The Lessons We Didn’t Expect
Now that we’ve safely landed in Toronto and are on the last leg to each of our respective destinations, we are reminiscing over some of the highlights of our Malawi trip.
Going into the trip, we knew the theme of VBS was patience, but we didn’t realize how much that theme would play out. Aside from our Bible stories, Psalter, and verse, we ourselves were effectively taught patience in many ways—one of the most memorable being the job of entertaining 2-7 year old children for sometimes half an hour while we waited for their snacks to be ready!
We’ll never forget the exuberance of the children to greet us as we arrived at the centers each morning; it was both adorable and humbling.
The teachers and pastors at the childcare centers were incredibly helpful and generous, being eager to make the VBS week memorable for every child.
Has anyone ever wondered what 600 children singing Psalms in Chichewa sounds like? We were blown away by their exuberance and sheer volume—it was amazing!
It really impressed and humbled us to see how much joy can be brought by things we consider simple, like clapping games, friendship bracelets, and blank pieces of drawing paper.
In the south we learned firsthand the hazards of trying to hand out a box’s worth of chalk to 100+ eager and exuberant children—thankfully some of the teachers were able to help us!
It was powerful to see how we could form connections with the children, even though we didn’t speak the same language.
We were also sobered to see the poverty we encountered in some of the local villages, specifically the tiny house of one of the Timotheos beneficiaries that sheltered a family of eight.
The dramatically rutted and potholed roads leading to some of the childcare centers sometimes made us wonder if we were actually on the road! We experienced a true “Malawian massage.”
Although our first minibus down south was spacious, we rapidly learned the reason for their reputation on the second ride! We thought packing 18 people into a 12-passenger van when we first got on was a lot—we were not prepared for 28! We sat on laps, bonked our heads on the ceiling, and had strangers’ arms around us, but made it safely back to Kanzimbi!
Every time we had a long drive, we would entertain ourselves by singing Psalters and hymns a cappella and sometimes in parts!
We screamed and laughed as we jumped from rocks into Lake Malawi and into numbingly cold water at Mt. Mulanje.
One of our blog drafts included a comprehensive list of every ailment we had experienced in Malawi, ranked on a scale of 1-10, as a joke. The blog authors heard the rest of the group laughing from the other side of the lodge!
Our experience at Mvuu safari lodge was amazing! We were served mouthwatering food at each meal, and once as we were eating, we witnessed a young baboon thief pilfer a tomato from an unattended salad bowl. We also got a lot of entertainment out of naming animals we saw on safari—for example Bucephalus and Bartholomew the buffalo.
In general, we enjoyed getting to know each other and bonding as a team through good conversations and humorous mishaps, like getting stuck in a Malawian elevator with 11 people!
We deeply appreciated the field workers, Florus, Janneke, and Bep, who gave so much of their time to help us and talk with us. Every Sunday we enjoyed a gezellig afternoon with them on the porch, discussing the sermons, drinking coffee, and sometimes singing.
Most recently, we were overjoyed to discover that we had empty middle seats between us on our 16 hour flight home—we were able to sleep so well!
It made an impression on us to be able to hear the same truth of God’s Word being preached halfway across the world. The Lord truly has His Church everywhere! We also really enjoyed the choirs’ beautiful singing in church services and were specifically amazed by the singers’ ability to sing parts they had arranged themselves without any music.
We went to Malawi prepared to teach about patience, but the Lord gave us many opportunities to learn it ourselves.
