Two Sunday’s ago, I sat in a church in a village outside of the city of Lilongwe. Church started at 9 am and my teammate Miranda and myself were 2 hours late. So we walked in across the front of the church which was a one room school house. All of the women were sitting on the floor and the men were on desk benches. They had 2 red velvet chairs right up front for guests of honor and today we were the guests of honor. We took our seats and settled in for the rest of the church service. Only in Africa can you arrive 2 hours late for church and still have over 2 hours of service to go. Every service I have been to here goes something like this.
Welcome and Announcements
Sing Chorus’s – where twerking as a form of worship is not inappropriate and man can they dance
Sing Worship songs – yes, it is different from the chorus’s
Announcements
Welcome the first preacher to the stage – for the teaching that will last approximately an hour
Greet each other
More chorus’s
More Worship
Offering
Welcome the second preacher to the stage (or the first one again) – for the preaching that will last over an hour as well
Sing another chorus
Welcome the white missionaries to the stage to give any sermon they have prepared (or haven’t prepared)
Announcements
Goodbyes and maybe an assembly line where we get to shake every church member’s hand
Anyway, that is not the point to this blog.
As I was sitting awkwardly in this church, having everyone stare at me and trying to follow along with the interpreted sermon that I just couldn’t understand even with the translation, the Lord spoke to me. But before he did that, I wondered why I was there. The people weren’t super welcoming, we were late, they stared at us all through the sermon. I was asked to go forward to pray for a man pledging money to the offering, but thought I was praying over the money so I got to the front of the church and tried to take his money from him to pray over it and he wouldn’t give it to me. Our translator got up after a minute of me staring awkwardly at the congregation not knowing what to do to tell me that I was praying over the man…”Oh ok, now that makes a lot of sense.” Then we had to leave before they were finished so in the middle of the pastor talking, our translator makes us get up and leave early from the service. We go and get in our car only to have to get back out because the church did not do their proper goodbyes to us…shake everyone’s hands and get back in. But somewhere in between the awkward prayer and the awkward goodbye’s the Lord showed me the hearts of the people. There was 42 people in attendance, 18 women, 18 children and 6 men to be exact. I know that because they announce the attendance to the church. After they announce the attendance they let everyone know what the offering total was for the week. It came out to be 590 Malawian Kwacha. That is the equivalent of around $1.25. That is it, yet they gave everything they had. Then they had to have a discussion. They needed 2000 Kwacha or somewhere around $4 to buy fire wood and pay a man back that they loaned money from. So they set out to brain storm how to get this money. They had just given all they could to the regular offering. For 20 minutes there was a discussion and they all had ideas, working more, everyone bringing fire wood, selling more fruits and veggies and at the end of the conversation they decided to all go find more fire wood and bring whatever little money they could to help pay back the loan. 2000 Kwacha would have been easy for me to just give them and trust me, I wanted to, but it would go against what I believe in and what God was trying to show me.
Then this past Sunday, I was again sitting in church and it was time for offering. This time, I was at a bigger church of about 150 people and the offering totaled 8000 Kwacha or $16. A few minutes later, they were taking up an offering to bless the pastor. Several people gave money, but still many of them did not have money to give. Some people left the church to go home to get something to give. At the end of the service,the altar was cover with so many offerings. Everything from eggs, bread, oil and milk to chickens and soap. To sit in a service with so many who are struggling to survive day to day life and yet they give not out of their abundance, but out of their little is humbling. I think about the many times where it has been hard for me to want to write my tithe check on a Sunday morning but I do it out of obedience. Maybe some of the people were giving out of obedience, but I also believe they were giving with joyful hearts because they knew they were giving back to God and the pastor of the church. It makes me rethink how little is too little to give. When you are giving all that you can with the right heart, that is all that matters to God.
