The sweet village children run towards us with delight and scream “Azungu” which means white people. They act like we are their long lost friends. They give us big bear hugs and hold as many hands as they can. They also start singing this fun little song which we repeat after them and they giggle uncontrollably at the white people walking through town with them and playing along with their game. They soak us up, every last bit. I won’t know what I’ll do when I get back to the States and children no longer flock to me and instantly want to be my best friend.
This month has been very different from last month. We’ve been all together as a squad but this month has also been so much more about personal growth and ministering to each other rather than the locals. We’re staying in a breathtaking location where literally every direction you look the scenery screams the beauty and majesty of our Creator because of the magnificence that our eyes lay upon. I haven’t had time to process everything that has gone on this month but I have discovered a new level of joy and contentment.
Early on in the month as we were walking through the back roads of a village a teammate and I marveled at how much genuine joy was found in Malawians with so little in the way of material possessions. We discussed middle and lower class lifestyles in the States compared to here and were very humbled at the difference in gratitude and appreciation of what they do have, as well as humbled further by their taking such pleasure in the more simple things in life.
This month we have faced varying challenges but I’ve experienced joy that I longed for at home but wasn’t ever able to achieve. The first day that joy and contentment really sunk in I realized how ironic it is that I finally received it in my current “bush livin’” conditions. I sought after joy that is talked about in the Bible and didn’t understand why I couldn’t reach it because I had everything: salvation that cannot be taken away thanks to grace and mercy, an amazing family, great job, remarkable friends and the perks of first world living. I guess it literally sometimes takes the comforts of home and familiarity being stripped away in order for some to accept and dwell on the beauty of grace and an eternity with our Savior. At the end of the day what truly matters is people and their existence and that existence for all of eternity. It’s the little things in life that we so often allow to be overshadowed and compressed by the things that we place significance on, although they have such temporary value. This month has been full of struggles and living conditions that I won’t be missing anytime soon, but I will always be grateful for that one time I found true joy and contentment on a gentle grassy hill in Africa.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1: 6-9
