I have now been living in Malawi, Africa for one month. I have been sleeping three girls to a bed in 100 degree weather. I have walked up the hill to the well to get water for my bucket bath more times than I can count. And despite the fact that they crawl up and down my walls at night, greet me in the shower, and attack my feet while I use the bathroom, I still have an ungodly fear of cockroaches. Although this life sounds far from luxurious, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. My team and I have been in the middle of a small village called Chintheche, living along Lake Malawi. We spent our mornings working with the most amazing pastors you will ever meet, and our afternoons dancing and cooking with the women, and walking to the beach with the children from the village. Having absolutely no contact with the outside world we had more time on our hands than we knew what to do with. We had countless hours to study God’s word, and our team quickly became very close. We learned to laugh at the lack of normalcy in our lives, and suddenly singing to one another to distract from the roaches and scorpions surrounding us while we used the “bathroom” (aka hole in the ground surrounded by three walls, leaving the last wall open to allow all the preschoolers at the top of the hill to point and scream every time we used the bathroom) at night, became a daily ritual.
As we moved from Asia to Africa, I had one goal in mind: Don’t become the mom. Everywhere I go in life, I somehow become the mom. Friend groups, high school, church, and three months in Asia. I don’t know how I do it, but I somehow always manage to earn the title “Mom”. And quite honestly, I was sick of it. I’m not your mom. I don’t want to be your mom. Take care of yourself and don’t look to me for answers. Harsh, right?
We arrived in Chintheche on January 5th, and on January 6th we attended a discipleship class with many of the local pastors that we would be working with over the next month. One of the pastors walked in, walked directly to me, shook my hand and said, “I’m teaching you Tonga (the tribal language spoken in northern Malawi) later this evening.” Um…okay? Throughly confused, I smiled and agreed. After the discipleship class he came up and shook my hand again and said, “African Mama. That’s your new name. I can see it. You’re an African mama.”
You have to be kidding me. Here I was, two days into Africa, and I already earned the title “mom”. I couldn’t escape it. From that moment on, I was permanently African Mama, or Mama Malawi. There was nothing I could do about it, and over the next month, I would fall in love with it.
As time went on, I did indeed learn Tonga, and I later learned that the pastor who so kindly dubbed me “African Mama”, was Pastor Rabson. One of the coolest men of God I have ever met. He is husband to a beautiful woman, and father to 5 precious children. He leads worship, pastors a church, and does everything and anything to spread the gospel. He disciples young men, dances harder than any other 30 year old man I’ve ever seen, and can play a mean game of SPOONS. But this has not always been his story. He is the only one of an eleven member gang who was not put in prison or killed. He has a history of gang activity, slave trade, and murder. He should be dead, and instead he walks this earth everyday, the biggest smile on his face, ready to share the word of God.
So to sum up the last month of my life: Drinking water has been scarce, I have a rash covering my body caused by the liquid that the roaches leave on my skin as they crawl on me in my sleep, chocolate is a two hour drive away, and the Lord used a murderer to teach me to fall in love with who I am.
Yours truly,
Mama Malawi
