Our day took us deep into the heart of the Lower Shire of Malawi to a remote area to visit the Timotheos Mkomabasa Child Care Center. The work Timotheos has done there is nothing short of extraordinary, and we were eager to witness it firsthand.

The ride to Mkomabasa was long but beautiful. We navigated a long, bumpy dirt road filled with potholes, creeks, and local foot traffic. Despite the discomfort, our excitement to see our first child care centre smoothed over the ride.

As we arrived, a crowd of overjoyed children ran toward us waving and chanting “White man, white man!” They were so close, we reached out and they grabbed our hands in excitement. They followed our vehicle extremely close until we parked. As we stepped out of the vehicle, we were immediately surrounded by many smiling faces, big hellos and eager hands reaching out to greet us. It was a heartwarming welcome.

We were then greeted by the pastor and the head teacher in the school office, where we began with prayer. Afterward, we took part in the Agogo feeding, a special program where the elderly villagers that are accepted into the program receive a traditional Malawian meal called nsima. Before they were fed, Ron led with a meditation and prayer.

While the elderly enjoyed their meal, we pulled out the soccer ball that we brought for them. As soon as we kicked it into the air, the kids erupted with joy, running and chasing it. It was only the boys playing, and eventually, one of the girls boldly approached and said, “The boys have a ball. Where is ours?” So we unpacked another ball and they immediately started throwing it back and forth.

Once the children were settled in the hall, Diane shared a Bible story about Paul and the serpent that leapt from the fire to bite him. The story was interpreted into Chichewa by the head teacher. We later handed out coloring pictures that correlated with the story.

As the children washed their hands for their meal, one of the women was refilling a bucket of water for them and carried it on her head. Jason and Ben decided that now was the opportunity to try this out. Something the local women do with ease was a lot more challenging than they thought!

After the meal, we took a walk through the village to see where the children lived. The homes were small huts, built with sticks, mud, and roofs of grass, and no bigger than 100 square feet. One of the families lived with seven people in this tiny space. It began to rain heavily, so we took shelter under a tree and under a hut. Despite the rain, the children stayed by our sides and held our hands.

As we were about to leave, the pastor asked if we could give four children a ride to their village. We were not sure why these children were picked to get a ride, but we soon realized why.... The children had to tell us which village they lived in, but they didn't say much at all for a long time, we found out their village was about 4km away from the Mkomabasa. As we got closer, the children got more and more excited and started smiling and calling out and waving to people they knew as we passed by them.

We ended the day at the Kanzimbe Lodge in Bangula, where we had a great evening together.

Written by Ben & Denise