This time last year I had never even considered going to Africa. Missions was something I thought maybe I should explore sometime, but mostly it was for “other” people. More godly people, perhaps. People who could speak out loud without stammering around, their hearts beating out of their chests and their hands shaking wildly. Certainly not mothers-of-4 whose biggest weekly event was the shopping trip to Wal-Mart. And certainly not a person who had never traveled to another country or ever shared Jesus with anyone before.
So if you had told me a year ago I would go to Malawi on a mission trip, I would have thought it was impossible. But if you had told me that I would go again six months later, I would have written you off as completely insane. And yet, here I am, heading to Malawi again.
God grabbed a hold of my heart in a huge way when I was in Malawi. It wasn’t just the children, although their large eyes and huge smiles are riveting. It was the whole place. The mountains, the land, the way that time seemed to slow down to the point of stopping—all of it screamed “I am GOD, and I am HERE”. God is everywhere…but when was the last time I slowed down enough to feel Him? If such a thing is possible, I felt Him breathing on me in Malawi.
And it was the people. Everywhere I went, I encountered broken people. Oh, they weren’t broken because they had no medicine, or their children had dirt crusted on their faces, or they didn’t know what their next meal was going to be—although all of those things are very real concerns. They were broken just like we are broken—on the inside. They were broken because they were scared. They were broken because of destructive relationships. They were broken because they were lost and confused.
Why am I going back? I think the better question is how can I not? Those people need what we all need. They need the hope of eternal life. They need God living inside of them. They need instruction on how to grow and learn and live godly lives regardless of their daily living conditions. They need what so many people right around us need. Except in Malawi, they aren’t too busy to stop and listen.
