I’m Bob Gorman, managing editor of the Watertown Daily Times.

For two weeks in April 2007, I visited the African nation of Malawi as part of a growing partnership between the Presbytery of Northern New York and the Synod of Livingstonia, which oversees Presbyterian churches in the northern portion of Malawi.

I traveled with the pastor of Watertown’s First Presbyterian Church Fred Garry, his daughter, Laura, a Watertown High School senior who will attend St. Lawrence University in the fall; and Kathryn Ann Kolton, a nurse practitioner at Watertown Internists. Together, we received a first-hand account at how this partnership is growing.

By most accounts, Malawians are considered Africa’s friendliest people. Travel guides agree that the nation deserves the self-proclaimed title of “The Warm Heart of Africa.”

Nestled among Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania, Malawi is one of Africa’s smallest countries, and yet it has a special place in history. It is here that Dr. David Livingstone of Scotland began his quest into unveiling Africa. His work in Malawi captured world attention, and he inspired legions of Scotsmen to risk all as missionaries.

These missionaries practiced a level of equality with their hosts not seen in most African colonies. In the field, they infused African music and dance into liturgical services. In lectures back home, they challenged Europe’s notion that Africans were an inferior race.

This historic relationship can best be seen at Old Bandawe Mission Station. There, Malawians have maintained a cemetery where many of these missionaries are buried. The site offers a quiet testimony to sacrifice and love. As one Malawian minister said to me: "We maintain this because these missionaries brought us the gospel, and through the gospel we have been saved by Christ."

Malawi is long and slender, and includes the majority of the 365-mile long Lake Malawi. This leaves Malawi with roughly the same livable square mileage as Indiana. Malawi’s population of 13 and a half million, however, is twice that of the Hoosier state.

But all other comparisons can be made only to countries that are wracked by poverty and disease. Life expectancy in Malawi has actually dropped in the last half century, and now stands at 42 years of age. So many young and middle age adults have died in the last decade that 46 percent of the population is under the age of 14. It is common in Malawi to find grandparents raising their grandchildren -- the middle generation is gone.

As primary wage earners die by the thousands, Malawi is ranked as one of the world’s five poorest countries, with an average income of less than $2 a day per person.

AIDS draws much of the attention -- and outside money -- given to the region. But it is malaria that is the leading cause of death here. Once bitten by a mosquito carrying the malaria parasite, infants and toddlers will likely die if they don’t receive immediate medical treatment. And adults, who previously were healthy enough to weather frequent flu-like bouts of malaria, will die quickly if their immune system has been weakened by HIV-AIDS.

To limit the spread of malaria, the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian and other groups provide bed nets to rural villagers. The bed nets are treated with an insecticide that will kill mosquitoes on contact but is not harmful to humans. Yet the $5 nets are expensive for Malawians. So far, only 2 million nets have been distributed in the country.

Malawi’s economy is hamstrung by inadequate transportation, manufacturing and communication, but it is the lack of health services that keeps the nation ensnared in poverty. Consider the Ekwendeni hospital.

Today it serves 70,000 people in its encatchment area, while admitting an average of 20 people a day, half of whom are women about to give birth.

Most patients can’t afford to pay. Those who can are only asked to contribute 200 kwatchas for their entire stay -- approximately $1.40.

The hospital provides only limited medical care. Food, bathing and personal care for patients must be provided by relatives.

We were given a tour of the hospital by Sege Kayuni, who works with eight clinicians and dozens of nurses, but is the only doctor at Ekwendeni. We also met Flemmings Nkhandwe, the principal of the College of Nursing. Kathryn Ann Kolton did a quick review of his library and noted that it was well stocked -- except all the textbooks are 30 years old.

After the tour, we gave Dr. Kayuni a trunk full of medicine and other supplies. After lugging three such trunks from Watertown, we felt we had brought a lot of medical help for patients. But as Kathryn Ann noted, after seeing so many people in need, the trunks suddenly looked very small.

Yet Dr. Kayuni wasn’t complaining. And when he opened a package that held a $750 fetal doppler, he paused, held it up for close inspection, and then produced a big smile.

He turned to us and said, “I will take this home with me tonight; my wife is pregnant.”

We also visited the home of Presbyterian missionaries Jim and Jodi McGill, and the six Malawian children they have adopted. Jodi provides health education at the Ekwendeni hospital, and Jim helps link the most rural villages with international organizations that provide clean water through shallow well technology.

The McGills helped the Rev. Garry determine how to distribute thousands of dollars raised in Watertown to help widows, many of whom have lost their husbands to AIDS or malaria. Simply handing money to women in Malawi can make them targets for criminals. But by working with missionaries and church officials, a number of widows in the synod will receive sheet metal roofing for their homes, fertilizer for crops, and school tuition for their children.

We also visited the villages of Kabwanda and Chivumu. There, we distributed toothbrushes given to us by Kinney’s Drugs and Dr. Stephen Alhgrim. We also gave out 80 pen pal kits from students at Watertown’s Sherman Elementary School, and we had the Malawi students write back to students here.

In Chivumu, we inspected the new classrooms that people in Watertown helped build. Two years ago, members of our church lugged bricks to the new school site, walking past the wall-less hut that had been the school.

But on our trip, we walked from classroom to classroom, and filled out paperwork while sitting at desks purchased by the Watertown Family YMCA.

It is safe to say that in the village of Chivumu, they know the name of Watertown, New York.

In the midst of our travels, we spent several days working to bring a little bit of Malawi to the north country this summer. One of the main reasons of our trip was to help secure travel visas for the Mzuzu Praise Team, a choir directed by Grace Chiumia, who runs the malaria education program at the Ekwendeni hospital.

At the United States Embassy in Lilongwe, we met U.S. Ambassador Alan Eastham and delivered letters of support for the visas from Congressman John McHugh and State Senator Jim Wright. We also met with consulate officials who would be involved in making a final decision.

We returned with the choir the next week to wait anxiously as one by one they were interviewed about their backgrounds and plans in the U.S.

The McGills and other church officials had warned us that several choir members would likely be turned down. Since no choir members are married, have full-time jobs or own land, they would be seen as flight risks.

Yet, all 15 travel visa were approved, and the choir will sing in north country churches during July.

Before getting back in their van for the six-hour drive to Mzuzu, a joyous choir decided to sing a hymn of praise. As they were singing, I turned toward the embassy and saw this: Many of the Malawians in security and maintenance had come outside the building to listen. When the choir finished, this impromptu "audience" applauded.

It became obvious that the Malawians at the embassy -- who all kept a detached, professional manner while the visa process was underway -- were in reality emotionally caught up in our efforts to help their countrymen visit the U.S.

Getting all 15 visas was by no means a miracle, and yet when I heard the applause, I realized we just accomplished something special.

No one can visit another country once and tell its story with proper depth and weight. And, I found it difficult to look at Malawi and not see it with Western eyes. Pave this dirt road, you think, and then add underground utilities. Build a hundred condos and a golf course along the lake, and pretty soon you could really have something.

But then you learn about the cycles of drought and famine in Malawi. You find yourself walking in a bone-dry field with a herd of emaciated cattle. It quickly brings you back to reality.

And reality is this: Malawi must be developed by Malawians at a pace that respects the values and traditions of its people. Malawians seek partnerships, not handouts. Thus, if you want to truly help, it is not enough to simply know the problem; you must know the person.

Every child we met in Malawi knows enough English to say the following: “Good morning, how are you?” And when you answer, “I am fine, how are you?” They respond, “I am fine, thank you very much.”

You hear your language spoken properly. You see a smile you can’t forget. Your ears and eyes tell you that all is fine.

But it isn’t. The future of Malawi and most of sub-Sahara Africa is being sabotaged by malaria. And as long as this disease is unchecked, there will be poverty.

With the help of chemicals that have since been banned, the Western world eradicated malaria years ago. That has allowed unfettered growth, even in steamy, wet regions such as the American Southeast.

But not so in Africa, where over the course of a year, millions of people lie for days in sweltering brick and mud huts, fighting through malaria’s chills and fever, unable to fish or work the fields, unable to provide for their families. And they’re the lucky ones because every 30 seconds, malaria kills another person, usually a child.

In the New Testament, the writer of the first letter of John asks a haunting question: "Whosoever has the world’s goods, and upon seeing his brother in need closes his heart, how does the love of God abide in him?"

Two thousand years later, in the Warm Heart of Africa, that question still awaits an answer.