Seeing as I’m months behind in blogs, bear with me as I play ‘catch-up’ these next few days and tell a favorite story from each month up until now. Today’s story comes from Malawi, my second month in Africa, a month of evangelism, sleeping in tents, and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. This story comes from one day in Malawi, a Sunday spent in a remote village and one of my favorite days on the Race to date.
It was 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday and Alyssa and I were sleeping in an A-Frame hut at our hostel in Lilongwe, Malawi. We had celebrated her birthday the night before with dinner in town and our team had gone in on renting her a hut for the night to get out of the cold and wet of her tent. (It’s the little things on The World Race…) My alarm had just gone off, waking me up an hour before we were to head into a village to preach, giving me barely enough time to prepare my sermon for the day. I swore I heard our Pastor’s distinct voice, but convinced myself I was dreaming, seeing as he wasn’t scheduled to pick us up until 9:00 a.m. Nevertheless, I poked my head out of our door, and sure enough, there was Pastor Lazarus, peering into Tim and Hannah’s tent, attempting to raise them from the dead of sleep… An hour and a half earlier than planned. I rushed back inside and woke up Alyssa, who mumbled and squinted at me in confusion. I grabbed dirty clothes, threw on some shoes and ran to the bathroom to try to get ready, accidently locking Alyssa in our A-Frame on my way out. (Haha… She had to yell and knock for Timothy to let her out. Still makes me laugh just thinking about it!) By the time I got back, Tim, Hannah, and Josh were already loading into Pastor’s van so I grabbed my Bible and ran to join them, teeth unbrushed, hair uncombed, and dirty clothes thrown on my body.
Tim, Hannah, Josh, Alyssa and I all looked at each other as we drove off, wondering what in the world just happened. I scanned my Bible, praying the Lord would give me something, anything, to turn into a sermon for church in a couple of hours and we headed to a village deep in the bush of Malawi.
Arriving early, we passed the morning sleeping on the floor of a mud hut, and then walked to the ‘church’, which happened to be under a tree in the front yard of the village chief. We sang and danced and praised God as people gathered under the tree for this impromptu church put on by strange white people from America. The Lord graciously gave me the words I needed to preach a sermon to these hungry people and by the time we were headed back to the mud hut for lunch, I was breathing a sigh of relief that we were soon headed home and back to bed to restart this crazy day. But God had different plans.
After eating lunch our pastor informed us that the van that brought us there wouldn’t be arriving to pick us up for another few hours, so we would just have to wait. We all looked at each other, got comfortable, and entered into a comatose state of rice and bean bellies and sleep. I laid on the dirt floor, my eyes heavy from a late night and unexpected early morning, when something hit me. I was in the middle of a beautiful mud-hut village in nowhere Malawi, the sun shining in a picturesque blue sky with huge fluffy clouds overhead. I could hear villagers outside talking and laughing… And I was sleeping, annoyed and tired of all things Africa. In this carpe diem moment, I pulled myself up off the ground, grabbed my camera and ventured into the light of day, asking the Lord what He had for me that was so great that I couldn’t sit still when I so exhausted. I randomly started taking photos… Of the huts, of the clouds, of the well, of a field, of some random kids, and then I walked over to a group of ladies that I recognized from church, sitting in front of a hut, chatting and laughing, and I motioned to ask if I could join them. Having probably never seen a white person before, they were of course thrilled and scooted over to make room for me to sit down. They stared at my hair, looked at my camera, touched my skin and laughed at my inability to understand anything they were saying. As more women walked by, our group got larger, the main attraction being a random white girl with messy hair, fuzzy teeth and dirty clothes sitting in a mass of black people. At one point a younger girl with a baby on her back came over and asked me to take her photo. I complied, snapping a few, and showed them to her as she stood over my shoulder. She laughed hysterically, seeing herself for possibly the first time, and for whatever reason, broke out into a random dance move right in front of me. Feeling ambitious and inspired, I put my camera down, stood in front of her (and the large group of women), and awkwardly and in true white-girl style, attempted to break it down just as she had moments earlier. And then it happened. The women went wild and the craziest, most awesome dance party I’ve ever been a part of broke loose… All because of one awkward booty shake.
The women formed a circle and started singing and dancing, motioning for me to mimic their words and moves. After a few minutes my teammate, Hannah, looked out from the dark hut to see what the commotion was about and soon found herself in the middle of the dance party with me. We sang and danced for over an hour, the women teaching us new moves (some that I vow will never see the light of day again) and formed a community with zero words and all heart. I don’t remember ever smiling so much or laughing so hard in all of my life and I know we gave them quite a show as well.
Eventually Pastor Lazarus and the rest of our team immerged from the hut and Pastor informed us that the van was on its way and we were going to start walking to meet it on the road. He translated to our new friends that we had to go and I prepared myself to hug them goodbye and part ways, but instead, they started walking with us, singing and dancing all the way to the main road. The further we walked, the more people joined us, and soon our little white heads were lost in a sea of beautiful, black faces with piercing white smiles, glistening dark eyes, lifting up heavenly voices of praise to the Father as they led us through the corn fields, jumping mud puddles, winding down the red-dirt roads to our waiting transportation.
One of the women that I danced with ran onto her homestead as we passed by and immerged with 5 corn cobs, gifting us as we left, and my heart swelled with thankfulness at this gesture of love and friendship. A heart-bond with no words, but only the Spirit binding us in joy unspeakable.
It was a day I will never forget… Waving goodbye to our new friends as we walked away down the road, my heart overflowing with thankfulness at God’s grace. I was reminded of His faithfulness, of the adventure that He promises each time we rise up and face the day, saying ‘Yes!’ to whatever He has in store.
Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
His praise in the assembly of the godly!
Let Israel be glad in his Maker;
Let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
Let them praise his name with dancing,
Making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
He adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the godly exult in glory;
Let them sing for joy on their beds.
Psalm 149:1-5
The following is a video of our epic dance party and adventure through the village. My team leader, Timothy, was kind enough to take most of this footage of Hannah and I.
