Here I sit in a hospital bed in Lilongwe, Malawi
contemplating how I should go about retelling an amazing story that just
happened to me. I will try to do the story justice, but I feel like I could
never fully describe how incredible the experience was… and how it is still
continuing to unfold.
Just a heads up, I have a lot of free time in this hospital, so this blog is
FREAKING long. My apologies. I have taken the courtesy of breaking this blog into 4 different part, chapters if you will to make reading it all more bearable. You may laugh, you may cry, you may be inspired, you may hate me for writing so much. Nevertheless, here is my life.
For those who just want the cliff notes version of the crash, here you go. On Sunday the 21st,
my team was traveling to Lake Malawi. About 40 km from our destination the rear
right tire burst, causing our van to lose control and roll three times, thus
landing right side up. During the accident I was ejected from the vehicle, and
when the dust settled the van was on top of me pinning me to the ground.
Miraculously, every single passenger- Kimberly, Juliette, Natalie, Melissa,
Caleb, Daniel, Woody and 3 Malawians walked away with hardly a scrape. I got
the worst of the accident and I am in good health. Sure, I have some pretty
gnarly scrapes and bruises here and there, my neck and back are stiff, but no
internal bleeding and no broken bones. I was walking about 12 hours after the
accident and I am improving rapidly every day. Amen. God is Good. Words fail
me. The tears of joy on my face tell the story much better than I ever could.
I was sitting in the back left corner.
Now, here is a bit of a recap of the events I have had in Africa thus far,
leading up to Sunday night. Internet access has been far and few in between.
T.I.A. (This Is Africa)… That is our saying when African life is hard or funny.
For three weeks we have been in Malawi, Africa, pretty much preaching the
Gospel every day… multiple times every day. We are partnering with some amazing
pastors that are part of ‘Harvesters International Ministries’. Their main
agenda is to spread the Word of God to the most rural villages in Malawi. They
are delighted to have some American guests to help them out, and they have
really leaned on us to share God’s Word to several villages while they
translate. It has been a humbling experience to have senior pastors looking to
me, a 21 year old kid who has never preached before, for knowledge and wisdom
beyond my years, T.I.A. Fortunately, God has showed up and He has spoken
through me, and my team. Glory goes to Him for all of our success. We ended up
planting a few churches, basically a kick-start to help the pastors who will be
ministering in the villages.
The pastors are focusing on
marriages a lot, so we have had the opportunity to host ‘marriage seminars’ for
them. Seven unmarried Americans giving advice on marriage to 30 African pastors
and their wives, some of whom who have been married longer than we have been
alive… T.I.A. It was easy though, because we just looked to the bible and
talked about biblical principles for marriage. It got interesting when they
started asking questions after our seminar. What was the main topic of the
questions you may ask? Yep, you better bet they were about SEX. It was
hilarious. Luckily, Kimberly was able to handle most of the difficult questions,
consequently resulting in her new title as our local ‘sexpert’. (haha, sorry Kimberly)
Continue reading:
When God Saved My Life & Other Tales From the African Plain- Chapter II
