When I applied to the race one of the things that I was most excited about was being in one place for three months. After spending two weeks at a time in El Salvador, three weeks in NOLA, and a month in South Carolina, I thought that three months would be perfect. It is just enough time to really get to know your community, to make relationships and experience all that the culture has to offer. But something I didn’t realize was just how hard it is, also.
Getting down to the last couple weeks here in Malawi, it has been hard to stay present and fully engage like I did at the beginning. Life here has become my normal, I’ve created habits and routines. There are things that I love and things that annoy me. So Tuesday when my team went to ministry it was just another normal day. We put on our skirts, loaded up in the mini-bus when we heard the honk and went on our way to one of the villages that we had been to before.
As we were driving in, Madeline and I looked out the window and saw two dogs who had been killed just laying on the side of the road. As Madeline was holding in her throw up, I was fighting back tears and couldn’t help but think to myself, “I can’t wait to leave this place.” Right before we pulled into the village I saw a woman walking with her baby on her back and she had a fresh black eye. My heart was already breaking because of the dogs and then I see this woman who had gone through who knows what and it felt like it dropped another ten feet out of my chest. In a matter of 2 minutes I had already seen so much brokenness and I then walked into a hard day of ministry filled with about 10+ fights between children.
We got home and I couldn’t help but feel discouraged. I was ready to leave. If the plane to Guatemala would’ve showed up at our door step and I’d have been the first one to board. I felt like we could do everything in our power and it still wouldn’t be enough. My routines have become boring, The Lord has recently called me into a hard season of processing and every day I am reminded how broken this world is.
Minutes into my pity-party, my team and I went into the living room where one of our brothers had invited over a few of his musician friends and they brought their guitar. At first one of them, Mark Luther, was just singing some of the songs he wrote and telling us the stories behind them. Then the other friend, Caleb, sang us Holy Night in Chichewa – the native language in Malawi. Seconds into the song, the whole atmosphere of the room changed. My questions of ‘why here?’, my doubts, the days struggles, any frustrations or fears that were filling the room disappeared. The Holy Spirit took over that room, He made his presence known. I can’t even begin to explain how the room felt in that moment but my heart was changed. It was God telling me, “This is why you’re here. Because you all love me. Nothing else matters.”
And heck was He right. For the next hour Madeline played piano, Mark Luther played guitar, Tiffany led and we all worshipped our Father. We sat in the living room singing songs of praise, lifting our voices to the reason we are all here. The reason we breath, the reason we love, the reason we leave our comfort zones and create new normals. The Holy Spirit took us over. We concluded the night with an hour-long killer dance party. The power was on during the night for the first time in a week but we turned off the lights and created our own strobe lights with our phone flash lights. We ate our normal dinner of chips (fries), beans and vegetables. And we went to sleep with rejuvenated hearts. I can’t wait to live every second to the fullest these next two weeks. I love you, Malawi, hard moments and all.
