CCAP’s brutal pastoral letter warns ‘hunger kills even those who pray’

The CCAP Nkhoma Synod has issued a stark warning to Malawians, urging them to combine prayer with urgent practical preparations as the country braces for possible food shortages amid the growing threat of El Niño conditions later this year.

The call was made in a pastoral letter signed by the Synod’s Moderator, Reverend Absalom Joseph Nyasulu, and Senior Clerk, Reverend Armstrong Kuthyola Mwale, who cautioned that climate change and worsening environmental degradation mean prayer alone will not be enough to stave off hunger.

In the letter, the Synod urged members to embrace irrigation and plant early-maturing crops such as sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes and cassava to safeguard food supplies, while also cautioning families against selling off existing food stocks unnecessarily.

“Considering that you may have sweet potatoes and cassava now, you may keep maize, soya beans and groundnuts so that you may eat them in future,” the letter states.

The Synod went further, delivering a blunt warning about the dangers of hunger and its wider consequences.

“A hungry person cannot go to church; a hungry person is someone whose anger cannot lead him to salvation. Hunger kills people — even those who pray,” the letter says.

Crucially, the church also cautioned members against becoming reliant on government relief food, warning that self-sufficiency must come first.

The warning comes as an El Niño Preparedness Brief released in June by the Ministry of Natural Resources projects that Malawi faces an above 80 percent probability of below-normal rainfall in December in parts of the country, with up to a 60 percent chance of below-normal rainfall between January and March next year, alongside fewer rainy days overall.

The brief notes that previous strong El Niño episodes left as many as 2.8 million and 4.2 million people food insecure in past years.

However, a recent Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee report estimates that 2.6 million people will be unable to meet their annual food requirements during the 2026-27 lean period — representing 14 percent of the projected national population, and a figure 35 percent lower than the four million people estimated to be food insecure in 2025.

The report attributes the projected improvement to increased maize production, which is expected to reach 3.3 million tonnes this year, up from 2.85 million tonnes last year.