Wanna know what a day on the World Race looks like? Well, everyday is completely different, and especially in Africa, you never know what curve balls will be thrown your way, but here's at least a little sneak peak in to one day in Malawi! Yay!
7:00 am – Rise & shine! Throw on some pants to cover my scandalous knees. Walk to the corner store to buy a flat of eggs. Pick the unrefridgerated eggs off the floor of the store, pay, tell the store clerk “zikomo” (Thank you—the one word I know in Chichewa). Walk back home.
7:15 am – Boil water for instant coffee (Can’t remember what Starbucks tastes like anymore). Fry an egg and toast for breakfast.
7:30 am – Spend time reading the Word, writing in my prayer journal. Ask God for grace, joy, and strength for the day of ministry ahead.
7:50 am – Throw on ratty work clothes (i.e. all of my clothes at this point) and my tennis shoes. Make a peanut butter sandwich, fill my water bottle.
8:00 am – Pile all seven of our team + Pastor Moses + Pastor Sam, our driver into a small station wagon (at this point, we are quite used to sitting on top of each other) head to the village of Mtandire to dig up Pastor Moses’s church floor so they can lay cement**.
8:15 am – Arrive in Mtandire. Greeted by hords of children clapping and shouting “Azungu” (white person). Hold a few babies. Give a million high fives.
8:30 am – Women of the church show up with buckets and shovels. Begin shoveling dirt from the floor of the church and taking outside in bucketfuls. Get dominated by the African women when we try to break up the dirt floor. One woman is even digging with a baby tied on her back.
9:00 am – Even more hords of children show up to help us take buckets-full of dirt outside.
9:30 am – Pastor Moses asks the children to help with another project outside the church. They tell him, “No, we are here to talk to the whites.” And there you have it.
10:00 am – Have a dance party with the village children outside to stomp on and break up the dirt clods.
10:15 am – Children begin to bring me football-sized dirt clods to watch me smash them on the ground and explode.
10:30 am – Carry the tiny little boy who keeps toddling inside out of the church for the sixth time so he doesn’t get whacked with a shovel.
10:31 am – Take a short break to let my aching muscles rest. Drink some H2O, blow my nose to get out all the dirt/dust (have you ever seen brown snot??)
10:45 am – Back to work. Muster up the strength to break up the floor of the other half of the church.
12:30 pm – Collapse from exhaustion. Baby wipe dirt from my hands (takes 4 wipes). Blow nose for the 4th time. Eat PB sandwich and a banana.
12:45 pm – Pick up the baby girl I’ve decided to take home and sit her in my lap. She leans her head on my chest and is happy as a clam. Feed her bits of PB sandwich.
1:00 pm – Put baby girl down, head back to the bible school where we are living.
1:15 pm – Boil water for bucket shower to rinse of the 18 layers of dirt. We have showers this month, but the water is ICE cold. So we choose bucket showers. Loofah turns brown.
1:30 pm – Pass out in my bunk bed.
3:00 pm – Do laundry by hand in a bucket. Pour out 4-5 buckets-full of water until water is no longer opaque. Hang on the line to dry.
5:00 pm – Walk to store to pick up frozen bag of “mixed chicken” parts for dinner and a new jar of peanut butter (a World Race diet daily essential).
5:10 pm – Check out the small market behind the general store to look at hats. Find an awesome dress for 700 Kwacha (less than $3 USD)! Yay for a dress for final debrief!
5:30 pm – Model dress for my teammates (perks of an all girls team). Try to discern if the dress is “World Race Cute” or “Real World Cute.” Conclude it is in fact “Real World Cute.” (Sometimes you can’t trust your “World Race Goggles.” Often times, any article of clothing that isn’t one of the 5 outfits we’ve been wearing all year looks cute to us.
6:00 pm – Start prepping for dinner. We are so blessed to have a kitchen and be able to cook for ourselves this month! Tonight’s menu: Tacos with chapatti (no tortillas in Africa), chicken, guacamole, tomatoes, grilled onions & peppers, black beans, and real Old El Paso salsa! Other dinner menus might include: pineapple chicken, French toast, pasta with garlic-tomato sauce, and grilled cheeses.
6:30 pm – Power goes out. Thankfully we have a gas stove. Finish cooking by light of headlamps and a battery-powered lamp.
7:00 pm – Sit down to family-style dinner. A little taste of home 🙂
7:45 pm – Wash dishes by hand, wipe counters and tables, put away food. Mom would be proud. I’m such a Suzy Homemaker.
8:00 pm – Team Time! Tonight’s activity: Trivia! Sample Questions: Which of your teammates once accidentally ate a cockroach? Which Christian author wrote Irresistible Revolution? What colors are the Kenya flag? What bible verse defines “faith?”
9:00 pm – Watch a few episodes of Friends on my laptop.
10:30 pm – Get ready for bed. Curl up under my mosquito net. Put in earplugs. Sleep like a baby.
**Alternate ministry activities may include the following:
· Evangelism in the village: Sharing the gospel with 50 children and adults, encouraging a new believer, praying for the sick.
· Encouraging women in the church and widows in the village.
· Preaching, sharing personally testimonies, and singing (yes, they always want us to sing) at the Sunday morning church service.
Our short time in Malawi has already been incredible. This country is called “The Warm Heart of Africa,” and so far, we have absolutely found it to be true. The people of Malawi are beyond the friendliest we have encountered. When my teammate, Rachel, and I were taking a mutattu from town back home, the entire bus full of people was trying to help us figure out where our stop was. Already my final month on the Race is turning out to be all that I hoped for. Thank you for your prayers! See you in 23 days!
