Two flat tires and a funeral

We have been here nearly two weeks. Monday will be time to leave. I have yet to experience a day in Malawi which goes according to plan. Nothing happens as you think it will happen. The plan is always evolving and shifting, hard to tell which.

This Sunday was a very special day. We spent the night at Lake Malawi so that we could worship with a church in the township of Mangochi. It was supposedly 2 hrs away, but it was really 4 hours away, in incredible heat, on incredibly bad roads.  No problem, we checkout by 7:45 am Sunday so that we are ready for our 8am pickup to the church.  By 8 am it is incredibly hot, definitely over 40. Sitting in the shade I feel the sweat running down my back. I know that the church will not have a fan, I am hoping that I can preach without passing out.

Richard’s phone rings, there will be a ½ hr delay because our ride just got a flat tire. I am thinking, there is no way a flat tire can get fixed here in ½ hr. I hope we can make it church at all, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I adjust my plan for the day and as is usual here, wait and see how things turn out.

The ride comes at 9am. It is really hot at this point, I am counting all the water bottles we have hoping to have enough to replenish what I sweat off. Richard starts driving and notices the gas light is on. There is no gas station between here and the church, but apparently the church is not too far.

About 20 minutes later we come to the road we need to take to the village. We are told that the church is 1 km down the side road and the gas station 1 km down the main road. After a short debate we decide to head for the church.

I have been in many places, but I have not been in a village like this. There are 800 people living here, the church was planted a year ago and has 200 members. Most of them cannot fit in the mud and grass roof building, so they stand outside in the heat which is now taking my breath away.

We are informed that there has been a death in the village yesterday. A sister of one of the training session participants died after a long and painful bout with a stomach tumour. So many people are not in church, they have to prepare the body for the burial later today. The village is quieter than usual.

We make to the church building, it is tiny, but there is amazing singing coming out as we approach. All the children are gathered under the only tree nearby also singing. This feels like a scene out of The Gods Must be Crazy. Music serves as the ushers, welcoming us into the building. The space is packed with people, it is really people wall to wall. After the singing they sit on the mud floor, some have straw mats.

The church building feels cool on the inside and the scene before my eyes is incredibly beautiful.
The choir director leads his group in singing an English worship song. I am trying hard to write this memory on my brain in indelible ink. I never want to forget the colourful people standing shoulder to shoulder singing, the dark mud walls with tiny gothic style windows, the children peering through the windows, the grass roof that lets in light. The whole picture is incredibly beautiful.

I preach on three stories from Mark 4 and 5. I want them to remember that Jesus is stronger that storms, stronger than demons and stronger than death. I address the fact that a sister in the village has died.

A few more songs, collection of tithes and offerings (they are collected separately here), some prayers and

words of gratitude and encouragement and the service is done.
But there is a change of plan. You see the church members have been making mud bricks and they now have enough to start building a new building, with a seating capacity for 500. Today is the day for the symbolic laying of the foundation stone. The pastor digs a hole in hard, dry soil – it is incredibly hot. A large stone is brought and set into the ground. I lay hands on the stone and pray for the future of this church. Another amazing moment. They think the new building will be up in 1 year, built by hand by the church members.

We are off to another part of the village to give our condolences to Modesta, whose sister had died. What can one say at a time like this even if one understands the culture? We talk with Modesta a bit, pray for her and her family, say goodbye.

It is lunch now, but we decide not to eat, hoping to get dinner around six pm when we arrive back in Blantyre. It is really hot now. I cannot put my hand out the window because the hot air burns.

At around 2pm (about ½ way home), in the high heat of the day we pass a traffic accident, there is much broken glass on the road. Within a minute Richard knows we have a flat tire. We pull over in the middle of nowhere and I am praying that somehow we will get going again.

The sun is incredibly hot, it burns the skin within minutes. We cannot open the back of the van (the lock sticks) for a very long time, it seems like an hour, it was likely more like 10 minutes. Fortunately we have a spare, but the wrench we have doesn’t fit any of the bolts on our wheels. Richard is trying to use a bottle cap to solve the problem – it is incredibly hot. A minibus filled with people pulls over and one man runs toward us with a wrench in hand. Amazingly it fits our bolts. We get the spare out and start to remove the busted tire. His bus is madly honking at him to hurry back since they are running late. He sells us his wrench for 2,000KW, about $5 and runs off to catch his bus.

Incredibly we are back on the road and make it home in time for a Skype call to our home church in Waterloo...another typical day in Malawi.