I’m not gonna lie, I have no idea where to begin with this blog. So many things happened in my two month stay in Malawi that grew me and humbled me. Because these two months have changed me so much, I’m going to try and be as real as possible. I won’t make this blog essay-ish. I’m just going to write out my stream of thoughts when I reflect on my time in Malawi.
We lived in a village outside of the city of Lilongwe. We were without electricity, so we cooked all our meals on a fire and used flashlights at night. We were surrounded by beautiful mountains and corn fields. When we first arrived there, the corn came up to my knees. By the time we left, the corn was my height plus a half of me (I’m 5’3). Every night there was lightening in one corner of the sky way in the distance. We were in walking distance of our ministry site, about a half a minutes walk, actually. Children always peered in our windows and asked us for money and water. They would shout “Azungu!!!” as we walked by (Azungu means “white person”). There were probably 3-4 goats every few yards in the village. Church involved lots of dancing and singing. We went into town once a week to buy groceries, mostly canned vegetables, beans, and rice. Our team became very very VERY close, and our ministry became one of my favorites.
Our ministry was to teach English at Mercy High School, feed primary schoolers and spend time with them, and do after school activities and programs with all the students. My teammate, Stella, and I taught English together to a class of 17 students for 2.5 hours everyday. At first I had no idea what to expect. We were given no curriculum, no instruction, and no guidance in how to do this. We made our own curriculum and tests, and by the end of the two months we had already seen so much growth in our students ability to speak proper English and write correct sentences. We also grew very close to our students on a personal level. Most of them were just a year or two younger than us, and all of them acted like normal, hilarious, insane high school students. We had our quiet, shy kids and our loud “in-your-face” kids. We had our geniuses and our class skippers. We had students just like what you would imagine in a normal American high school class, and I loved them with my whole heart. In between getting on to them for talking and giving them candy for everyone turning in their homework, I somehow grew in learning God’s love and care for us through discipline. I hated when I had to yell at my students, but even more than that I loved when I saw them grow in responsibility and in their education. At times I felt like their mother.
Malawi has an annual “Hungry Season.” This is because of their upcoming harvest season and village stocks of maize begin to dwindle. Families put all their money towards the upcoming harvest season which leave no money for food. It was very hard watching my students endure this and drop from class because of sickness. The hardest moment was when they asked when America had it’s hunger season. I couldn’t give an answer because I’ve never had to live through a few months of extreme hunger just so I can eat the rest of the year.
Our team did endure much spiritual warfare in Malawi. This involved nightmares, seeing things, and just general dark experiences and emotions. After this was realized, we began to fight back with lots of prayer and calling on Jesus’s name. I learned a lot about just how intertwined the spiritual and physical world are. At the beginning of our time in Malawi, I had a vision of our team all hunched over and depressed under this cloud of darkness and then another vision of us in this bright room all smiling and laughing together. It was very cool to see this actually play out, as we cast out the darkness surrounding us and invited the Holy Spirit into our space.
Malawi ministry was something I’ll miss with my whole heart. I’ll remember these kids my whole life. Below I will leave a list of their names if you would be so kind to pray over them and pray they will grow up to be women and men of God.
Thank you for reading and for your continued prayers!!
Deus (Class clown)
Gift (ALWAYS SANG DURING TESTS)
Falidah (Class Genius)
Tapiwa (The Ring Leader)
Frolance (Yes, this is the way she spells it. We saw huge improvement in her!)
Florance B. (Always down for a good game)
Florance S. (The Other Ring Leader)
Blessings (The most hardworking student)
Benard (NOT Bernard! He wrote great poetry!)
Chifundo (Class “cool guy”)
Miracle (Had the sweetest spirit and was very very smart!)
Grace (Beautiful smile and gentle spirit!)
Madalitso (Asked for candy every day)
Agginess (Very sweet and loving!)
Ephiness (She’s gonna be a powerful woman when she grows up)
Alinafe (Too cool for school!)
Jestina (NOT Justina! Class “nervous-wreck”)
Much love,
Hannah Grace
