As I am coming to the end of Debrief in Malawi, I wanted to post some of the sights and people I’ve been seeing. I know none of you can be out here on the field with me, but I want you to be as close as possible! So, without further ado… Here’s Photo Blog Pt. 3!!!
My last photo blog ended while we were still in El Salvador! Woah, that was a long time ago! Since then, our last weekend in El Swag was spent as a squad on the banks of Coatepeque! If you wont know what that is, go visit my last photo blog and you will see previous pictures with better descriptions!
Once we arrived in Malawi, Team ABS and I got to go to Zomba! It is a beautiful city in Malawi with lots of mountains, rain, and loving people surrounding us.
Zumba actually used to be the capitol of Malawi until just a few years ago when they moved the capitol to Lilongwe. This worked out perfect for us because there was still all the stores and businesses from being in a capitol, but not all the people and hustle and bustle of a city.
Our ministry in Zomba was to go to house churches four days a week and then go to Pastor Isac’s church on Sundays and we would preach! Thats right, all of us 18 & 19 year olds were all of a sudden preachers! It was really nerve wrecking at first, but then we saw God show up over and over again in all of our messages and He began to give us a peace about speaking, so it got less and less scary. This is Emma preaching the first house service we ever went to.
We almost always walked to ministry, no matter how far away it was. This day we had walked 3 miles to visit a church in the rain when we came upon this bridge. We were all pretty scared to walk across it especially because we’ve all seen the movie where someones walking on the sketchy bridge and all of a sudden, they just drop. NONE of us wanted that to happen, so we scurried across as fast as we could. Then Isac, our translator, told us to go back on the bridge for a picture! So we all had to go back on the sketchy bridge so he could take lots of pictures of us. By the end of it we were all laughing and having a great time!
One day we had a house service where only children and a few women showed up to. It was Christmas eve and if I’m honest with you, it was just a really bad day. We had been out in town that morning and had been “harassed” by street vendors and there was some miscommunication with some of the team on who was going where so some people got lost or confused and it was just a bad situation all together. By the time ministry came, none of us wanted to go. We were all grouchy and tired. But we went and when we did, God gave us a gift. He knew exactly what we needed that day and wrapped it up in little african children and women. All the little girls wanted to do was love us and all the women wanted to do was dance with us. The girls got as close as they could to us during the whole service. They were sure to each be holding a hand of yours or touching you in some way. God knew we needed a little love and joy that day, and he made sure we got it!
One of our last nights in Zomba, we had a movie night with the kids in our village who always played outside our house. We all watched the Lion King together and all of the boys thought it was hilarious! They were doing little dances and humming along with all of the songs that played. Over the three weeks we were in Zomba, I fell in love with these kiddos and getting to have this last sweet night with them filled my heart with joy!
After that month is Zomba, our squad had team changes. It was really hard to leave team ABS, but team JIGSAW gave me so much freedom and joy! From Left to right we have Kaitlyn, Maggie, Jenna, Hailey, Tara, Me, Katie, and Whitney!
Our team moved to Lilongwe to work with a pastor named Blessings. Each day we have different ministries. Sunday: we go to church and give two sermons and two testimonies. Monday: is our off day where we get to do grocery shopping for the week or grab wifi or rest or do whatever we need. Tuesday: we went to a hair salon and preached during their break. Wednesday: it changed but sometimes we would go to other churches and preach or we’d do feeding programs and tell bible stories. Thursdays: soccer ministry where we play soccer ministry with kids and then do a devotional at the end of practice. Fridays: We went to a baby orphanage for children under two years old and we would sit and hold the babies or feed them and just help out by showing love to the kids. Saturdays: a lot like Wednesdays, it would change.
We took buses everywhere we went because all of our ministries were super spread apart throughout the city.
One of the ministries we did, we went to a school and told different bible stories to each of the classes. The story I taught was Joshua and the battle of Jericho. I had all the kids act it out. There were the seven priests with the trumpets and everyone else was a soldier in Joshuas army. Everyones stuff was in the middle of the room and represented Jericho. Once they all marched the seven times and the walls came down all the kids got to have a “battle” to capture their stuff. It ended up looking pretty much like a bar fight, but it was still great! All the kids loved it and could tell you the story line from it and tell you about Gods power, so the goal was met! haha
To get to the school we had to take bike taxi’s! America should for sure get on this bike taxi program! You just go up and pay a small amount and then you sit on a seat on the back of their bike and they ride you where you need to go!
All of these photos are taken at our soccer ministry program.
If you know me, you know that I don’t particularly like exercise… but I do like kids! So while some are playing soccer, I hang out with all the younger siblings and play fun games with them! Some of their favorite things to do are to dance and learn English songs!
This is a game that the kiddos taught me thats in essence human tug of war. if you let go you have to go into the winning line and help them, but if you don’t the other person has to get in your line.
All the kids love showing off for the cameras. I’m pretty sure they’re all either secret gymnasts or ninjas…
Like i said up above, after each practice we gather all of the kids and have a devotion time where we dance and sing and tell bible stories.
A few of us on team JIG got the rare and amazing opportunity to go to Zambia for a few days. If you want to read more about how God showed up for us there, be sure to read my last blog!
On day 1 in Zambia I spontaneously decided to get a weave… It took three hours to do! It was totally worth it though!
While in Zambia we saw lots of cool animals! Such as Zebras at a restaurant…
Monkeys at the falls… (also, these guys are MEAN! They attacked us every chance they got!)
& elephants on the side of the road!
The falls were definitely some of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life!
Some of the girls even bungee jumped off of them! They bungeed a total of 111m down into the canyon!
Something special my team got to do this month was cook for ourselves. We had everything from “Hairy” hotdogs…
to empanadas from seven-eleven…
to traditional Malawian cuisine of Pumpkin leaven, peanuts, and tomatoes!
And now we’re here at debrief! We are staying at Cape McClear, Lake Malawi for the week.
I’ve gotten to see all of my family from Team Abs!
And go on some crazy adventures with them!
My favorite adventure though was getting to stand beside Emma and Allie as they followed in obedience and stepped into the freedom God has for them! It was such a beautiful thing to be with my sisters on this ebenezer stone of an occasion!
Now, in my last blog I told you how I would be getting a new team soon. Well, i found out who that new team is! Its Jenna, Maggie, Hailey, Whitney, and Kaitlyn! That’s right! Team JIGSAW is here for round two! So we will be going back to our same ministry host in Lilongwe to be working with all the same programs we did before and we couldn’t be more excited about it! Even better news we are being joined with team Batala! So that means I will be living with Molly again and will be getting four new sisters as well! Please continue to pray for our teams as we start out our last month here in Africa. Pray that we will all stay away from sickness and that we will grow together in a deeper way that ever before!
Thank you all for taking the time to pray for me and keep up with my race! I love you all so much and i’m so grateful for you!
