I have never felt like I was truly living my life like Jesus and the disciples until here in Malawi. I have a greater understanding of their life now that I am living it. We are working with a ministry called Great is God International. With this ministry, we hold crusades to share the gospel with people in different villages around Malawi. We go to the villages and people come.
Because my team and I are white, we are an attraction. People stare at us and want to shake our hands. At the first village we went to, some had never seen white people. Crowds gather and are interested in what we are doing or saying. Sitting in a building, people are gathered around the windows and doors to watch us. Out in the open, the children come hesitant at first and creep closer. Given a smile or any kind of attention they come closer and more follow. We are surrounded by seas of children you feel closed in and sometimes feel like you need to get away so you can breathe. (This is when I understood that this might be the reason why Jesus would preach from a boat… example Mark 4:1)
During the program, the majority of the crowd is children. We sing songs and a message is shared. The crowd presses forward and they have to continue to tell them to back up to give the speaker room. There is then an invitation for people to come forward. Adults and children alike come forward. Not only is a message shared but then the people are able to come to be prayed over for healing.
Many people come (adults and children) and the requests are many from headaches to HIV to doing well in school to spiritual things. We have to have faith that God will move and we pray. They can’t turn to Tylenol or hospitals for their health issues because they don’t have access to them. Their only option is prayer. People are healed!
Not only do we have the main program, but we visit people in their homes (or where there is a hospital we visit the hospital). People gather outside the homes. They come and they want us to share. They are hungry for God’s word. They do not have access to all the resources that we have in America. Most do not have Bibles and some villages do not have churches. So they come.
With all of these, the majority of those coming are children. They hear the same message and they are given the same opportunity to respond as the adults are. Many times, there are more children responding. At first I was surprised that there were more kids than adults and that they were hearing the same message, but Jesus was angry at the disciples for not allowing the children to come to him (Mark 10:13-16). I always took that to mean in the physical sense but I think it can be in the spiritual sense, as well. I think that we simplify things or only share certain things with children. We don’t allow them to hear the full message. I am learning that we need to let the little children come. “Jesus then took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” This is also something I am learning to do.
