Which team today? Part 1

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. 

Use them well to serve one another. -1 Peter 4:10

-VBS-KIDS-Grove and Mosaic

-JUSTICE

-MEN'S CONFERENCE
-SPORTS
-AGRICULTURE

-WOMEN'S AND WIDOWS

-HIGH SCHOOL

-CONSTRUCTION
-MEDIA/FILM

-MEDICAL

-MUSIC

These were the teams we were on. Before we went to Malawi we have meetings every month with our teams, for 10 months to see what will be doing, what will be going on, learn a little of the language, and culture and other stuff. We were able to change teams if we wanted, as some of these teams were doing things and going places that others were not going to udo. Here is a break down of what each did.

VBS-KIDS-Leader Jen Bellinger-Children's pastor at the Grove-(If her name looks familiar, yes she is the wife and mom to two MLB former/players, and she herself has a beautiful heart for God and his children- each day this group went out to a different village, or orphanage or school and were able to spend time with the kids. There were 3 villages that everyone focused on Chiliza, Chipampha and Mkanda. Chiliza village and Mkanda have schools, but they all have tons and tons of kids. This team also spent a day in a village called Mguwie <- that might be spelt wrong. Mguwie is directly behind COTN-Children of the Nations, from what I heard the children speak english very well. 

In Chiliza village, they went to the school, where they get to be with the kids and see the classes, the teachers will show them what the students have been learning, and then let the KIDS team take over for a little bit to do some games. This team is also very good at being a distraction. When we come to Malawi, the children will miss school to be around us. And that can be hundreds of kids. So when another team is doing something, the KIDS team will be there to distract the kids from interrupting. Our Mosaic Team KIDS would teach the kids new songs and also taught a handful of kids how to do a play, which was presented to the whole community on our last day.

In Chimpapha village, the KIDS team did VBS-vacation Bible School, a little back story, our
church does VBS the week before we leave for Malawi, the parents pay for VBS and each kid
gets a shirt (red, blue, white, yellow, green) the kids wear these shirts and then on the last day they are asked if they want to donate their shirts to a kid in Malawi. On the last day of VBS Malawi the kids run down this hill in their brand new shirts. This is one of my favorite days to see this color of sugar high kids running as fast as they can.

Sea of color
(this shirt is brand new for the whole family, sometimes you will see the
same kid wearing this shirt for the whole year, and sometimes you will see the
mom wearing it Monday, the dad wearing it the next day, and a sibling on the next)

Mkanda village is a new village for us to go in to.  This village has been watching the other villages that we have been in for years, and has seen a change that they want to be a part of. So last year when our pastor went back to a wedding in October, many people from the village of Mkanda, including the chief came and asked if we would be apart of their village too.

 

Justice team- This team is new for us.  This is our first year bringing justice to the people in the prisons. Let me start from the beginning.  Last year a guy named Sean who happens to be a lawyer came with us. He also goes to our church. He came on this mission in hopes to see how he can help as a lawyer, and spent a lot of his times throughout the prisons that we visit, with out medical team. He saw the injustice that these individuals receive, he saw the over populated places, that were so crowded, some of the prisoners slept on their sides back to back covering the floor with no space in between, some of the prisoners slept crouched with no space in between each other, not everyone got to eat every day during the one meal they get, and he found out why people were in prison. A lot of them were there cause they had to pay a fine, a small fine to us, but something they did not have. So Sean spent time with a former prisoner who now helps run the prisons, who himself became a Christian and wants to bring God to these individuals. (I should know his name, but I forget) This guy left prison, got an education and then went right back to work at the prison to be a change. Sean was able to leave last year with enough information to start something. He hired someone to do the work on the Malawi side, to seek out the prisoners who could get out quickly for small reasons that we in America would never go to prison for. And Sean went back several times throughout the year to see how the legal system works in Malawi so that he would do things the correct way.

 

Needless to say Sean was very successful, with the help of the team that drove around with him, he was able to get many people released from prison. The most in one day was 3 on this day in particular the justice team said that the prisoners were let out as they were driving away, and the prisoners ran toward the van they were in and kept thanking them. One man was in prison for cussing at his aunt. On one of the last days we were there he was able to get a lady out of prison, whose 3 year was in with her. Now, in Malawi women can have their children in prison with them up to 6 YEARS!! I have absolutely no pictures of any of this, but I am so excited to see what Sean and his team will do throughout the year and next year. If you want to read an amazing book, by a guy who is a lawyer helping people in third world countries get out of prison he also started Restore International read Love Does by Bob Goff. He loving, funny and quirky. Altogether they got out 11 prisoners and one child.

Men's conference-This conference happens every year. It is held in the ABC auditorium and it is for the chief's of the villages to come and learn about God and how they are where the change needs to happen to see a difference in their own community. When this conference started a few years back there were only a handful of chief that came, this last year there were 77, men and women chief this year was different though, this year one of the key speakers was a lady named Chief Kachindamoto also known as the terminator of child marriages, she spoke on, your guessed it, how to prevent or stop child marriages in your village and how they need to be leaders.  She was a very powerful speaker.

 

Chief Kachindamoto
being greeted by the other chiefs

All 200 + of us greeting each chief, we
do this every year!!

I don't have much to show on this team either. It is a one day event, that I have never been a part of, however, they did let us come back to see Chief Kachindamoto speak, and I am grateful for that.


Sports team-This team is very literal. Gary, a guy who comes with us every year was the leader of this team. He literally played sports every day with some of our group, and many Malawians. Their sports of choice is soccer, and they are amazing and most play bare foot. Ouch! They played some days at the college and some days they drove hours away to play. We have, rather they have a huge soccer tournament that starts in the beginning of the year and by the time we get there, they are on their last leg of the tournament and the final game is played in the village. We azungu's are aloud to play too, some do. This year I found out that the ABC Malawi campus is the only place that has an indoor basketball court in all of Malawi, 17million people!! So a lot of games are played there every year day. While we were there John Lott (former NFL coach, who is also best friends with my lead pastor), had us dedicate a new part of the basketball building that is being built and should be done soon. John Lott moved back to Texas, but lived in AZ for awhile and while there he would do these camps for kids and all the proceeds went into building this add-on to the basketball building. This add on will have lockers, showers, weight room, and more bathrooms. The original only has 1 toilet for men and 1 toilet for women, so this will be huge for them. The picture on the right is the new center connected to the basketball building.




Home of John Lott Strength and Speed center

Basketball court



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Lott donated to build a concrete stadium on the soccer field, it is to the left of the basketball court pic. On the side of the stadium is the AZ Cardinals . I took a picture of this too, but TIA. John Lott is a good man, who is super funny, if you can find a video on him speaking I recommend it, he prides himself on the fact that he no longer cusses, someone pointed this out to him a long time ago and he decided to fix it. The words that he uses to replace cuss words were hilarious, and the analogies he makes up, made us laugh out loud, in tears funny. Although he was only with us a week, he did a lot. He also bought 10 acres of land for the village of Chimpapha for agriculture. To be able to grow their own food, and use solar power, and have an aquaponics area. this will help the village to be self sustaining, they will be able to feed everyone and they will be able to sell what they grow. It will be interesting to see how far along they get throughout the next year. (I will share on this in a year). This ties into the Agriculture team- they sadly did not have a lot to do, and so they were able to go into any other teams that they wanted. I was told that they had two days worth of things they could do, when John Lott bought the 10 acres, they were able to start giving ideas and making a start up plan, but since Malawi had such a bad drought season the agriculture team was unable to do much. But that is okay, TIA, you never know what may stop you, we pray and wait til next year.

 

 

There is so much more to share and quite a few teams to still write about, I want to get this out before the week ends and get the rest to you all by next week. If I have not said thank you for each and every one of your support.  Again Thank you. I see huge changes coming to this amazing place and I cannot wait to get back.

 

stay tuned....