Celebrating your birthday or any holiday is always hard on the race, because it is a little reminder that you don’t have your family or old friends around. It is easy for the devil to attack you during this time with home sickness or loneliness, so it is awesome when you have an amazing team like I do that makes your birthday a special day.
So, this month our off days from ministry are a half day on Sunday and all of Monday and for our first off “weekend” we decided, as a team, to go to Nkhata Bay (it is part of Lake Malawi). I was excited to go somewhere fun for my birthday and celebrate turning 26 in MALAWI! We ended up staying at a nice lodge right on the water called Mayoka Village and less than five minutes away was another team from the squad with 6 more of my favorite people.
Monday morning, I woke up to see the sunrise with Haley, Ruby, and Katherine. It wasn’t the best sunrise because the sun was blocked by rain clouds and mountains but we did get to watch a cool lightning storm form over the lake. After the exciting, not so epic, sunrise we went back to the lodge and rested before our afternoon of snorkeling…free snorkeling.
In the afternoon, we met with our guide and started canoeing out to the snorkeling location when our guide informs us that there was a hippo spotted on the other side of the bay. We decide as a group we are far enough away to not worry about said hippo. Once at the snorkeling location our canoe flipped as we came into shore…we turned sideways and a wave came and knocked us over. After getting our canoe onto land, I take my glasses off to replace with goggles and began to climb over slippery rocks to find my way to deeper waters. Once out there I immediately give up more accurately I start panicking…I can’t see and now my body is physically freaking out and breathing is hard due to the snorkel. So, I sit on the rock and talk to our guide, while everyone else snorkeled.
Once we made it back to the lodge we hear the hippo was spotted on the other side of the bay, again.
So, we chilled on our side of the bay in the water and relaxed. We had a relaxing afternoon until tea time at 4 when the other team from the squad came over to celebrate my birthday and have dinner.
We are talking about the sunset and how to get the best view we have to swim out to the floating platform in the bay, so four of us decide to just do it. It was Conner, Haley, Katherine, and I who decided to it would be fun to enjoy the sunset on the platform.
Once we get on to the floating platform a guy comes up and says the hippo is right around the corner. I freak out and claw my way up onto the dock (with the help of Katherine). As soon as I get on to it, we hear from the people on the shore “swim back to land, get off of there, the hippo is coming your way!”
We jump back into the water. (dumb)…also non-PG words were said in my head and possibly out loud.
I had brought a floaty with me on the swim out to the platform and I was ready to leave that sucker behind. But Haley calmed me down by telling me she would wait with me and swim back with me after I got the floaty (that was only like 2 feet away).
At this point, Conner is back on shore; he cleared the situation as quickly as possible. This is also the moment when I realize being able to swim at survival level might not be enough, and I probably should have taken swim class in summer gym a little more seriously. I am swimming as fast as I can, but Haley and Katherine are staying right there with me.
I made onto shore…we all made onto shore. I got to a rock in the shallow part and sat there until I caught my breath. Then of course we took a couple pictures to remember the experience. We were calming down talking about the experience and a few minutes later the hippo popped it’s head out of the water not 20 feet from us. We scrambled over slippery rocks to get out of the 3 inches of water we were sitting in.
We quickly realized that when we swam we didn’t just out swim the hippo….we swam WITH the hippo. If that hippo had wanted some fresh missionary meat, he would have had his pickings. By the grace of God, he was not interested in us and let us be. PTL! (Praise the Lord)
The rest of my night was not as eventful. I had a wonderful dinner with squad family and got sung to by a random stranger (this is a very normal thing when on the Race…honestly).
All in all, this will be one of my more memorable birthdays from; being in Malawi, almost having a panic attack snorkeling, and out swimming a hippo. But most of all I will always remember being surrounded and loved by some of my squad family. Also, having the worlds best team (World Race Family) to make me feel loved the entire day!!!
Here is a picture of what I saw that day….but it is from the safari I did in Botswana. Same, same, but different.
