in Malawi and across Africa. In 2015, he founded the Pastoral Training Institute of Africa (PTIA). The school is designed to train and equip pastors and church planters to reach rural areas in Malawi. PTIA has graduated 18 pastors and supported more than 20 church plants within the past four years.
Pastor Robert is also a founder of Mercy Cares Malawi, a ministry started in 2008, with a girls empowerment program and an after school program, and now includes Mercy Care High School, reaching out to over 300 children and youth in Lilongwe, Malawi. He continues to serve on the Board of Directors for this ministry.
Pastor Robert holds additional leadership posts including serving as the youngest member of the Malawi Council of Churches and as Co-Director of the Rural Collective for Acts 29, a global network of churches focused on planting healthy and reproducing churches in rural areas.