Our God is Merciful

There are good days and there are not so good days…even bad days, dare I say it?  Fridays are always challenging as it is our shopping day as well as one of our Chichewa lesson days (we have 2 each week).  We shop once a week (sometimes less) to save on fuel and time.  The kids are always tired out, Jonathan is spent from doing the driving, and I am spent from trying to figure out what of my grocery list is on the shelf that week as we stop at at least 3 stores to get all the groceries and understanding how much money we’re really spending when it rings up K7,500 ($23.44), K13,000 ($40.62) or even K26,000 ($81.25).  Then we head straight into a Chichewa lesson for which I am ill prepared and feel stupid.  There’s the honest truth.  Put some screaming, hungry, tired children on top of it and I just can’t concentrate on anything.  Curling up in a ball in my bed in a quiet room is where I long to be at that point.

Yesterday was one of those days (don’t worry, they’re bound to come, we understand that) when I just wasn’t sure things were working out well for us here.  Micah has had a harder time lately in that he needs constant attention and love to feel secure, which I can understand, but is hard to do along with the rest of life.  I think things are really starting to sink in for him - he's realizing that things are going to stay different from what he's used to.  I haven’t yet formed a close friendship with a Malawian woman, which I am longing to do to learn about life here, practice Chichewa and be less lonely.  With no one to practice Chichewa with, I’m just not getting it, so heading into another lesson after an exhausting and somewhat unfruitful shopping trip was just a bit too much for me.  We just weren’t aware that it was an Islamic feast day and half the stores we wanted to visit were closed because they are Muslim owned.  Then, I felt like I made some big mistakes in my attempts at communicating with a prospective house helper.  I pray things will work out soon.  Because of our busy day, Jonathan did not get to write his sermon and grade papers, so Saturday turns into a work day and therefore, a normal work day for me as well.  Plus, we haven’t had water for 3 days…and no electricity for much of Friday.  As each challenge piled on each other, it made for a bad day.

Today is Saturday!  By 9:30 or 10:00am the kids were getting difficult and restless, as usual, so I decided to bring out a new game.  It’s called bowling with milk bottles.  I’ve been saving up our liter bottles from the fresh milk we get from the creamery in hopes of using them for some creative purpose someday.  Today is the day!  I decided we should do this new game in the driveway in hopes of attracting the attention of neighborhood children so we can get to know them better.  Our first attempt at bowling didn’t work because the bottles were too lightweight, so I said “let’s get your buckets and collect the fruit (non-edible green things that drop from a big tree just outside our gate) in the alley and weigh down the bottles that way.”  Micah went for it!  Rachel always goes for it!  So we headed out to gather fruit.

It didn’t take long to attract a group of children.  Also, my (hopeful) friend and neighbor was outside, so we got to talking.   The kids played very nicely (God is merciful) and I got to really talk with Naomi.   

Playing just outside our gate

Several weeks ago I had asked her to teach me to make a traditional Malawian meal – insima and relish.  We had a miscommunication and still had not gotten together to do this.  She said she has been waiting for me to stop by again.  I said “oh, I thought you were too busy, so I didn’t stop by.”  Communication is key!  

 At this point I got the milk bottles and showed the children that we wanted to put the fruit inside.  Quickly done!  Then we took them to a concrete slab in Naomi’s front yard and I ran in to get a ball to show them how to bowl.  They loved it! 

Notice, Rachel wants a turn - arms out and ready!

 In the background, I noticed Naomi bringing out a mat to sit on and veggies to prepare for relish.  She was going to teach me how to cook right now!  How great!   

I breathed a quick prayer that the kids would not “expire” as I call it (deteriorate into crying, clinging and tantrums) before I could learn from her, for I assumed this would not be a quick and easy task.  While she prepared the pumpkin leaves for the relish, we chatted on the mat in her yard.  I practiced what little Chichewa I could muster and we got to know each other.  Thankfully, she speaks English fairly well, too! 

Meanwhile, I was impressed how Micah was doing as he played with the other children, half of which didn’t seem to understand English at all.  Usually Micah gets very frustrated when he can’t understand something or if he is not understood by others.  It didn’t seem to get in the way today – what a blessing!  And Rachel…well, she gets along with anyone and lets anyone hold her, so she got toted around by several children and carried back to me from time to time (at which point she would quickly crawl off to play some more).

 

Here’s the quick version of my cooking lesson:

First, cut up the greens, usually pumpkin leaves and some other leaves she couldn’t translate for me.

Next, start a fire and boil the greens in water.

Pulverize some groundnuts (peanuts) and add to the veggies with some salt and tomatoes.   

Cook and set aside.

Next, heat some water for insima.

Gradually add maize (corn) flour to hot water.   

Keep adding and stirring until it boils and then stir quickly and constantly until it is quite thick.  

Use pieces of insima to pick up relish and enjoy!  She said not to let it cool too much – they don’t like eating it cool.  But it is way too hot to pick up at first, so it’s a balance.  She also said they like to have two relishes in each meal, usually one with chicken, fish or eggs, but they didn’t have any today.  That was quite fine.  After all, she owns the chickens that run around our neighborhood and I knew it would take a while to take it from running around, to cooked on my plate! :)

So, after a day almost void of hope, God answered my plea and gave me a day filled with just what I needed:  a real chance for my children to connect with Malawian children and hope of a deeper relationship for me with a Malawian neighbor.  Oh, and a great lunch!  God is merciful and I am thankful!

 

Teaching at EBCoM

I really enjoy teaching. This term I am teaching two classes: a "Bible Book Study" on Matthew for second-year certificate students, and a Discipleship class for first-year diploma students.

Because this is my first time teaching these (or any) courses, it takes longer to prepare for each class period than it would if I had more experience. I probably spend at least two to three hours preparing for every one hour in class. (I read an article a couple months ago that suggested that 1 ½ hours of preparation per hour of class is a reasonable amount of time, but I think that amount might assume that the professor is given a fairly detailed course plan. I don’t know. Perhaps some of my more experienced professor friends can chime in down in the comments or via email.)

Of course, I also grade the assignments that I give. English is a second language for all of my students, though most of them are quite good. My classes are small, which helps, but I’m learning a new grading system (where “normal grades” are 50-70, rather than 70-90). Even so, grading is taking more time than I think it should. It will come eventually, I’m sure.

Many of you know I have been interested in discipleship for a long time. For those of you less familiar with the word, discipleship has to do with the process of learning how to live life as a follower of Christ—and as part of that learning, actually doing it. [Jesus’ first disciples were the relatively traditional type of disciple in first-century Palestine: he taught a relatively small group of people over the course of three years, until they were ready to teach others. Those first disciples, of course, were the beginning of the spread of Christianity, and that general model of discipleship still works pretty well today—when it is used.]

Some of that process involves learning what Jesus taught, and how the early Christians lived it out, but a lot of the process is learning how to overcome your own weaknesses and temptations so that you can live a fruitful life in service to God and other people. “Learning to live like Jesus” is no simple task, and it’s a lifelong pursuit. From the point of view of the early Christians, it was expected that all believers would seek to live out what they said they believed with their heads/hearts, but in the Church today many people have all sorts of reasons why they don’t think [normal] Christians should be expected to try. On the other hand, there are also many people who don’t offer much help (i.e. training) to people who want to live according to Christ’s teachings, but when someone messes up, they’re quick to condemn or kick them out. Somewhere in between these two extremes, we need to set the expectation that Christians should actually seek to live out the gospel in daily life, yet extend grace to all of those genuinely trying but who do it imperfectly (which, of course, is all of us who are genuinely trying). And because we’re Christians, we recognize that we couldn’t really live out Jesus’ way of life without the empowerment of God in the first place, so there’s no room for pride or arrogance. The sad thing is that most Christians have never had a more experienced Christian pour into their lives in that kind of an intentional way.

I’ve mentioned that I spend a lot of time in preparation. Long ago I heard that if you really want to learn something, you should teach it to others. Teaching [well] forces you to learn at a deeper level than if you were just taking a class. So I get to study discipleship in an intense, formal way so that I’m ready to teach it. There’s reading, organizing, prioritizing, and writing involved, among other things. I often wish I had even more time to study it. I’m blessed with students who seem to care about the course content, too, and believe that it will help them to better serve their respective denominations and congregations. [Incidentally, none of my students this term are connected with my own denomination.]

The other class I’m teaching is on the book of Matthew, so I get to study the book first and then teach some of what I’m learning and have learned over the years. Along the way, I’m also trying to reinforce healthy and helpful ways of studying the Bible that can be used when they study other biblical books. Most people know that the Bible can be twisted to support or attack all kinds of things—meanings that the authors never intended. It takes intentionality and discipline (and God’s help) to seek out what the verses really mean, and we want our students to get used to taking the time to do that, instead of using the Bible’s words to support whatever they happen to already think, or whatever they heard from someone else.

The gospel according to Matthew is a great book to study and teach, and it’s fun to do that alongside of a class on discipleship—they really work well together. It forces you to deal with the life-changing implications of what Jesus is teaching—it involves changes in action and behavior, but even more importantly, involves changes in the way we think. The kingdom of heaven/kingdom of God just doesn’t play by the usual human rules.

In addition to teaching the two classes, I also lead a counseling group of four students. We meet about once a month, but each week they also update me on their progress in various programs: scripture reading/reflection, Thursday afternoon ministry (hospital visitation, for example), and weekend ministry (students are each assigned to a church, where they are to seek out ways that they can serve the congregation, whether “up front” or on an individual basis). When my counselees are assigned to lead morning devotions, I go over their plans with them and make comments and suggestions as needed.

Beyond that, I’ve led morning devotions once and will lead a chapel service later this term. There are campus activities such as daily devotions, daily tea, weekly chapel, weekly campus prayers, and sports & fellowship afternoon once per term. (The picture at the top of this post is my weekly schedule, with afternoons, Mondays, Wednesdays, and half of Friday currently going to class prep and grading.) I also have a preaching schedule for Brethren in Christ churches in the surrounding area. So far I’ve preached twice, but I’m scheduled five more times before the end of the year. (I’ll say more about that in another post…)

There are the occasional nights (or early, early mornings!) when I wish I could just build a database and go home and not think about work--instead of trying to figure out how to best teach some passage or concept, but it doesn’t happen often. I’m getting better at preparing during daylight hours, so that I can get a healthier amount of sleep. But just the other night, when I thought I couldn’t think any more and just had to sleep, I read something in a commentary that helped to explain a verse in a way I hadn’t considered before. Right away, I was wide awake, and the verse made much more sense to me than it had before. (Of course, now I have more incentive to read a number of other commentaries to evaluate other interpretations of that verse…but that may have to wait until after this academic term.) It’s moments like that which seem to indicate that this really is a good field for me… A classmate said to me about ten years ago, “Everyone is a nerd in something. It might be math, music, literature, politics, sports statistics, or video games, but everyone gets just a little too excited about something.”

Teaching is more than preparation. I’m slowly getting better at leading class discussions, and I’m learning to write on the board more to highlight the most important points. (It may be quite some time before Powerpoint presentations will be standard lecture material here.) Certain topics or ideas catch the students’ special interest, and natural discussion just flows without much effort on my part. Best of all is when a student tells me how a topic we’ve just covered will be helpful in their home congregations, or when a student describes how he/she used an idea from class to share at church, and the congregation was hungry for more.

I’m too much a beginner for such small successes to go to my head, though; my teaching skill is quite far from what I hope it will someday be. I share them only because they are some of the little surprises that brighten my day and confirm to me that I’m right where I should be. They help to make up for the “face-palm” moments, when I realize I’ve messed up—like the day I forgot to record the quiz grades before returning the quizzes to the students.  :)

Happy Mother's Day!

That’s right, living in another country can often mean that you get to celebrate Mother’s Day twice a year - once with your home country and once with your new neighbors.  In Malawi, you might consider buying a chitenje (wrap-around cloth used as a skirt or baby carrier…or anything else) for your mom on Mother's Day.  Because my Chichewa (language) lessons are starting to pay off "slowly by slowly," as they say here, I was excited that I knew what this one said, so I picked up a “Happy Mother’s Day” chitenje .  The print looks like this:

The writing on it says “Zikomo Amai” meaning “Thank you Mom.”  I like the picture of the child walking towards his/her mother because Rachel is just getting to this stage of thinking about learning to walk!  

So, today, to celebrate Mother's Day with you, I am reflecting on all the fun I’ve had with my kids these past few months as we explore life in Malawi.  Most of these examples include some sort of work as well because keeping up house here just takes longer than it did in the states, so I try to involve the children when I can, just so that I have hope of accomplishing all the tasks I need to!  It makes the chore less of a “mommy needs to go and do this right now and will play later” and more of a “can you please help me do this?”  If only all chores could follow such a pattern!

Filling jerry cans with Mommy!  We have periodic water outages.  These tend to be for at least a day at a time, but have been up to 3 or 4 days long so far.  It’s important to “always be ready” for a water outage, particularly with small children and with no idea how long it will last, so we have jerry cans of water waiting in the garage and big bottles filled with filtered water in the kitchen pantry.  These have kept us well supplied (while conserving water) through an outage.  Both kids love water, so I had them join in the chore of filling jerry cans one day.  Of course, Micah imagined the cans were a train engine with cars and Rachel enjoyed drumming and splashing along.

Family gymnastics. We hired a tailor for a week, which is quick way of getting a number of jobs done.  For example, if you want new curtains, a dress, placemats, bags or anything else made, you can hire a tailor.  One job we had him do was covering cushions to have “couch cushions” to tumble on.  Rachel is becoming quite the climber and Micah is becoming quite the tumbler!  These cushions allow them to play a bit more safely.  Plus, this way, we have auxiliary seating for guests, if we have lots of people over.  We stack them into steps, make houses out of them, sit, slide, roll, tumble or even rest on them – a big hit!

Making rag dolls – As the tailor did his work on our hole-filled mosquito nets (what we originally hired him for), mended clothes and made new cushions, we collected any scraps from the floor and kept them for the end of the week when we had him make two rag dolls like Raggedy Ann and Andy.  Chopped up old mosquito netting makes excellent stuffing! 

Yes, the tailor prefers to work outside on the front porch! 
I told him weather wasn't predictable enough for that in PA!

His beloved Raggedy Ann doll!

Micah has been requesting rag dolls ever since I brought out a Raggedy Ann and Andy book which has become his favorite for the past few weeks along with My First Little House on the Prairie books which also have a rag doll in them.  I couldn’t believe how excited he was to hold his doll for the first time!  All it had was the body, red and white stripped legs and black shoes, but he loved it.  I’m in the process of sewing in the yarn hair after drawing the faces on with sharpee makers.  He was so engrossed in this process that he sat for at least an hour last night watching me put in the hair.  Now, onto the clothes!  A bit more challenging, but I got some neat Malawian fabric to experiment with. 

The endless laundry parade.  As in any country, washing laundry is a constant chore, especially when using cloth diapers.  I don’t mind too much.  It adds rhythm to my life :).  Here, we hang our laundry outside to dry on the bottom terrace of our yard, so I even get more exercise, too!  This chore usually draws the children outside, even if they were stubborn to leave the house earlier in the morning.  Rachel is still small enough to ride down in the clothing bin, which she loves.  

  

She also loves emptying the clothing bin whenever I’m not watching...

And, so far since arriving here, the weather is nearly always gorgeous!  I never really need to worry about it raining on my drying laundry (although I did run to tear my laundry down one day as I heard the rain coming over the mountain, which was a thrill in and of itself!  The rain, not the laundry).  Although, rainy season is just around the corner, as we were reminded yesterday with a wonderful thunder and rain storm.  Once the rains start coming, I’m told it’s very hard to completely dry any laundry!

The view I enjoy while hanging the laundry

The endless dishes parade.  I didn’t grow up with a dish washer, but I did get kinda used to having one as an adult.  It’s back to being the dish washer here!  It’s continuous work, but I do enjoy the view out the kitchen sink window!

Blue skies, tropical trees and the sounds of neighbor children playing
often accompany my afternoon dish routine.

I haven't figured out how to involve the kids in this chore yet...but in due time, we will!

So, we've found a lot of fun together in the rhythm of life we have here, which is rewarding to remember on Mother's Day.  I feel like I'm not giving the whole story, though, without disclosing days like today when being a mom meant getting up earlier than I wanted to, doing two loads of laundry, cooking three meals, cleaning up the dishes (and floors, hands and faces) from those meals, baking bread, mopping the floors after one child peed on the floor (and proceeded to walk down the hall) and pooped in his pants, changing diapers, cleaning out dirty diapers, eating dinner to the accompaniment of a screaming baby who could not be fed fast enough, and feeling guilty for needing to do so much house work instead of spending quality time with my kids, but seeing no other alternative.  I know many other moms who can resonate with me during such days!

Thankfully, I also had some calmer moments of playing on the porch with the kids, watching Micah take such good care of Raggedy Ann, arranging a "soft house" out of cushions and blankets, snuggling up in a chair to read story after story to Micah, cuddling Rachel as I nursed her before her nap, hearing the beginnings of "Mama" intentionally coming from her mouth and watching her crawl very decidedly towards me, then stopping on her knees and reaching up with both hands (melt my heart).  It is good to be a mom.  I love it, even though it is exhausting at this stage!  Not only that, but I love my Mom and am thankful for how she undoubtedly endured those long, hard days raising us kids as well!  Zikomo Amai!  Thank you, Mom!