New on The Christian Chronicle’s website, you’ll find a multimedia blitz from my reporting trip to Malawi. Words alone cannot describe this country in southern Africa — home to more Church of Christ members per capita than any nation in the world — so I did my best to fill our website with expanded photo galleries, audio recordings and videos.

On Cyber Monday we posted links to gifts you can buy from church-supported ministries. Now, here’s a chance to send a Christmas gift to children in Africa. NBC Nightly News ran a “Making a Difference” segment on Little Dresses for Africa, a nonprofit, Christian-based organization which “provides relief to the children of Africa,” according to the ministry’s website. “Simple dresses are made out of pillowcases and distributed through the orphanages, churches and schools in Africa to plant in the hearts of little girls that they are worthy.”

I’m returning from a two-week reporting trip for our Global South series to Swaziland, South Africa and Malawi. It will take me weeks to process all of the information I’ve gathered, but the one thought that sticks out in my mind is that we truly are a family of believers — no matter what continent we call home.

The D-Malikebu Church of Christ is a simple brick building with stone pews that seem to melt into the floor. I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s no sign outside the building. But everybody seems to know that it’s here. It’s been here — in a small village of the southern African nation of Malawi — since 1964, though the Christians had to rebuild it once after a fire. About 170 members worship here. The church has four elders.

No dessert is more American than apple pie. And no dessert is more South African than malva pudding, or so I’m told. I got heaping helpings of both tonight at the home of Chris Burke. I’m here at his home in Benoni, a suburb of Johannesburg, in between reporting trips to Swaziland and Malawi. I rode here this morning from Swaziland with Fielden and Janet Allison, who teach at African Christian College and are beginning a 10-week road trip with their marriage enrichment ministry.