This morning our team packed up and hit the road. We are moving to Blantyre, which is just a bigger city within Malawi. The drive started out with finding dragon fruit vitamin water at the gas station. Unheard of. Oh and sweet potato chips. The drive from Zomba to Blantyre is one of my favorite things in the world. Something about that drive automatically makes me think deeply. From the second I plug in my head phones and look out the window my mind starts off. The clouds always seem to be low across the mountains, another one of my favorite things in the world. Leaving Zomba is weird, it’s the town we have called home for two months now. As we were walking to the van my teammate jokingly said “let’s take a moment of silence to remember Zomba, all the crappy things and all the beautiful things.” I couldn’t sum up our stay in Zomba any better than hard and beautiful.
Walking around town with our white skin immediately draws attention. From vendors selling bananas and paintings, to taxi drivers ambushing us and hands extended begging for money, the charm of being in Malawi wore off incredibly fast. Ministry also started to wear me down. I wrote in my journal one day that I felt like a sink, filled up every morning. After ministry ended I felt like someone had pulled the plug and drained all of my energy and compassion. Being the stubborn human that I am, I acted strong. I tried to pretend that none of the hard things about Malawi were affecting me. I eventually pushed my pride aside and began to honestly process things. Processing has been a major theme for me in the past few weeks. I’ve said the word “process” to my team so many times they’re probably sick of me by now. But honestly processing is just so necessary.
Anyways though…..I’ve been learning how important it is to be honest with myself and process the season that i’m in. I realized that before starting the World Race, I shoved most of my feelings away. I didn’t want any cracks to be seen in my life, I wanted to be the strong one. I’ve recently been curious as to why I make the decisions that I do and what things in my life have led up to shaping me into the person that I am today. I’ve been processing hard things from the past, real things in the now, and the longings of my heart for the future.
Digging up the very foundations that our lives are built upon is scary. It’s bold. But who wants to get five years down the road and realize they’ve been walking in unawareness? All of the tiny decisions and actions throughout our days make up our lives…
“but the test is obedience to the vision in the details of our everyday life– sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour, not just during times of personal prayer or public meetings”. -Oswald Chambers
…So now when I feel a moment of jealousy or bitterness or lack of compassion I choose to press into that emotion instead of letting it consume me. As Brene Brown puts it, we can’t experience joy without experiencing pain. I can’t choose to numb all of my pain and frustration and expect to be fully capable of experiencing joy as well. Life is hard and beautiful, but the hard moments allow us to experience the beautiful ones. The beautiful ones like driving through the mountains.
We met a missionary couple from South Africa. This is a picture of us cooking up some curry at their house.
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When your teamates also become your best friends…..
Driving through the mountains with a ginger beer, nothing better
One last look at Zomba mountain
A few of my squad mates and I decided to run a half marathon at debrief. We started at 4:30AM when the stars were still out and finished by jumping into Lake Malawi !!
