Womens and Widows-leadership

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.1963)

So I tend to stick with my women's and widow team, I don't like to stray from them, because I love them so much and I have an amazing connection with most of them from previous years, I always feel like I'm cheating on my team if I go somewhere else, well I strayed for two days this time around. What was nice was the two days I strayed were two days where my team had breaks. This might sound bad, but it is needed.  Last year my team was overwhelm with too much to do and not enough time to do it, and this is something we usually try to avoid, but we just overloaded our schedule.

This year we did the same things as last year but were able to condense everything, for example we did one long women's conference with all three villages that came to one spot, instead of 3 separate conferences at all three villages in three days. I really liked this way because all the women can come together and learned together, and taught each other. The other thing we did was instead of going to each individual widows home, we had the women come to one location in their village and we saw them at the same time. This was good and bad in my opinion. Good because again we had everyone come together to be with each other, also we did more dancing and singing, which was fun. What I did not like about it was we were not able to do things with them in their homes/huts, we couldn't go to their homes to help them clean or cook or learn their lives, and we couldn't go to their homes to see if maybe they may need a new roof or if their 'foundation' was cracked. These are things we look for when we go. And the other thing I didn't like about it, is that not every widow could make it to us, because they had a disability or were too sick which prevented them from being able to make it to where we were. This was a new way for us to do our widows meetings, and I think it was a good jumping off point to teach us what will be better for the future. I know our hope is for the women to be able to take control of their own conference and lead us, which is coming soon, this year they did a lot of the work on their own, and we did very little.

We also did something new this year, a leadership meeting, where Duwa  the women's leader of Live Love Malawi, found and brought who she knows are amazing leaders in their village back to the ABC campus, We got together with approximately 30 women leaders to learn about what they wanted to see change in their village. It was really neat to see them all collaborate together and even have some arguments of what they felt was more important or should be first on the list. Collectively each of the three villages, wanted better education for their children, more people of the village to come to know God, and to have a way to be able to provide not only for their families but for their community. We had them write and draw what they were looking for, for their future and then choose one thing out of their list and explain how they can start trying to make that happen. It was pretty amazing. I am excited to see if anything comes to fruition by next year.





Here is a Chichewa Bible
 1 John 4 2-6
 I took this pic for 1 John 4:4

Here are the three things that they came up with.


One team wanted their village to have more of their community come to know God. They decided that it needs to start with them, and that they need to be the voice of their community to have people learn of Him. They really want more men to come to know God, and realized that getting the wives involved to see how they are changing can in turn help the men find God as well.  They also need more bibles, they do not have enough bibles for each of the women in the bible studies they do every week, only a couple for everyone. I believe the received many bibles almost immediately as Mosaic church found a way to get them more Bibles. I own a Chichewa Bible myself from an amazing student who gave me one last year.







Another pic of Chichewa Bible 1 John 3:16-23,
I took a pic for 1 John 3:18.



 

The next group came up with a way to make money, They wanted to start their own farm, and ways to be more self sustaining, I wish I would have taken more pictures of this leadership meeting, rather taken any pictures, but of course, once again, I was too excited to even care about pictures, and was just happy to be there. The moral of this story is if you want to see more of Malawi, you all need to come with me next year :)

 

The last group is a village that has been with us from the very beginning they want to be more self sustaining, they want to make money on their own to help their community, they have a garden, they have land, and they have a sewing business, and they make a bunch of stuff, clothes, purses, bags, bracelets etc. They are partnering with Live Love Chandler to find a way they can sell all of their product(s) here in the states. It is pretty amazing.

Watching these women learn together, argue together, find a way to make their own villages better, and more successful together is something I wish everyone can see. These women have very little and yet they have each other. 



The quote at the top of this blog has been seen a lot recently and it needs to be. I am saddened by the hate, the loss of lives, the violence, and the lack of love we have seen, and I LOVE the generosity, and togetherness, the love, and education of the people this has been affecting the most. HERE is an article my pastor wrote this last week in Relevant magazine. I'm proud my church spoke about what is going on, I'm proud my church prayed together for everyone.

 

 

A surprise

Galatians 5:22-23:But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.


I don't even know where to begin on the trip there. When we first arrived I was excited to see all the students again. They all show up at the airport to meet us and they wait a very long time for us to go through customs and get our visas. They are always in a long line on the other side of the airport waiting and from where we get our visa to where they are waiting is only 30 feet away, but we are blocked by walls. Lilongwe has a very small airport.

The other thing/person I was excited to see was my roommate, we knew ahead of time who our roommates were going to be, but I had never met mine and did not know who she was or what she looked like. I learned through traveling that she was from Colorado and only made it to 2 of our meetings and she was engaged to a guy named Matt who I have been to Malawi with 2 other times. Matt and my roommate Becky traveled separately from us since they lived in different states, but we all arrived about the same time in Malawi.



This is kind of what my room looked like this year but with only two beds and no bunk bed, and we share a bathroom,
with a room that looks identical to ours.

Becky had never been to Malawi before and wanted to go to a place where her soon to be husband loved so much. She was so excited to see this place that he could not stop talking about. She was the epitome of a new person going out of the country. She had 3 bags. One had supplies for Malawi, but the other 2 had stuff. A lot of stuff. It was amazing what she was able to fit in to her bags. Lots and lots of clothes, I counted 7 pairs of shoes at one point (tennis shoes and sandals) she had vacuumed packed pillows and blankets (more like comforters) a ton of food. It was amazing, she brought her home with her. This is all normal for a lot of first timers, however, I have never been roommates with anyone who packed quite like she did. Becky is a very sweet lady, she offer me and our suite mates anything that she had, she loves Matt completely and she was very happy to share this time with him. But Becky had a secret that I did not know or see coming.

Every morning we go to breakfast and then we go to chapel to have a mini sermon and our daily tasks for each group get sorted out. Once this is complete we go to the cafeteria to get sack lunches the we go to our buses and we leave for the day with each of our teams, who we usually do not see again until we get back to the campus. I was the only one of our 4 suite mates that was on a different team.


I only spent a few nights with my roommate. Because she was on the same team as the two other women we shared a bathroom with, they noticed that she seemed to be very upset on her first day. I could not tell, because when I saw her she was with her fiancé and she was very happy when she was with him, however, several more people came up to me asking if she was okay. I decided that one too many people saw something that I did not see, so I asked her how she was, and sure enough she was struggling, and she was embarrassed that others noticed she was not doing well. But these people care about her even if they don't know her. I found out she was upset with what she had seen, she wasn't expecting Malawi and the village(s) to be the way they were, she was hurting. We talked for quite awhile, and we were able to get to a point where she didn't want to run away and stay on campus the rest of her trip. One of the things our pastor says to us during the state side meetings is if you are overwhelmed and you need a break, then get up and get on a bus, there is always a bus around to get on and breathe. Also, you can stay behind on campus if you need too. We are not in our own environment, this is not something we see even in the worst parts of our cities. She was able to breathe again after our conversation, she was able to take a break and a step back, but there was something else that had been on her mind the whole time.

Cut to two days later, it was a normal day, breakfast and chapel. Our pastor told funny stories of his life and marriage and it was a lot about marriage, my roommate and her fiancé sat right next to me. I remember telling her that she looked amazing that day. And next thing we know our pastor says, would anyone like to get married today? He had to ask twice. As soon as he said it once, I knew that was what she had been concerned about as well, she was about to get married in a country that her fiancé adored, but she wasn't too sure of, but she wanted to marry this man. And so the second time our pastor asked, 'does anyone want to get married today?' they both stood up and we had the first American Malawian wedding!! I wish I could say that I took sooo many pictures of this amazing occasion, but I cant, I never take my phone with me to chapel or my camera, cause 'I don't need it' Wow was I wrong. It was a very quick wedding, maybe 10 minutes. We did the throwing of the money, to which they donated right back into Live Love Malawi. It was fun, beautiful and spur of the moment. I barely knew my roommate, and yes she did leave our room that night, so I was now roommateless, <~ (is that a word. Oh well it is today). But she is an amazing woman, she married a great guy and what little we learned of each other we really seemed to connect with what little time we had. I saw her throughout the rest of our next week or so, her and her husband left a little early to have a honeymoon in South Africa.

One of the most amazing things though, was later that evening, I was in the gym on campus watching futbol, I believe, and her now husband took his marriage license to our pastor to get it signed, and they need two witnesses. They asked me to sign their marriage license and be one of the two witnesses!! I was so excited!! I even questioned them as they handed it to me, but they said they talked to each other and knew that they wanted me to sign it. It might have been a small gesture to them, but I was honored to be asked.

Every year I go on these trips and every year I am surprised at something new, I know this is not a story of being in the village or anything we were doing with our teams, but this was a very special day for me (I lost a roommate, and gained a friend). But this place is magically every year, I don't see many things like this in the states, and it always amazes me that I can make friends across the globe but it is so, so hard for me to make friends in my own community. Malawi is home.

I just found out that my leader and beautiful, amazing, faithful and strong friend Melinda has stage 2 breast cancer, please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.