A Warm Welcome at Namitambo

“A-zun-gu, a-zun-gu, a-zun-gu!” the chant of the children greeted us as we arrived at the Namitambo Child Care Center. Excitement was in the air with the happy smiles and unbridled curiosity. After a tour and brief overview from the pastor, we jumped right in as the younger children, who were not supposed to start until Tuesday, were ready and eagerly waiting for us on Monday.    

First impressions - there are a lot of children, the center is organized and well-maintained, and the discipline system is stricter than North America generally would allow. Lunch, the famous nsima we had heard about, got mixed reviews from the group.

We played “chicken, chicken, goat”; Red Rover; Simon Says; and London Bridge. The children were entertained and we learned a few new games from them as well.

We loved seeing the different personalities of the children as some were quiet and hardly dared to blink while others were not afraid to grab our hands. They love trying to pronounce our names, especially after the bib style name tags the pastor made for each of us. We were surprised with how much we could communicate given the language barrier. Sometimes their Malawian English is a language in itself. For example, when Julaine heard the word “ship” and thought it meant sheep. The game turned into sheep and airplanes instead of ship and airplanes.

However, the differences of our privileged lifestyle could be quickly seen. We were reminded that the children's experiences are very different from our own.  It was humbling to see that some had never used markers before and needed help opening them and discovering what they could do.

Reflecting back to our first Sunday in Malawi, we were very thankful to meet a small part of the community at church before beginning our VBS week. It was different than our usual church service as men and women sat separately, while some children—and even a few adults—moved freely in and out. We enjoyed the large amount of beautiful a capella singing. The catechism was on the Westminster Shorter Catechism question and answer 36 and the sermon was on Acts 2:37-47. The pastor spoke about the five benefits of true conversion and the fruits of it as they saw in the first Christian church. After the church service, Timotheos fieldworkers, Janneke and Florus invited us over for coffee and we enjoyed singing Psalters and Psalms while Florus played the organ by ear.  We enjoyed listening to one of our home church's morning services in the early evening. Even though we are in Malawi, our Sunday still felt a little like home. We are thankful for the opportunity to serve here and grateful for all of your prayers and support. Zikomo (thank you)!

(written by Sophia Van Lagen)

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