frustrating, and reminds me of the conveniences I’ve become accustomed to back
home. After riding in an old, beat-up
greyhound style bus for 12 hours with every inch of seats and isle space packed
with people or cargo, we made it to the rest of our squad. We spent a day relaxing with them and then
the 27 of us headed out on this guy…
Not the most comfortable situation, but the memories are
priceless. At the border we loaded all
our packs and every person on two taxi vans took a few hours to get to our
lodging where we found out they didn’t have our reservations so we just pitched
tents and made things work. Waking up
the next morning the squad split up with one team going to the northern part of
Malawi, two teams staying at the campsite in the central region, and my team
heading on a 5 hour minibus ride to the southern part. Long story short…we made it and have plenty
of stories to reminisce about together.
This month all our teams are working with the same
organization even though we are spread out across Malawi. We are partnering with Harvester
International Ministries (HIM). HIM does
a lot of church planting and disciplining of leaders in many different
denominations. Most of our time here
looks like it will be spent traveling around and encouraging churches, pastors,
and anyone we come in contact with. We’ll be doing a ton of preaching, teaching, and sharing testimonies. Our contact here is Medson, the director of
the southern region for HIM, and we are living with him and his family.
and share our testimonies. It was such a
blessing to be there and be welcomed by everyone. In my mind I had this idea of what church
would be like in Africa…lots of smiling people, passionate preachers, dancing,
and songs that stir the soul. Well,
that’s exactly what I found on this day. People were alive and praising God…and it was contagious. Before any of us got up to speak, the
Malawians spoke to us by how they worshiped, with how they loved God and each
other. Many of us were at the point of
tears and just soaked in the presence of God as they worshiped with songs. As I sat and listened I couldn’t help but
smile. It was evident looking at them;
they know we serve a risen savior not a man in a grave. So many times find myself without any zeal,
with no passion for what Christ has done for me. I lose sight of the fact that on the cross
Jesus took everything upon himself and redeemed me, allowing me to have
communion with him and his father…how can I not be ecstatic about that!
This is going to be a great month…more stories to come…!
