Malawi Wowie A to Z
A is for Anthony, our main contact in Malawi. He worked for Harvesters International and was in charge of their northern Malawi division. My team traveled with him in northern Malawi, working with the local pastors in each village we visited.
B is for Bucket Shower, which is exactly as it sounds. You sit or crotch or stand in a bucket of water and use a bowl (or your hands) to dump water over yourself. I took maybe 2 bucket showers my entire 3 weeks in Malawi…..it just was too time consuming and really, what’s the point when you’re dirty 10 minutes later?
C is for Christmas! Because it happened when we were in Malawi.
D is for Discipleship. This was issue weighed on all of our hearts during our three weeks- there was just such a need in Malawi for discipleship of new believers and discipleship for the leaders in the church.
E is for Eagerness. I have never before met so many people so eager and hungry to hear about Jesus. Everywhere we went people wanted to know about Him. It was awesome!
F is for Five Alive Berry Blast and Apple Splash Juices- some of the best tasting refreshments ever in the history of Africa.
G is for Goodwin. Goodwin was one of our favorite people we met in Malawi, he traveled to a couple locations with us and did a lot of translating for us. He has one of the biggest servant hearts I have ever experienced. We just loved him!
H is for Hannah because that is my name and this is my blog.
I is for Instant Coffee, the one item I never thought I would come to enjoy and the one item my team couldn’t live without.
J is for Jumping. This is what Cori, Tiffany, and myself did one day when we were sitting by Lake Malawi, the most ocean like lake I ever seen. If someone had told me it was the ocean I would have believed them- there were waves, a beach, non-slimly bottom, rocks to climb on. BEAUTIFUL.
K is for Kwacha, the Malawian currency. It was approximately 150 Kwacha per US Dollar, which I never remembered until we left Malawi.
L is for Likuchi, home to Pastor Clenly (spelling most likely off), one of the pastors we worked with in Malawi and our Christmas location.
M is for Mango Tree. At one location we camped under a mango tree and throughout the day and night mangos would drop on our tents and in a few instances almost hit our heads.
N is for Nature. While in Malawi God spoke to me through nature, which is something I hadn’t really experienced before.
O is for Owen, the name the pastors gave to my teammate Warren.
Preaching and Prayer. Basically everyday we had an opportunity to preach/teach; I ended up preaching a Sunday sermon twice. Prayer is something that God has been teaching me about this entire trip and He really put it on my heart to use our time in Malawi to delve into prayer even more.
Q is for Quintuplets. We never saw any quintuplets while in Malawi but I bet there’s some somewhere in that place…..
R is for rice and beans, which is pretty much all we ate.
S is for Sweet Thai Chili chips, some of the most amazing chips I have ever tasted.
T is for Truth. This is the word that God gave me over and over for Malawi. God wants the people of Malawi to seek His truth above all else and to follow it, even if their culture is telling them something else.
U is for Up, Up Jesus! This phrase was something the pastors and leaders we worked loved to say throughout their services. (The entire phrase is Up, Up, Jesus, Down, Down, Devil)
V is for vans. We traveled to 4 different villages while in Malawi and therefore spent much time in vans.
W is for Wan don day la, e ne a wae….this is my attempt to write in Chichewa (local Malawian language) the lyrics to a song that one of our pastors was determined to have us memorize.
X is for Xeric, which means- dry or desert like conditions, having very little moisture. This was the opposite of Malawi, which was lush, green, humid, and beautiful. Yes, I looked this word up online because all I could think of for X was X-ray and Xylophone.
Y is for year. Year 2009 ended and 2010 began while in Malawi! Yay!
Z is for Z End! (compliments of Kelly Rampmeyer)
