Thank you for your interest in coming to serve in Malawi. At Hope for the Future we value the local church and we work together with your pastor so that our time together on the mission field would be beneficial for the Gospel work. Here is what needs to be done prior to your trip:
- God’s will. Be sure it’s God’s will for you to come and at least you have a strong desire to serve on a foreign field.
- Communicate. Let us know of your intention and let’s see how best to get you involved and when is the best time to do it. We will answer all your questions, give you more details, explain what the fees are and so on.
- Let your church know. Make sure your pastor/church leader knows about your desire to come to Malawi. Him and the entire church has to know and be in agreement.
- Personal Application Form. Make sure you and every member of your team fills in this Personal Application Form. If you’ve done this in the past, you don’t need to do it again.
- Reference Letter. The pastor or a deacon from your church should fill the Reference Letter, once for every new individual. He should repeat this form for the same individual only if his recommendation has changed.
Once these two forms have been submitted and accepted, you can proceed with the next steps. - E-visa. Several nationalities are no longer required to have visas, among them also the US citizens. Please double check this by going to the Malawi Immigration Page and selecting your nationality: https://evisa.gov.mw/VisaAssistance.
If you are still requested to apply for an electronic visa, here is what you need to do:
To start, you will need to head over to https://evisa.gov.mw and create an account if you don’t already have one. When the page opens, you will find the “Login” button at the top right of the page. Click on that and then, on the next page, you will have the possibility to Register a new account. Alternatevely, you could also just click here: Register a new Account.
Each individual should create their own account, except for families, which can share an account. In this case, one would be the account holder and the rest dependents.
This process should be simple for everyone but, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me and I’ll be glad to assist you. I recommend that you have a digital passport size photo taken within the last 6 months and a scanned copy of your passport. You will also need an Invitation Letter from our mission, which will be given to you at the appropriate time.
If it helps, I recorded a video a while back, which should still be relevant: Going to Africa: e-Visas for Malawi – how to apply for an online visa.
At the time writing of this post, the visa fee was $52/person. If all the information provided is correct, your visa should be approved within 1 week, although it can take longer. Some people have been experiencing issues at the last step, the payment. If I understand correctly, Malawi is using a payment gateway widely accepted in Europe, which requires all the debit and credit cards to be enrolled in a system called 3D Secure. As some people from outside Europe were unable to pay using their credit cards, we recommend you try with a personal debit card. If it still doesn’t work, we can help by paying for your visa, in which case, you will just refund us the cost later. - Checklist. We encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with the contents of this document. It contains important information about Malawi, its people and culture, Hope for the Future ministry, the do’s and the don’ts, your trip, etc.: bit.ly/h4f-checklist.
If you have any other questions or need more information, feel free to contact me.
We look forward to say to you: Welcome to Malawi! Takulandirani!
