We made it to Malawi!
We have been here a little over a week.
And I have already noticed several things about the beautiful people here.
They smile.
All the people here are so friendly and will wave and smile at anyone passing their way. They freely ask about your life, and share about their own. It is completely heartwarming.
The children chase you.
Walking, running, or driving down any street the children start running after you just to get a hi five or a hug. All the while yelling “AZUNGU!!” Or “white people”!!
You always need to have a testimony and a bible story on hand.
The first couple days here almost everyone on my team has shared their testimony and a bible story, and I taught at church on our first sunday. The people are so hungry to learn about the bible!
But of the the things I’ve learned this past week, the thing that stuck out to me was at church when the pastor said ” We dance. You haven’t seen anything yet. We dance.”
And how right he was.
We danced almost half of the church service. Joyfull, dancing. Just praising our Savior. We sang in a language I can’t speak. But it was beautiful. So full sounding. No instruments. Just voices praising their Savior.
The next day, we went to widow ministry.
And guess what? We danced again.
These women have lost their husbands. And can’t get jobs. They support large families by selling handcrafted things. And several of them are very elderly. But they dance as if they have never had any struggles. They dance with so much life. They dance with huge smiles, so full of love and joy. Joy that I don’t understand. If I was in their position, I don’t know if I would be nearly as joyful.
These people surround me with their smiles. And their laughter. And their dancing.
It is hard being here. We don’t have much communication with family or friends. The power goes out everyday. And the water goes off at random times. We never know when it will come back on. We didn’t have water for two days. (We still have drinking water, just not for showers or washing dishes)
But God told me that he brought me here to learn freedom. To live in complete joy and completely free of any shackles.
And I get to see perfect examples of this freedom everyday.
The people here work hard. They don’t have luxurious, easy, or even super fun lifestyles.
But they do have fun. They grin. They play games. They live life to the fullest. They dance, just praising their Savior for life.
And now I am dancing too.
Just praising my savior.
