The city of Blantyre looks different than it did before June 15. Several hundred Seventh-day Adventists from 13 city churches participated in a major cleanup of Malawi’s largest city.

Blantyre City Mayor Paul Chikakwiya recognized the Adventist contribution and commended hundreds of church members for helping to clean up the city.

“The Adventist Church, in taking the time to go out and clean the city, has shown that they are one with us in development,” Chikakwiya said. He urged “all Christians in the city of Blantyre to emulate the good example shown by the Adventists.”

The clean-up exercise stemmed from a call made by Pastor Shadrach Zoya, president of the Adventist Church in the South Malawi region. He asked all churches in the area “to come and clean up the city where we live. As residents of Blantyre [we need] to give something back to the city where we reside,” he said.

Zoya said that “from now on, we will be carrying out cleaning exercises in the city on a regular basis.”

Four regions of the city were designated as needing “critical attention.” Two bus stations, a hospital and a market were flooded with the presence of uniformed Adventists. An elder of a local church said that “Onlookers were surprised but happy to see a church organization doing work that ordinarily is done by the city council. When other churches see this, they will hopefully join hands with us.”

Speaking after the clean-up, Roy Chasweka, a councilor at the Blantyre City Council, said, “I am very happy to learn that the leaders of the Adventist Church had arranged this activity. I commend the Adventists for doing this job. I hope that other organizations and churches will emulate this example.”

Blantyre is Malawi’s commercial and industrial hub. There are more than 200,000 Adventists worshipping in 742 congregations in the country.