Day 2 (Sunday) & 3 (Monday)

by Kendra

Sunday

On our way to church Sunday morning at the Mbulumbusi child care center compound, Bep picked up a family to give them a ride. The five seater car now held nine people, but by Malawian standards we could have still fit one or two more! At the sign for the Timotheos center, we expected to be at the compound, but that was only letting us know where to turn off the main paved road. We still had a bit to go, and on the most rutted road any of us have ever encountered. Being wedged in so tightly in our seat was the only thing that kept us from falling side to side as the car lurched along. At the church, women sit on benches to the left and men on the right. As more people walked in (through-out the service) all the children were moved to the front on the floor. The singing is acapella Chichewa psalms, and the song leader (an elder or deacon) starts the first word of each line and the congregation then joins in. We found it very beautiful, and the people sing heartily. The service was mostly in English and translated into Chichewa by an elder.

First the pastor reviewed the Westminster Catechism question from the last week's service and then explained the question and answer for the current Sunday. After more songs, prayers, and rather lengthy church announcements, the second part of the service began with the pastor preaching about Matthew 16:24-27. People seemed to listen attentively. Some of the church announcements we found interesting included the elder talking to the young people about wearing modest clothing: boys not wearing low pants and girls needing to wear hats - we were surprised to find these were cross-cultural issues. They also stressed to the children that they would not receive the post-Sunday school snack if they stayed outside and played instead of attending church (at which point a large group of children was ushered in). After the service, the children went to the buildings with their class rooms, and the teachers sang with them, told a Bible story (the Van Dam Bible stories book has been translated into Chichewa) or, for the older children, read a portion of the Bible and completed a worksheet based on it. We enjoyed watching and interacting with a few different classrooms.

Monday

We started this week with singing and a Bible study with some staff at the Timotheos office. They were very encouraging to us as we set off with Mr. Peter, our driver for the week. After navigating the Malawian roads, we arrived at a schoolyard overflowing with eager, smiling, and excited children. There were over 550 children that we shared a Bible story, snack, and games with. We were only counting on about 300 in total, and so we quickly ran out of supplies. Our translator was amazing as we told the parble of the Good Samaritan, and the children were very responsive. With the younger group we had in the morning, we played Red Rover and Duck, Duck, Goose (except we changed it to chicken, Chicken, Goat because those were animals they were more familiar with). For the older group, we gave them soccer balls after the story (which they call footballs), and they had so much fun. At lunch, the cooking mothers brought us nsima, cabbage, and soya for lunch. We are exhausted but thinking of ways to better organize and teach for tomorrow. In true Malawian fashion, we were stopped on our way home because a dump truck was broken and blocking both lanes of traffic. We made it to the compound in Mapunga and debriefed with Bep.