August is over, which is hard to believe. School has started back up and for the first time in my memory I am not in a classroom or lecture hall, although I will be working in one. Fall is transitioning in. Starbucks will change drinks soon. TCU football is starting GO FROGS. And I am in my concrete home in Malawi. Life is weird but life is good.
Malawi is like a breath of fresh air. But only metaphorically, because the roads and yards are quite dusty. I am also still figuring out how the sky here seems to be more consistently magnificent. Something about our new home just makes me feel more poetic (without actually making me more poetic). But to be honest, I’m having a hard time letting you in on life here. I can’t quite find the words to describe it. I want to tell you how true some of the stereotypes are, but I don’t want that to be all you see. I want to give you a picture of the beauty, perseverance, and joy here, but I don’t want you to mentally put sappy music behind it like a TV commercial because the people here are just real people living daily lives.
Here’s the other thing: life here is slower and more intentional. And I’m working on embracing it. But I know in the back of my mind that most of your lives are speeding up. You’re starting to do more each day, walk faster, maybe drive faster, plan further out, and work on new goals. So I’m going to tell you about Malawi using a pre-school acrostic poem, and because I know your lives are busy, it means a lot that you’re giving her a minute of your time.
BALUTI is the name of the little town we live in. We thought we were rural, but it turns out that the real rural is somewhere other than where we are.
BOYS. We live with three, who are now our brothers. They are kind, funny, and have an honest hunger to know God. We feel way safer and capable with them around to show us the ropes and translate. They work extremely hard—getting up at 4-5am to start the cleaning and re-filling water buckets throughout the house. We’ve started doing a bible study all together in the evenings, and my favorite part is when someone prays in Chichewa, which is the local language here. It sounds beautifully African. I love hearing about their pasts and their dreams, which are amazing stories of redemption and hope.
AMENITIES. We have everything we need, and are slowly realizing that in fact, we have much more than we need. I appreciate water more now than I ever have, that’s for sure. We have a spicket in the front of the house, and plenty of buckets to keep filled for when the water (mysteriously?) turns off. We also have a stove! And a little charcoal one for when the electricity also (mysteriously, ~daily) turns off. We do things differently, that’s for sure, and I feel a little like we’re in potting training again with our hole-in-the-ground toilet.
LITTLE KIDS. They are always and everywhere and smiling. I was dozing in a hammock one day, and woke up to little black faces staring down at me from the brick wall around our place, saying “azungu, azungu!” which is our own personal African label, meaning “white person”. Working with kids around the neighborhood and in the pre-school is a lot of our ministry this month, and they are a lot of fun and so creative. They know a million games, and for some reason ecstatic to play with us all the time. Some have fungus growing in their hair, most are dirt-covered, some have nicely braided hair and clothes without tares, but we all play together—black and white, toddler and pre-teen, and some little ones even play while holding younger siblings on their backs. Yesterday on the way back to the house, they escorted us down the long driveway holding hands and yelling something that turned out to be “Let’s follow them!”
UNBELIEVABLE SKIES. Psalm 19 says “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.” I cannot get enough of the Malawi sky. Cloudy, sunny, sunset, sunrise, middle of the night—it all looks spectacular. And it all speaks of the same maker in a language we and all these Malawians understand equally.
THIRST. There is thirst for hope here, especially in the women. We’ve heard and seen that they flock to false prophets as they come through town, waiting to hear good news. The men thirst for alcohol. Fathers leaving families, drinking and wandering the streets is a huge problem. We’ve seen them out, and hear of the tragedies of a fatherless generation.
INFECTIOUS. And I’m not talking about Dengue fever or malaria, although those exist here and I sleep under a mosquito net to avoid partaking. More importantly, the laughing, the joy, and the hard work are infectious. The little giggles, our pastors deep and hearty laugh, the awkward chuckles when our brothers misunderstand us. It’s all infectious. They sing and I want to sing! They LOVE dancing and I want to dance. They are free and loving, and I love them back. If you have to wear Deet to experience this type of infectious, I am 100% okay with that.
Malawi month started out without a ton of direction, but is turning into potentially my favorite month yet.
Tiwanana! (see you later!)
