that's me

journal entry #10~saying goodbye

mmmm...pizza.

Tonight we got about 500 pizzas from (where else?) Ali Baba's and took them to the church to have a party with all the translators. We ate, laughed, and watched some video from the trip. I walked around saying, "hey, guess what I did today? Delivered a baby." (I'm so annoying!) It's really amazing how we bonded in such a short time. I am going to miss them so much...I hope that I will see them again if I am able to come back to Malawi. We exchanged addresses and emails and plan to keep in touch. It's pretty neat to have friends on the other side of the world that can pray for each other and share so much.

some of our African teammates

johnus

the team

journal entry #9~special delivery

We're back in Blantyre and spent the day in town shopping. It's quite an experience to shop here--men sell things on the street, and they flock around you trying to get you to buy their stuff. It's mostly wooden carvings which they insist are made of ebony despite the black stains on their hands and the cans of black shoe polish they all have in their back pockets. But the carvings are beautiful. They gather around you yelling, "sister, sister! come to my stand!" After a while Kelly and I had run out of money and we were trying to tell them this. They didn't believe us. Because we didn't buy anything, one man said to Kelly, "You are not my sister. There is no more love."

Later I went with Kurt, Doug, and Davis to donate the remainder of our medical supplies to a free clinic in Blantyre. As we were unloading the supplies, we told some of the staff about who we were and what we had been doing. Suddenly a door swung open and an African lady wearing all white poked her head out. "You're a nurse?!" she asked, pointing at me. "Come in here, you can do this delivery." I went inside and a volunteer put a thin plastic apron over my clothes. I put on a pair of gloves and the volunteer motioned to me that I should put on two pairs. I did.

There was only one patient in the ward, which was a long room with narrow iron beds along both sides of it. Mosquito nets hung over each bed. The floor was cement. The laboring woman was naked on one of the beds, laying quietly. She didn't have an IV or anything. She was fully dilated and just starting to push. The other nurse stood by and I delivered the baby! He was was healthy and adorable--he even had a little baby afro. I held him, and we clamped and cut the cord. I cleaned him off and weighed him. Doug came in a took a few photos of me with the baby as I was cooing to him and singing Happy Birthday to him.

a brand new baby...

happy birthday!

Then I looked at the mother and realized she was bleeding--a LOT. I met the other nurse's eyes and we began to massage the fundus of the uterus, which causes the uterus to contract and helps slow bleeding (that is, if the bleeding is from the uterus). The other nurse started packing cotton inside the woman to try and slow the bleeding. Soon she was lying in a pool of blood. I looked down at my feet in flip-flop sandals; it was a surreal sight. The woman's blood pressure was starting to drop. Still blood poured out. I said to the nurse, "do you want to start an IV?" While she gathered IV supplies I asked, "do you have blood here?" She said no. I asked, "what will you do if she doesn't stop bleeding?" She said, "find a car and take her somewhere else." I didn't think she would make it at the rate she was bleeding. I looked over at the baby--he hadn't even been held by his mother yet. I started praying.

Just then Doug and Kurt called to me from the hallway. They were ready to go and didn't know what was taking me so long. I went out and told them what was happening. We joined hands and prayed in the hallway. Then I went back inside. The bleeding was still profuse--it was pumping out as if from a faucet. I asked the nurse to ask the woman if it was okay if I prayed for her. She said yes, so I laid my hands on her and prayed out loud for God to stop the bleeding and for the mother and child to be able to leave that place together, both healthy and strong. When I opened my eyes and looked--the bleeding had stopped! It was dramatic--a moment before it had been pouring out and now there was not even a trickle.

The nurse said, "I think she will be okay now." I was so amazed at the whole situation. I hadn't even been planning on going to the clinic but had run several blocks to catch Doug and Kurt because I wanted to tell them not to give my stethescope away. I ended up just hopping in the van with them at the last minute. It's wasn't an accident that we were at that clinic at that time--God did a miracle and I'm so humbled and grateful that He let me witness it.

journal entry #8~village life

the Jesus film

We're back out in the villages again. Right now the Jesus Film is playing. After the last reel, the sound on the projector died. The guys were trying to check the fuses and find the problem, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally Carol and Caryl laid hands on the projector and said a quick prayer, and it suddenly started working again! Several of us just finished putting down tarps (we sleep on tarps because there are legions of fire ants everywhere) and setting up cots. It's quite a job to try and fit all of our cots into the space we're supposed to sleep in and find a place to hang all the mosquito nets. As we were unloading the bus tonight, there were several village men standing around, watching us. The translators were suspicious of one group of guys who seemed to be casing the joint--perhaps looking for a chance to steal some supplies. A few men kept coming over and looking in the bus, then huddling up to talk in low voices, and then returning to stare some more. The translators finally went over and told the men that we wanted them to go and watch the movie instead of watching us. The men said the village chief had placed them there for "protection" to keep anyone from stealing our equipment. I think it's just entertaining for them to watch us because we look different and we have a lot of stuff. The entire time we are in the villages, there is a crowd of people staring and watching everything we do. One morning a few of us were sitting perfectly still, reading, and there were about 50 people who sat and watched us with rapt attention. Even in the hut while we're sleeping, you can look closely at the straw walls and see 1000 pairs of big brown eyes staring in through the cracks. I've mastered the art of getting dressed inside my sleeping bag.

church window, photo by travis white

We've all got hacking coughs and sore throats. On top of that, I'm feeling a little sick tonight. If I have to eat insema one more time I think I might die. Insema is the staple food of Malawians. It's corn meal and water boiled until it's the consistency of dough. It tastes sort of like mushy tortillas, except it's gritty and sometimes there are dead bugs in it, frozen in place with what I imagine to be astonished looks on their tiny faces. It doesn't taste all that bad but if I let myself think about 30 people all eating out of the same plates with their bare hands I get a little anxious about the germs we're all sharing. I keep thinking about toasted bagels with melty cream cheese...mmmmmm.

cooking is hard work!

I remind myself often that the villages are sacrificing a huge amount by sharing their food with us, and when I think about that it's a little easier to eat the insema. They make SO MUCH of it, but we all try to eat as much as we can so we don't insult them by wasting the food that is so precious here.

lots and lots of insema

kelly rising and shining!

village kids

journal entry #7~on safari for antibiotics

We're back in Blantyre for a couple of days to buy supplies and rest up before going out to our next group of villages. The clinic today was good; we're becoming more organized each day. We saw about 300 people today.

people waiting to be seen in the clinic

sad feet

awww...

this woman brought her sick infant to the clinic. we noticed the baby was wearing a witchcraft charm and started a conversation with the mother about Jesus. she was saved right there in the clinic, and she cut the charm off her child.

After the 5 hour drive back to Blantyre, all we could think about was food. We pulled up in front of the only place in town that was open: Ali Baba's Take-Away. This place is becoming a regular stop for us during our nights in town. Ali's specialty is pizza, and they have all kinds--tuna pizza, Greek pizza, Indiana pizza...the strange thing is there is no sauce. But after days of insema, pizza of any sort is a treat. After dinner, we went back to the Nami and I ran to our room and went straight to the bath. At home, I come home from the hospital and some nights I leave my shoes on the front porch and tell Darin he can't hug me until after I've taken a shower. After seeing sick people for several days without being able to bathe, I was starting to get paranoid. I swear I have never been so dirty in all my life. I think dirt was coming out of my pores. I don't think I'll really be clean until I've taken a few baths, but it was pure bliss to soak in warm soapy water and to wash my hair!

This morning I washed my clothes in the bathtub and hung them outside to dry. Then we went into town to do a little shopping and check our emails. I was finally able to call Darin and talk to him, even though I kept getting cut off by the terrible phone service here. I think we talked for a total of 3 minutes and it cost me $12! Might be the best $12 I ever spent, though. :)

Later Doug, Paul and I went on a hunt to try and buy some antibiotics for the clinic. We went to a pharmacy and told the pharmacist what we were doing, that I was a nurse from the U.S., etc. He was not impressed and refused to sell us anything without a prescription. We asked where we could find the nearest doctor and he scribbled down an address. So we set out, and soon we were wandering lost through the streets of Blantyre. Eventually we decided to ask someone for help, so Doug approached an elderly gentleman wearing a threadbare gray suit. Doug showed him the address and to our surprise, the man exclaimed "Oh! That's my doctor! I'll take you to him." So we followed Soliman, as we came to know him, back the way we had come and he led us right to the office. He took us inside and was greeted by the staff with familiar smiles that showed they knew him. Then he introduced us, in Chichewa, and explained what we were doing (we had filled him in on the way). The staff whisked us right into the room with the doctor. I had my California RN license in my hand and I noticed the doctor checking it out as I told him what about my little clinics and the kinds of infections I was seeing. He said that he normally woulnd't give antibiotics out, but since I was a nurse and we were helping people for free he agreed to sell us some medicine. So we we purchased 10 courses of Amoxil for adults, 10 courses for children, and 41 tubes of antibiotic eye ointment. I am so excited--my meager supply of antibiotics has multiplied substantially! Things are looking good for our next round of clinics.

yep, those are rats.

malawian woman

journal entry #6~the miracle of the burned baby

gettin' down at church

photo by travis white

johnas at church

women dancing

Today is blowing me away--

Got up and had a great church service with Travis doing an awesome job preaching. I had so much fun dancing and singing with the women...I love the joy they have, and it's even more remarkable in the face of all the suffering they endure. After church we opened the medical clinic. It was SO GREAT today! I assigned one person to be the headache/backache person and dole out Tylenol, another person handed out Tums for stomach pain, etc. This sort of weeded out the people who just wanted something from those who are really sick. Laurie and Paul did wounds and I triaged and saw everyone else. I saw a man with a urostomy, a lady with very bad diarrhea, kids with rashes and conjunctivitis.

laurie and me

paul working in the clinic

We were planning to leave at noon, but at 11:45 someone came to the clinic and said there was a sick woman in her hut who was too weak to walk to the clinic. So Isaac, Tracy and I walked to her hut to see her. She was sitting outside and complained of stomach pain and diarrhea. She had a couple of big hernias and a distended abdomen, but no fever. The only thing I could give her was Tums and Tylenol so I didn't even bother trying to figure out what the problem was...it's kind of like, what's the point if we can't treat it anyway? We prayed for her and I talked to her about trying to stay hydrated. Later we were eating lunch (the slaughtered goat) when someone came to me and said they had seen a baby with a dirty bandage on her face. I went out and found the mother, sitting in the dirt, holding a baby wrapped in a blanket. The baby's face was covered in filthy bandages and there were flies all over her. With Owen's help I asked if I could change the bandage and the mother agreed. Taking the baby, I placed her on a rickety wooden table and unwrapped the blanket. To my surprise, her whole body was covered in bandages. With a knot in my stomach I began to unwrap the dressings, not knowing what to expect but suspecting it was going to be bad. There were severe burns on her legs, chest, arms, and face. Her little arm was burned down to the bone in places, and several of her fingers were missing or else burned to small, shriveled black stumps. I gave her some baby Tylenol and started praying as I cleaned and dressed her wounds. As I did this I had to constantly swat flies off of her. By this time several team members had gathered around and were watching and praying. When I was finished, we laid our hands on her and prayed for healing. I was weeping and praying--it was almost too much to take. I asked Doug if we could take her to a hospital, because I was worried she would develop an infection and probably die without daily medical care. The mother agreed to go.

precious baby

We all climbed into the bus. I saw someone press a bill into the mother's hand--it was 5 kwatcha, or about 5 cents. I sat looking out the window, crying a little, and asking, "why Lord?" Why wouldn't he heal that innocent baby? What a testament that would have been to the entire village! In my head I know that God has reasons for doing things the way He does, and I know I can't always understand them, but I couldn't keep from crying out to Him in despair.

During the ride to the hospital we started to get the whole story from the baby's mother. Here's what she said:
On Monday, 2 nights ago, the family had been sleeping in their hut. There was a fire burning on one end of the room, with the father and mother sleeping next to the fire, and then the baby, and two other children. The parents were situated between the children and the fire. They woke suddenly to the baby screaming, and were horrified to find her in the fire. The family believes that the baby was lifted into the fire by a witchcraft spell (someone in the family was involved in witchcraft--I'm not sure if it was an enemy or what, because the mother was reluctant to talk about this). According to the mother, the baby is too young to crawl or even roll over so they know she didn't accidently go into the fire. (Later I talked to Isaac about this. I was dubious at first, but according to him this is a common occurance in Malawi, and people frequently wake from sleep to find themselves in strange places or falling from a high place. Witchcraft calls upon the powers of darkness, and demons have the ability to do things like this. Isaac also said that many witch doctors teach that if you want to get rich, you must shed the blood of a baby or kill a baby. Now I think it very well could have been a witchcraft spell that lifted the baby into the fire) That morning, the mother borrowed a bicycle and rode for 15 kilometers on a bumpy dirt trail, carrying her baby to the nearest hospital. When she arrived, the doctors wanted to keep the baby there but didn't because the mother wasn't able to pay for treatment. So they just put bandages on her and told her to come back in 2 days. The mother rode home, hopeless and broken, knowing that she couldn't afford to return to the hospital. She was sick with worry about her daughter. That night, she heard about a movie being shown in a nearby village. She and her family went to see the Jesus film that we showed in our first village, and she accepted Jesus that night. But she was still very worried about her baby.

We dropped the rest of the team off at our next village, and then Laurie, Issac and I climbed into the back of the pickup (the one that always has to be push started) and the women and the baby rode in the cab the rest of the way to the hospital. When we got there, Issac suggested Laurie and I stay outside because he thought the price would increase as soon as they saw white people. The doctors wanted to look at the baby before they could estimate a price for her treatment, so we left the women there and went into town to buy some bottled water and petrol for the truck. While we were waiting Laurie and I spotted a telephone bureau--basically a little plywood shack just big enough for two small wooden chairs and a telephone. It was so strange--we couldn't figure out where the telephone was plugged in! But it was a welcome sight, and we pooled our money to pay for each of us to have a 2 minute call to the U.S. It took several tries before we were able to get through, but I finally heard ringing on the other end of the line. It was very early at home, and to my dismay Darin's voicemail greeting came on. I left him a message; it was a surreal experience to be talking to him from a plywood booth in the middle of Africa with 4 Africans leaning in the windows and doors to listen to everything I said. It lifted my spirits so much just to hear his voice on the recording! Laurie got Ollie's voicemail too, but we were giddy anyway. It had been a long day, and that little sound of home was much needed. We laughed about the range of emotions we'd experienced so far in one day...

phone home

isaac and shan

When we returned to the hospital, two men with crucifixes around their necks came out and talked to Isaac. They wanted to keep the baby there for 2 weeks. They said the women could stay there but the hospital wouldn't be able to feed them. We were able to pay for the baby's hospital stay and also gave K1500 to the women so that they could buy food for themselves. The total cost was $30 American. To put this in perspective--if the entire village pooled all their money and sold all their livestock, they would have less than $2 American. Can you imagine how they felt about a group of funny looking pale people showing up (the day after she had accepted Jesus, even) taking them to the hospital (they returned the very day that the doctors had told them to come back) and paying K3000, more money than they have ever or will ever see again? To us, it's not much...but to them, it was a miracle. We went into the hospital where the baby was. She was sleeping peacefully with her mom and grandmother watching over her. We handed them the food money and cautioned them to ration it to buy food. We paid the hospital directly for the medical care. With Isaac's help, we told them that the money was not from us but from God, and that God had worked a miracle for their baby, and that she would be a testament to everyone in that village. We told her to break any ties with witchcraft and reminded her that she belongs to Jesus and the name of Jesus is more powerful than any other. They were so grateful and stunned at all that had happened. We prayed again for healing and blessing for the baby, and then we left.

hospital ward

During the ride home I thought about how God doesn't always work the way we want or expect Him to. Carol T. told me later than God works in the way that will have the optimal impact on the most people possible. Even though He didn't heal her before my eyes, He did do a miracle in that family's life. I'm so grateful He let me have a small role in that. What an awesome God He is!

journal entry #5~rooster of misery

firewood, photo by travis white

I slept well again last night until a confused rooster started crowing long before sunrise. I lay in my sleeping bag and listened to the village wake up. First the goats started bleating sweetly, reminding me of my 4H goat raising days. Next I started to hear women's voices as they began their day's work. All the while that stupid rooster kept crowing, only stopping when the first sunlight washed over the village. Now I'm sitting in our little hut trying not to listen as the men are killing a goat. Stupidly, I can't keep myself from crying! The sounds are terrible as one man has each of its front legs and they force it to walk across the village upright. I fully understand the need for them to kill goats, and in fact I am incredibly honored that they are doing this in order to feed us--it's a great sacrifice. I hope I can eat it...I need to get a grip.
I'm dreading clinic today. Yesterday we saw about 200 people in 4 hours. I almost think it would be better to do nothing than to offer help that seems so insignificant. Maybe that's Satan messing with my mind--
--a sweet little girl just came up to me to shyly shake my hand and say good morning. Her nose was running all over the place. I'll end this for the moment because the women just brought us some rice for breakfast...

village boys

malawian man

journal entry #4~a rough start

laurie & shannon organizing medical supplies in blantyre

The Jesus Film is playing now and I snuck away to write about today. I can hear the film's soundtrack and everytime it comes to Jesus doing a miracle or something the people cheer wildly...This morning I awoke in my little cocoon of sleeping bag and mosquito net. We got up and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast. A little while later the women brought us a gigantic plastic bin full of white rice. We ate it with our hands and it was delicious. Just after breakfast Kurt appeared in front of me clutching his hand with blood everywhere--he had been trying to cut open a box and stabbed himself through a finger with a serrated knife. The knife went all the way through his finger! I dug out the medical supplies and fixed him up. Kurt was a little pale and sweaty looking but once it was bandaged up he was fine. My first patient! Afterwards we had our first water well dedication. The whole village walked about 15 minutes to the well. I was walking in the middle of a group of African women as they sang and laughed. It was a surreal moment when I couldn't see anyone else from my group and I was surrounded by just the women and their incredible voices, walking through the African fields.

water well celebration, photo by travis white

After that, Kelly, Laurie, Paul and I returned to the village and set up for our first medical clinic. People lined up with their children and waited for hours to be seen in the clinic, and afterwards the prayer team laid hands and prayed for each person. We had a fantastic team of translators; Laurie and Paul did an amazing job cleaning and dressing wounds, and Stanley, Kelly and Carol T. were invaluable as the prayer team.
The rest is sort of a blur--I was so busy and overwhelmed at the number of people who needed care. We were somewhat disorganized and everyone kept interrupting me with questions. I felt a lot of pressure to know everything--which of course I don't! I cleaned a lot of wounds, gave some meds, and tried to teach people about keeping their wounds clean. The first little girl I saw had fallen off a bike and had a huge gouge in her heel. As I worked on it I had to keep swatting flies off of it; what a change from working in a hospital. Another patient had me follow him to the bathroom (a hut with a hole in the dirt floor) to show me a terrible rash on his genitals, which I think was gonorrhea. I gave him 1/3 of my supply of antibiotics and did some STD teaching. A few people complained of asthma and were wheezing terribly--I gave them Combivent inhalers and taught them how to use them. I saw lots of kids with rashes, tons of conjunctivitis, and lots of stomach pain, headache, and back pain. When we were finished I felt pretty low; if I had been able to take a minute alone I would have cried. I feel so helpless, as if what I have to offer makes no difference. I know that every little bit helps but it's so frustrating and depressing to see these beautiful people so sick....Now we're in a neighboring village and in the morning we'll do another clinic. I get a stomach ache thinking about it. It's much more draining that I expected it to be. But now that I know what to expect I have some ideas about how to make tomorrow's clinic a little more organized.

me looking a bit worried...

medical clinic

a very ugly leg

prayer team

I'm praying that God will take what little I can do and multiply it. It's one thing to motor into the village and talk about the love of God, but it's another to actually touch people's wounds, listen to them talk of their pain, and lay hands on them to pray. I have to remember that the real value in what I'm doing is the hope that the people will feel the love of God in it, not that I'm going to heal all of Africa. I guess I was a little idealistic without realizing it. I'm very thankful for Kelly, who was really supportive today. It's so nice to have a friend on this trip. Without her I think I would be a mess, but now that I've had a chance to pray, vent and to write down my thoughts I feel a little bit excited again about what tomorrow's clinic will bring...

journal entry #3~into the wild

happy bus people

Okay...time for a little orientation for those of you not familiar with this trip. It's a missions trip from a small Foursquare (Christian) church in California. The team consists of 14 people, plus several Malawian translators. We travel in three vehicles--a small pickup truck that we avoid shutting off because it must be push-started every time; a bus with equipment spiling forth from every available surface and people squeezed in between, and a small converted "Super 16" Toyota van that has a ridiculous number of fold down jump seats added to enable it to carry 16 hot and sweaty passengers. Our purpose is to travel to remote villages in Malawi to share the Gospel by talking with the people and showing The Jesus Film, which tells the story of Jesus's life from the Gospel of Luke. We set up a rickety old screen outside and show the film on 4 reels with a projector that breaks down quite frequently. Between each reel someone gets up and tells about how or why they came to know Jesus. If the reel breaks, that person might have to go on for an indefinate amount of time while it is being repaired. Because our church has raised money to fund several water wells to be drilled for the villagers, we are also holding water well dedication ceremonies in several villages. We sleep outdoors or in huts, under mosquito nets. We eat whatever food the villagers offer to us, occasionally supplemented with our own stash of beef jerky and Balance Bars. We set up portable medical clinics and care for the sick. As the team nurse I'm responsible for this part of the program. I've never done this before, so I'm a little nervous but mostly looking forward to the opportunity.
Today was our first trip to a village. We started from Blantyre and drove through the countryside, taking in the passing scenes outside our windows. Street vendors, grass huts tucked into rolling green hills, men on rusty bicycles, women carrying loads of wood on their heads with babies strapped to their backs...it was such a beautiful portrait of everyday life for many African people. I had requested that everyone interested in being on the medical team ride in the bus. There were 4 American takers--myself, Kelly, Laurie, and Paul. The rest of the bus was filled with translators--an amazing group of young people from the Blantyre Foursquare Church. We introduced ourselves and held a little meeting about what to expect in the medical clinics, how witchcraft played a role in what we would see, and ideas about how to organize the clinic and manage the crowd.




owen, translator extraordinare

After a while people started to warm up to each other and our bus was filled with the happy humming of conversations in both English and Chichewa, along with a few Chichewa lessons being given. One translator, Owen, patiently taught Kelly and I some phrases. Edwin kept us entertained with riddles and jokes. We sang, chatted, and watched out the windows as we drove deeper and deeper into rural Malawi. We crossed the Shire River and got out to take some photos of the river running lazily through endless green. Curious people watched us, waving and smiling.




the river shire

Eventually we turned off onto a rutted dirt road. We passed through the gate of a wildlife reserve and soon after saw several baboons run across the road in front of us. We continued on, the road growing narrower and rougher as we wound our way further into the wilderness. We had been driving for a few hours and were passing through a cotton field at sunset when our bus coasted to a stop and could not be started again. We all piled out and milled around as some of the men tried to fix the bus. The sky was glowing shades of pink and orange. As beautiful as it was, I couldn't help but wonder how we were going to get out of this--broken down on an African wildlife reserve at dusk.

bus and baobab, photo by travis white

We decided to load the Super 16 with as many people as possible and continue on, and then come back as many times as necessary for the rest of the team and supplies. Several of us piled into the van, reluctant to leave our friends and equipment behind. We made our way down the path not much wider than a hiking trail. I was whipped in the ear by a stray branch as they poked into the windows as we passed. Just as the last bit of light was fading, we heard a thud on the side of the van. A man had emerged from the trees, barefoot and wearing tattered clothing, and he was chasing the van. We stopped and he leaned in the window, speaking loudly in a language I couldn't identify. Tracy translated, "He wants to come in to show us the way." We opened the door and he got in, crouching behind the driver's seat because there were no empty seats. We came to several forks in the trail and were very glad to have a guide, nicknaming him Gabriel. It was only a few minutes later that we came to a halting stop; in front of us lay a gully about 30 feet deep and 35 feet wide. Everyone piled out of the van and climbed across to the other side to watch and pray that the van would make it. On the first try, it got stuck in the soft dirt at the bottom leaving us momentarily stranded on the wildlife reserve in darkness with two vehicles incapacitated. However, we had Wilford--the greatest driver of all time--and he was able to back up and get the van across on the second try. We cheered, and it was as our voices died down that I realized I could hear drums beating in the near distance. Listening closely the sound of African singing reached us, and we exchanged amazed glances. I felt like I had stepped into an adventure movie. Our excitment grew when we heard the snapping of trees and saw bouncing lights coming toward us...could it be? We all cheered again as our bus rounded the bend and proceeded to struggle across the gully. We were all together again. I still don't know how they managed to maneuver all the forks in the road to find us.
Children began to emerge from the darkness as we neared the village, running after us and yelling excitedly. I listened to the hypnotic drumming and singing grow louder and louder until it filled the night air all around me. Suddenly the bus was surrounded by people and music, a thousand hands reaching up to grasp my hand through the open window, singing, smiling, and dancing. We got off the bus and joined in the celebration. The guys set up the screen and projector, and soon we were ready to start...Tyson gave a quick sermon about creation, and then we started the film. Watching in amazement I saw crowds of people emerging from the woods, sitting on the dirt or standing in groups as they stared, transfixed, at the screen. The film is in their language, and they were so involved...they clapped and cheered when Jesus did a miracle, and booed at Judas. It was surreal to watch. In the meantime, the girls were working to set up mosquito nets and army cots to sleep on. The villagers had built a structure especially for us to sleep in! It was a long narrow hut, open on one side, with a grass roof that went halfway across the top. The girls were to sleep there and the guys were going to sleep in the mud buliding that was the church, except for one small mishap: Kristina was given the job of spraying the church floor for ants, but no one mentioned that she was supposed to dilute the solution...so she sprayed it full strength and the church was rendered useless for sleeping. The guys ended up sleeping outside under the stars. As the Jesus Film ended, someone did a follow up and asked if there was anyone who wanted to accept Jesus. Through teary eyes I watched as hand after hand shot up in the air. That night I slept through the whole night for the first time since leaving home. Drifting off to sleep gazing at the African night sky through a gauzy mosquito net and listening to the beat of the drumming and singing, I felt an acute happiness at the day's events. Under what other circumstance could a group of "azungus" (white people) be so welcomed into a culture with which we have so little in common, except for the love of God? Nothing else could bridge such a gap so completely...




typical dwelling

journal entry #2~welcome to africa!

What a welcome we had at the Blantyre airport! Stepping off the plane, I looked up to see people lined up and waving to us excitedly. We waved back before stepping inside and going through customs. Then came the ordeal of collecting our 23 gigantic bags and fending off the many men who wanted to help us load them (for a fee, of course)...It was all somewhat routine until we stepped outside. The night air exploded into song as a group of women from the Blantyre Foursquare Church began to sing, dance, and rejoice at our arrival. I don't know how to convey the feeling that came from seeing their beautiful black faces and their lovely white smiles and hearing our first taste of live African music. My eyes filled as I watched them; the joy and warmth and love was so apparent in them, and after such a long journey it was wonderful to be welcomed that way. Soon I was singing along, clapping and dancing with them, even though the only word I could understand was "Yesu"--Jesus. It was enough. We were singing about the same God and we shared the same love. I was struck with how BIG God is...I go to my little church in California, and I know there are other churches all around it, but to be on the other side of the world and hear the sound of the African people worshipping in their wonderful African style was incredible. I think it was a small taste of what heaven is--people of every tounge and tribe all gettin' down in one spirit...it was more amazing than I can convey here.
Now I'm sitting in my room at the NamiWaWa Lodge in Blantyre, snuggled into my sleeping bag because the linens are dirty. The Nam is much better than I expected it to be after hearing the stories about huge bugs and snakes in the rooms. There are a few bugs creeping about, and the room would be considered disgusting in the U.S., but for Africa standards it's 5 stars. I find it charming and comfortable as I write this, holding my flashlight in one hand for light. Through the window above my head drifts a man's lone voice singing in Chichewa, the occasional rooster's crow, and a whole pack of dogs howling in the distance. It's dark out now, but if I look closely I can see papaya trees rising tall into the clear night sky. I'm in Africa!!!


the namiwawa lodge


papayas at dawn