I prayed for this place without even knowing it.
Africa has been a very hard continent to be a part of and our ministries have been really challenging. When we arrived here in Lilongwe, something felt different. I have been counting down the days until we go home since Zambia, but I’ve lost count along the way. Malawi has been beautiful, but not in a way you would expect. We live out in the bush, but we’re in a house! It has a tall brick fence around us, we have 3 bedrooms and a well lit living room. Pastor William has been the kindest to us, we call him our African Dad. We had a host very similar to him who we called our Honduran Dad back in November. He really does love to serve and take care of us. There are also two ladies, Prisca and Blessings who cook us breakfast, lunch, tea time and dinner everyday except for our off days when we eat in town and they get the day off. I will never forget how hard-working African women are. They do all of the cooking, cleaning, chatting, building fires, shopping at the markets, breast feeding their babies, carrying water from the wells… the list goes on and on. Also, they do it all with a smile on their face while often carrying their babies on their backs. It just blows my mind!
Our meals consist of potatoes, nsima (it’s the Malawian staple food that is served with almost every meal, it’s similar to grits and extremely cheap to buy and cook), greens, and my favorite homemade tomato soup! We also eat eggs, beans and meat too, depending on the day. I’ve seen plenty of chickens get their heads sawed off, yes sawed, not chopped. It’s pretty barbaric, but that’s everyday life out here in Africa and families get so excited when Mom brings home a live chicken from the market. Our neighborhood is so friendly, everyone wants to greet us (again African culture) and shake our hand and ask where we are going and what we are doing. We often have a huge crowd of children follow us EVERYWHERE we go. They yell “mzungu!” (which means white people or foreigners) and literally they will run from all directions to hold our hand and sing and dance with us. They just want to be loved and played with. Every evening we have a huge dance party right outside of our house for about 30 minutes to an hour before we are exhausted. Haha!
Every morning we drink tea and have a team devotional together with the Lord. Each day looks different, some days we read and study the Bible together or we worship, sing and lift our hands in adoration to Him. After that we eat breakfast and get ready for the day. We warm a pot of hot water over the fire and mix it with well water to take bucket showers. Once everyone is ready, then we head out to the streets and share the gospel with anyone willing to listen. Which is A LOT of people. As we walk throughout the neighborhood we sit in front of people’s homes or at schools and tell them about Jesus. It’s so cool to hear African stories about how He transformed their lives, especially redemption stories.
What I love the most about Malawi is how hospitable the people here are. We’ve been invited into so many homes or huts and they give us whatever they have. They always try to find a stool or chair for us to sit on and bring us bread and tea or a corn on the cob. It’s really heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time. I often have to ask myself, why is it so hard to give back home? Why do we hold on to our possessions so tightly, when these families literally give the best of what little they have to complete strangers? I will never forget all of the faces that have impacted my life. I will never forget the lives that Jesus touched this year through our ministry. I will never forget the songs that we used to sing where I would just lose myself in His love. Because every time we worship, we’re met by love. I will never forget all of the beautiful sun rises and sun sets that my eyes laid on in 3 different continents, over 11 different horizon lines. The World Race changed my life, and even though I’m going back home. I know that I’m not the same. I’ve seen too much and went to places so deep that it’s impossible to go back to the way I was before I left. I have lived fully and loved deeply.
-B
