Marriage Counseling - Malawi Style

The Thursday am session was about the balance between family and ministry. This was a topic requested by the church leaders. I decided to tackle it by addressing the three priorities in life for a pastor or any Christian really. The priories are:
1. God
2. Spouse (and family)
3. Ministry and work (as all the pastors here have to earn their living. Not one of them is financially supported by their church).

The students are by now much quicker at locating texts in the bible than on Monday. The God piece goes really well. We discuss different ways of praying and the need for a personal devotional life for the pastor. This is apparently a revelation to all. Listening prayers and contemplative time with God is a completely foreign concept - it took a while to explain, but people's faces lit up (yet again) when they realized that a conversational relationship with God is actually possible in this life and that God does speak to them.

Point 2 was spouse/family. My plan was to tackle the household texts in Ephesians and 1 Peter which tell the husbands to love their wives and the wives to respect the husbands. I planned to exhort them to willingly submit to one another and to consider the other as more important.
Little did I know that I this was not only a hot-button topic but an absolute mine-field.

By this time in the week the class was freely asking questions (Richard brought bags and bags of lollipops and to encourage questions on Monday I rewarded each question with a lollipop). I was hardly through the first verse when a hand went up.
This was the question: "Can a woman participate in ministry on Sunday morning, for example, sing in the worship team, if she is having her period."
"Huh?" is what I am thinking. I am desperately trying to figure out whether I will upset some cultural taboo with my answer (as I apparently did with the tithing question earlier in the week), so I decided to answer with a question.
"Why would it not be ok?"
"Some people say that a woman in unclean when she has her period so she should not do ministry."
Ok, now I am getting it. Yet another ceremonial law issue. The church here is strangely encumbered with OT laws regarding the Sabbath, tithing, and apparently the purity laws from Leviticus.
So, I explain the purity laws and the reason why things were deemed clean and unclean and how thanks to Jesus (and refrigeration and hygene) we are no longer bound by that.

The truth is that many girls here miss 1 week of school each month precisely because of this issue. There is a whole ministry devoted to reusable/washable products for girls so that they can keep going to school even during that time of the month.

Thinking I have successfully navigated around the big land-mine I want to keep going.

Another hand goes up, this time it is Friday, a wonderful, gentle man, one of my favourite students: "You said earlier that the pastor should have a day of rest and maybe even spend it with his family. But my wife has too much work everyday. She has to go out to get water, then she has to get firewood, get the food from the field and cook it. How can I spend time with her when she has so much work to do."
This feels like another land-mine. I cannot believe the question and I just say what is on the tip of my tongue.
"Maybe you can walk with her to get the water and talk along the way. Then it will not even seem like work."

His wife is sitting right beside him. Both of their eyes widen in wonder, apparently this thought has not ever occurred to either of them. Friday would like to keep a day of rest and he would like to love his wife, but all that work she has just makes it impossible.  Some of the women start to laugh and clap and say Amen. Friday looks at his wife, he does not seem to be embarrassed by the suggestion, in fact, he is the only man sitting on the "women's" side of the room, with his wife. The idea of joining his wife in her chores seems to be a revelation to him.

Then I talk about what it means to love and how to put the other ahead of self. And how wonderfully this works out if both spouses do this. I am describing how this works in my marriage of 25 years.  At this point, as I am talking about my husband I realize that I am missing him terribly and I nearly start crying. I tell the class, "I cannot talk about my husband because I miss him and I will start crying."  Everyone seems to be deeply moved and bewildered that anyone can feel this way about their spouse. My male interpreter seems at a loss of how to help me, the class murmurs approvingly. I decide to move on.

Another hand goes up, "We have a problem here in Malawi. The women don't want to have sex often enough with their husbands." All the men shake their heads in agreement, with very serious faces.
"Yes, this is a real problem everywhere, " one adds.

Here we go again.
"There are only two reasons a woman does not want to make love." I confidently say, hoping they agree with the reasons that I am thinking of.

"What is the first reason?" Almost all the women put up their hands and the answer is, "They are too tired."
"Absolutely," say I, "So if you want your wife to want to make love, help her with her wok."
The class burst out in hilarious laughter. This concept is ridiculously funny to them. Women here seem to bear all the burden of raising children, keeping a home and making money, at least in the layer of society with which we are dealing with.
But the women are nodding in agreement to the suggestion, the men don't seem to be able to wrap the head around this.
"What is the second reason?" I ask.
"She had a fight with her husband" is the answer I get.
I am glad that the issues of marriage and sex are universal.

The session goes on and on as we discuss and role-play various marriage, divorce and family problems. My interpreter Lyson is a highly animated man and it is hilarious to watch him "play" the wife as he is translating for me. I try to keep the session balanced, pointing out the responsibilities of a wife as well.

After lunch I ask the men if they are still ok with me or if they are upset about the morning session. Amazingly to me they are all nodding in approval. They are inspired that Christ can even transform a marriage and we can be counter-cultural and redemptive even in the most difficult relationship of our life, the one we share with our spouse.