Africa Journal - March 2010 part 5

Day 3, afternoon

The afternoon disciple sessions were designed for whoever we invited during the morning to come to. Our team had split into Adult, Teen and Children teams, and we had made “lesson plans” accordingly, in advance. Well, as things are always changing on the mission field…our Adult group of three got whittled down to two (me and Rodney) and the Teens and Children groups combined to accommodate all of the children projected to attend (they invited the entire elementary school that morning). So there stand Rodney and I, neither of us the “leader” of the Adult discipleship team, with our pre-made lesson plans that covered several of the parables of Jesus. We only had 17 adults show up that day, and all but one of them the very same widow women from the day before. So I vamped. Since I already knew all of these women were Christians, I started with the back of the Evangecube, and my standard Discipleship talk. When I finished, the only response I got was for one of them to say they already knew all of that. Well I was taken aback and at a momentary loss. Rodney stepped in and shared some things that had come to him while I was talking, then he went into the parable of Christian Light, which related to what we were already talking about, plus was on our “lesson plan” for that day. I followed up with the relative parable of the Sower and the Seeds. The lessons we were giving were good, but there just seemed to be little interest. Only a fraction of our time had passed, and we were both feeling very intimidated and uneasy. So we turned to the interpreters, and I asked them to find out what the women were thinking, and what they wanted to hear. The interpreters intervened for us and spoke with the women. After a time, here is what we discovered: the women felt that because they were old, could not travel, and had limited social circles, they had no use in God’s plan and could not share with others. Uh, oh…here we go. The spark flamed and my passion ignited. Once I knew what to talk about, the words poured out again. Between Rodney and I, and our two translators, we ministered like crazy to those women. I was jumping around, pacing, frantic to make my points heard and understood. I implored those women to understand as elder Christians, just how useful they were. That their joy ministered to me. That I had to travel all the way to Malawi to be brave enough to share the Gospel. But that I was only there for a short time…and could only reach so many people. But their job is to constantly minister in their circles…and to disciple the people in THEIR circles to minister to the people in THEIR circles…and on and on…and THAT is how God would explode in Malawi…not because of the few of us who came over for short times on mission trips.

I was so emotionally spent and completely burdened by the time that session was over…that I could barely trudge back to Esther’s House. In our afternoon share time (the 12 of us Americans plus the 12 interpreters/pastors), I felt like the head Malawian pastor was boring holes into me with his eyes. (We had never spoken before, and he had never been around me). So I shared just a bit of the burden I was feeling. He was silent for a bit (that’s the normal Malawi way…you way something and it feels like you are being ignored for sometimes a full minute…but they are really just processing) and then he asked…”What can we do?” I felt so humbled and awed. HE was asking ME advice on how to help his people. While the answer didn’t spit itself out on the spot, it didn’t take long for the answer to coalesce as a clear vision in my mind. The people of Malawi desperately need discipleship. True, honest and steady discipleship. Meetings in their own villages, in their own settings, led by their own people. God’s word coming to life to address their daily needs. Prayer time. Share time. Grow time. But how to make that happen???

My first and last journal sentences for this day are as follows: “More emotions today...” And “My heart is so burdened!”