Malawi Begins,

It’s late in our first week in Malawi. In fact, it’s our weekend in between and we are away at safari. We opted to do Safari in the middle of our two weeks this year because we have two team members that have to leave a couple of days early.

The rest of the team arrived on Sunday afternoon and we picked them up at the airport. It was the first time many of us had actually met in person instead of just on Zoom. From the first hour, I could tell this team was going to click. God brought together a unique group of people to focus together on one task. From day, one, we have had no drama, lots of laughter, and everyone excited to get the job done.

Monday, the team’s first full day in Malawi together, was our usual cultural emergent day. For Bill and I, this feels like routine. For the rest of the team, it was a new, exciting, and challenging experience. I think for the first time the response from everyone on the team was that they LOVED everything about the day. We started with a trip to the market where we were broken into three teams.

Bill remained behind this time to work with the nurse at the clinic to prep for well child checks beginning the next day. So we had three teams of three. Each team was handed 45,000 kwacha and a shopping list written in Chichewa. We found out quickly our team was a bit competitive!

Groceries in hand, we boarded the van to head to the village of Mgwai to meet our families. Each team of 3 (two Americans and one translator) were assigned to a village family for the day. The goal is to be immersed in the culture, participate in family life and chores, and to work to prepare a meal together. The success of the entire day relies much on our translators who help us communicate and connect. Each team also had the opportunity to dance and sing with the many children hanging around to watch the “azungus” try to do things the Malawian way.

Clara and I have the opportunity to go to the water hole and fetch water with the teenage daughter of our family, and without our translator. We are both certain that most of the Malawian women and girls at the bore hole were laughing at the two white girls trying to fetch and carry water. I was even challenged by one woman to carry a large bucket of water on my head, but I did not accept the challenge.

It was a great day of experiencing the culture, bonding as a team, and getting ready to begin serving the people. Everyone discovered that Malawi truly is the warm heart of Africa!