Linda Johnson, Associate Pastor

Once again, I am grateful to this church for sending me to Malawi, Africa, with a Volunteers in Mission Team. This was my third trip, and the difference was remarkable. On my first VIM trip there we primarily visited villages and greeted them as fellow United Methodists. On the second trip my group visited churches in towns and villages and learned about the work of the United Methodist Women and children’s ministries. This trip consisted of many varied activities, all of which involved mutual sharing and conversation. It was wonderful.

The first thing the women on the team experienced was participation in a district-wide Women in Leadership Conference at the Galilea UMC in Blantyre, Malawi. Every Church Charge was invited to send the pastor’s wife and a lay woman to the conference. They came on public transportation (mini buses) with suitcases or bags of clothing balanced on their heads, and some with a baby tied to their backs with lovely African cloth. We made a few presentations, and some were made by leaders in the Malawian church. Their presentations often included breaking into small groups for discussion on topics such as marriage, raising children, nutrition, and health. Even with interpreters and our disparate living situations, we were just women discussing the joys and challenges in our lives. When the electricity went off, candles appeared and the conference went on without a hitch. A highlight of the conference for me was when a session ended the Malawian women immediately headed for the middle of the room and started dancing and singing. I highly recommend this activity for long meetings!

Our workdays found us at the new conference center, painting and repairing a gate alongside members of the Galilea UMC, including many young persons on break from Africa University or waiting for funding so they could go to AU. We worked together, ate together, talked and laughed and enjoyed one another. The visitation part of the trip included villages where the poverty was once again startling and deeply  disturbing. I suppose I forget between the trips just how much we take for granted here. Clean water. Enough food. Good nutrition. Access to medical care. Education. Yet so much is happening in Malawi. We saw beautiful gardens growing in the winter season and heard about Lester’s work as an agricultural specialist to generate food sustainability year-round. We even saw the truck we helped buy with last year’s Christmas Miracle Offering. We visited nursery schools and heard from Inke, the German missionary about her plans for starting more nursery schools in churches. We visited with Mercy, a nurse who recently graduated as the top student at AU and who turned down a lucrative position with the government to work for the church that made her education possible. Mercy was one week on the job and had already set up in a little house on the conference grounds and was making plans for expanding health services, not just in town but in the villages as well. We sang and danced and prayed with people who are joyful in their faith, generous in hospitality, and who are our brothers and sisters.

I am only scratching the surface of what happened while we were in Malawi. Please watch for presentations and articles to come and learn more about this amazing relationship and ministry that God sent to us.