Traveling Malawi has been tricky. Our Ministry this month has been to seek out
new ministries to partner with by sending future teams for the month long
stints we have been doing.
We started for our training in the capital city of Lilongwe
and then moved down to Zomba to finish our training and to start the search for
potential ministry contacts. (To see the
interesting journey there see my mission blog at: http://carolineritchey.theworldrace.org/?filename=so-this-is-africa)
Unfortunately, due to the unusually wet rainy season we were left in an area
affected by flooding so we didn’t have power for most of our time there and no
water on the last day there. We decided
to leave for the larger city of Blantyre in the south.
I was in phone contact with a Pastor there named Bishop
Malunga, so we met with him once to discuss his ministry. We were invited to his church but had to
drive out into an embassy declared “disaster zone”, a town called Phalombe to
meet another potential contact. Because
of the condition of the roads the driver stayed the night with us in Phalombe
and went to ministry with us. Because
she spoke Chichewa she was able to gauge things about the ministry that we
couldn’t. She told us that there was no
orphanage in Phalombe, and that the man we met wasn’t a pastor at all.
Upon returning to Blantyre we were a little
disappointed. Our potential contact was
starting to look a lot like a scam artist (which made more sense why he kept
telling us the cost of everything), and things were not getting any more comfortable. We tended to be out of power and water at
most locations, and things were warming up weather-wise.
We did go to Bishop Malunga’s church back in Blantyre and
ate a lunch at his house that his children prepared for us. This allowed us to meet with a few members of
the church council and to get a better idea of how a mission team could serve him
in the future. After one more meeting in
Blantyre and the struggle to get transport sorted, we ended up leaving for the
City of Salima which was Northward on the Lake of Malawi.
After meeting with a program called Kindle Orphan Care, we
took a day off to boat out to an island in lake. We got into a leaky wooden boat (we had a guy
always bailing with an old oil quart), stepped over the catfish that would
become our lunch, and headed out. On
island, a few of us explored by bouldering as high as we could go, then soaked in
the sun while we had it (still rainy season).
After eating said catfish cooked over coals, I snorkeled a bit in the
lake and was over-joyed to see so many beautiful colored fish in fresh
water. I got to even see Cichlids.
Upon returning to shore we all found out that we now have a
50% chance of getting a parasite particular to Lake Malawi. Bummer right?
We are all going to the Pharmacy to get the treatment upon returning to
the capital.
After our day off, we were able to tour both the health
clinic and some farm plots run by Kindle Orphan Care. They are an amazing organization that gives
me renewed hope for the programs here in Malawi. I am currently staying just outside Salima
with Teen Mission Ministry and touring some of their Orphan Care Units before
heading to Lilongwe tomorrow. And tonight’s
Vespers left me super encouraged. We
played games with some of the bible students (Malawians about our age), and
sang together, played drums, and listened to a message. I think I like the way the Malawians worship.
We have a few more meetings in Lilongwe with different
Pastors and Organizations, but in reality our time here in Malawi is coming to
a close. I don’t want to rush the time
away, but I do look forward to a more stable placement with the church we will
work with in Zambia next month. I have
already written my first sermon for that, and when things calm down I would
like to write another just in case.
Thank you for your prayers and all your support, and I am so
blessed and honored to be here even though I do miss the comforts of home. God has placed me in a place of discomfort
for a reason, and I intend to grow in it all.
So here we go!
No comments:
Post a Comment