By Casey Jarmes | The News-Review
SIGOURNEY – Asante Henry Masanche, the pastor from Blantyre, Malawi, visited Sigourney from Jan. 3-8. Masanche operates Brothers in Arms Ministry, a church that takes in, houses, and teaches homeless children in Malawi. He opened his church in 2019; since then, 150 children have gone through the program.
“This started up as a ministry of the church. We went to plant a church somewhere closer to town, and as we were praying there, we saw street children eating from the dustbin,” said Masanche. “It was so bad that we asked, ‘Could you guys join us for Bible study? And after the Bible study, we’ll give you a piece of bread or something to eat, not really eat from the dustbin.’ So we did that, and the next week, when we went back there for Bible study, the boys came back and joined us in the Bible study, and that became a routine. And then we felt that maybe God has sent us to town, to minister to them, not necessarily to plant a church. Maybe He has sent us to give them a home, maybe to help them find purpose, and maybe find their way back into the community.”
Malawi, a nation of 21 million people in Easter Africa, has heavy problems with poverty and homelessness. Children staying at Masanche’s campus are given shelter, taught about the Bible, and given vocational training so they can leave the church as responsible citizens. The center has a farm where children help grow the food they eat at the center. Masanche stated that the farm helps teach kids a daily routine and how to farm on their own land after they leave. The center has football and basketball teams, to teach the children patience, hard work, and to socialize with other children in the community. Masanche also does ministry in juvenile prisons, teaching bible studies, providing education materials, and helping inmates after they are released.
Kelly Mousel, Outreach Coordinator of Sigourney evangelical church Be the Light Ministry, came into contact with Masanche shortly after his ministry began, while looking into doing missionary work in Africa. Her church has been partnered with Brothers in Arms for five years, helping pay to build the center and the farm, cover operating costs, and sponsoring children at the center. This month, Masanche visited Sigourney to thank the church partners and explain the work he had been doing. He noted that it had been difficult to get a visa to travel to the U.S. and that he had to make this trip shortly after his wife had given birth.
During his time in Iowa, Masanche also visited the Snakenberg and Hinnah farms, toured Sinclair Tractor, toured the school, and attended a pair of high school basketball games. He noted that Iowa was very cold and that he was shocked by how much space there was between houses, in contrast to the crowded city of Blantyre. “What a beautiful community, I think. It’s been refreshing, and very beautiful visiting here,” the pastor said.
After leaving Sigourney, Masanche visited another church that sponsors his ministry, located in Colorado, and visited Washington before traveling home to Malawi. He stated that his ministry had grown last year and that he wanted to bring in more children and expand their farming, obtaining more land and expanding their irrigation system, so the farm can support their outreach ministries and juvenile program.
Mousel stated that the visit went wonderfully, with Masanche being moved by the community, the beauty of Iowa, and the family atmosphere at Be the Light. She stated that she first came into contact with Masanche during the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was a curfew in place in Blantyre, with homeless boys arrested for being on the streets at night. At that time, Masanche was taking homeless boys into his own home. She stated that, when they met, he was only a few days away from sending the boys out onto the street because he couldn’t afford to feed his family. “And so that is the beauty of what God does. And since then, since our church’s beginning, we have agreed and trusted in God that God would help,” said Mousel.
“The visit was an answered prayer,” said Mousel. “Because sometimes, when you’re dealing with an international non-profit, you help see the idea start at inception and then just seeing the beauty of it, and sometimes just seeing the boys on FaceTime and knowing that they exist, and talking to Paster Asante and messaging him, you know that it is real, but to see the fruition of prayer come in physical form, there’s nothing like it. It’s amazing. It was blessed from the start. We felt a connection, because we had already built this friendship for the past five years. But to see him, to shake his hand, to hug him, to say, ‘This is what God has done,’ it’s marvelous. And then to hear his stories, and to hear how these boys that literally had no hope, and these hart-wrenching stories about how they were digging in the garbage for food because they were orphaned, or one of their parents had left them, and one boy was trying to support his grandfather because that’s all he had left, because his grandfather supported him, and then his grandfather got too old to work, and so he was trying to go beg in the streets to take care of his invalid grandfather. You just sit and you cry, but then to hear that this boy, now he’s a man, and he has a vocation that he learned through the giving of God’s people, and he has an education now and a family now.”
