Well this week was our first journey into the semi-bush of Africa. On Tuesday morning, 18 people (12 Americans, 1 Irish, and 5 Malawians) loaded up into a flatbed truck that may seat 5-10 people comfortable. We drove for about 3 hours or so, then headed up into a sugar plantation to speak at one of the churches that was located inside of the plantation. We were greeted at first by about 15-20 smiling children. They then proceeded to chase us for over a mile as we had to drive extremely slow on the bumpy, dirt road. The numbers grew more and more every minute, and by the time we had arrived to the church there were close to about 100 children and about 50 adults waiting to hear us speak. We stayed there and spoke for about an hour or so, then packed up to head to our intended destination (Chindoko Village in Chikwawa, Malawi).
After about an hour going down the road our truck started to have some mechanical issues then soon after completely broke down. We soon realized that it was going to take quite some time to get it fixed so we all jumped out and started interacting with the people that had gathered around to see what the “azungus” (Chichewa for white men) were up to. Some of the guys quickly started interacting with the men around. There were probably 10-20 men standing around socializing. The girls quickly interacted with different groups of children. All in all there were probably about 50 or so children around. When we got out the sun was setting and was casting some pretty epic colors across the sky. I could see the look in Lucas’s face so I went over and asked if he wanted to run across the field to get a better pic of the sunset. So we proceeded to walk/jog/sprint across a random African plain in order to get some epic sunset pics. Believe me, that drew quite a few stares from some of the people around. Well after an exhausting three hours of playing the waiting game, the truck was fixed and we headed onto the place we were supposed to sleep.
We arrived in our village with a welcome from about 200 adults and children. At this time it was almost 10:30 PM. Our contact had told us that we were supposed to be doing a service that night, but those plans quickly changed when it was obvious that all of us were exhausted from being crammed into a flatbed truck for over 6 hours. Instead, they fixed us some dinner and we then set up our tents and headed to bed.
The next day our two teams were going to split up and go even deeper into the area to reach some congregations where some of the children had never seen white people. This is the part where things got extremely interesting…
We drove for about 30 minutes or so to get to our church. We were greeted with the same welcome. Many singing women and children. We then proceeded to get set up to do a service. The interesting thing about this church is that they hold there meetings under a tree instead of a building because they do not have the finances to build one. The interesting thing as that this tree was one of the last remaining live trees in the area.
We soon realized that we were in a slight predicament since we were supposed to be at this church for about 5-6 hours. We ran out of water at around the 2 hour mark. We finished the first service and were eating lunch and this is when we ran out of water. We were still expected to do another 2 hour service then wait for the other team to come back and pick us up. Our contact told us that their was a store about a 15 minute bike ride away that sold water. So we gave this man 2,000 kwacha (a little over 10 dollars) in order to go get us some water. We were so dehydrated so we were eagerly anticipating this man’s return. About 40 minutes later this man returns with water that our contact said that was undrinkable for us. We sent him to go get us bottled water, but he returned with jugs of water that appeared to be untreated. So we had to send him away again. All the while our dehydration is growing. Our whole team was absolutely crashing since we had peanut butter and crackers for lunch and had, had oatmeal for breakfast. At this point we are working on almost no caloric intake and no water intake. The man arrived about an hour and a half later with freezing cold bottled water. PRAISE GOD!!!!
We then proceeded to tell two children stories in the next service since the congregation consisted of about 80% children (the normal story in Malawi). We then got a hold of the other group and learned that they were in an even more desperate situation concerning water. They did not have any and had no way of getting any. Due to this situation, we quickly wrapped up our service when they arrived then we headed into the city that sold water. We poured around $50 USD into this small Malawian town’s economy in a matter of about 5 minutes solely for water and sodas. After raiding the refreshment supply of this town we headed back to the village that we were sleeping in. We had a service scheduled to begin as soon as we arrived back.
As scheduled, we began the service almost as soon as we got back to the village that we were staying in. At this point, all of us were pretty exhausted since this would be the third service we were doing that day. From the night before the Lord had put a message on my heart to preach to these people that had been confirmed by our contact (read my other blog about God speaking to hear that full story). So the church sang a couple songs, then we sang a couple songs, then I proceeded to preach. After the service was over we headed back to our tent area. We were followed by about 70% of the congregation just because they liked being around us and seeing what we were doing. So we ate dinner and slept to an audience of about 100 people.
The next morning we woke up and had two more services scheduled for the village we were staying in (the same one we did a service for the night before). After the morning service, just about everyone in our group was crashing. Almost everyone was either tired or feeling ill, but we had another service scheduled right after we were done eating lunch.
In the second service the Lord definitely showed up. As we were walking to the service, it was obvious that everyone was at the end of their rope. They had run out of energy and things to say to these people (I am including myself in this group). The beautiful thing about when we reach the end of ourselves, is that, that is when the Lord shows up and takes over. We had about 5 people step forward and share a word with the congregation, then we had an intense time of praying over individuals in the congregation. All in all, we knew that the Lord had showed up, because He revived our energy and our minds enough for us to be His vessels. Remember, He doesn’t need much. When He was on earth, He used uneducated fisherman to carry on His message once He was gone. It was amazing to see God show up and fill us up and use us, even when there was nothing left for us to give.
After this service we headed back to Zomba. A place that we had mistakenly (or not) referred to as “home” over the last couple of days. When we arrived we had never been so happy to see grass or having drinkable water. It was incredible few days for God to step in and show us the true reality that even when you think you’ve given it all, that there is always more to give up for your service to His kingdom.
