Malawi Malawi Malawi such a great month, our last month in Africa, and we went out with a bang! This was a month that was totally different then any month in Africa. To start out, Benjamin V. got raised up as team leader. Well deserved! Such a great leader even without the title. He is such an amazing man of God!
Before we arrived in Malawi, we found out that we would be doing ATL that month! (ATL: Ask the Lord, which means that we ask the Lord where he wants us to be and what he wants us to do) When I thought about ATL it really made me nervous, because we were in new country, and we had to find a place to live, find transportation, and find food. I just felt like we were on our own. It’s crazy because God provided! As we arrived in Malawi we got bless with an unique opportunity to stay with Benjamin’s Aunt who has been living in Malawi for quite some time. She had some connections with different organizations… which blessed our team with several opportunities. She connected us with a woman named Amanda, and we helped her move out her house. We also got to make a 5 day trek on Mount Malijia, where we helped out in a refugee camp. We got to make a surprise trip to Lake Malawi.
Our 5 day trek up Mount Malijia was absolutely beautiful, but it was hard for me to trek the whole thing. I made it up half of the 1st mountain on the 1st day, but I couldn’t go any farther because my legs cramped so bad that I couldn’t make it up the rest of it. So the tour guide and I went back down, and he found a place for me to stay until the rest of my team came back. The next day I could barely walk. My body felt like it fell out of a tree! At the same time, I was a little upset that I couldn’t make the trek with my team, but I had given it my all, and that’s all I could do! It still sucked, but I did get to spend a lot of time with God as a result because there were no people at the place I was tenting, except the owners of the site. There weren’t many people to talk with, so I talked to God a lot, and he taught me to dream again!
When I would try to sleep there were a lot of dogs and monkeys fighting around my tent, which made it challenging. But the last day I was so excited to see my team it didn’t matter!
Now let’s circle back to some of the other opportunities Benjamin’s aunt provided for us…
A surprise trip to Lake Malawi! Benjamin’s Aunt rented an Air BnB that was directly on the lake! Such an amazing view! We didn’t even have to do anything for it. Benjamin’s Aunt just wanted to bless us with a little Thanksgiving gift! I was super thankful, and I like to believe our whole team was thankful for it. We had to leave early because one of my teammates got really sick, which was sad, but the time we did spend there was amazing, and I loved getting to hang with my team and Benjamin’s family!
Amanda is one of the people heading a YWAM base in Malawi. She was moving out her house, and she had a lot of YWAM things that had to be moved along with all her personal things. No one from YWAM came to help get the stuff out her house that they has been storing there, which was super frustrating because Amanda is such a selfless person, and she goes out her way to help others. So when no one came to help her, one of my teammates, Adam, said he felt called to help her out. Then we all went to help her! I am so glad we did, because there was so much to move,and she only had one week to get it done. Without us there would have been no way that she would have gotten it done! That’s why God brought us back so early from Lake Malawi!
After helping Amanda move, we got to have an amazing Thanksgiving Dinner. It felt like a family dinner away from home.
Then we went to the refugee camp in Dzaleka Malawi. There we got to love on a family that had nothing, but at the same time they had everything! God had provided so much for them. God blessed them with materials to build their house. He gave them chickens. He blessed them with land, so that they could build a headquarters for YWAM. He also enabled them to build two churches in the refugee camp.
My team got to preach at the churches the family had started. We also planted corn (for 5 to 6 hours in the Sun), and did door to door ministry there! It was all amazing! I definitely left a part of my heart there, especially with their son Oindi (pronounced: Wendy). He was so full of energy! The cutie was a little 5 year old. He loved Spider-Man and Winnie the Pooh! He was my little buddy! I Also got to kill my first chicken and pull out it’s feathers, while I was there. That was quite an experience!
All in all, Malawi was a wonderful month, and I’m so grateful for all the things God allowed my team to experience. That month definitely blessed my life!
-Alicia Smith
