This weekend, my church has cancelled all four of its services to instead have a weekend of service. Today's installment: service for Malawi. I'm pretty excited about this: PCTR is sponsoring nine wells in nine villages in the Sakata area. Clean water for people I've met and sang and danced with!
The day started off with a ceremony in a park downtown on the river. There were songs and my pastor spoke and introduced our partners in this event: the mayor of Toms River, the directors of the YMCA, the superintendent of schools. Also present were Rev. Stephen and his wife Liz from the Allentown church. I was really, really happy to see them. Stephen spoke about the people in Malawi and what a difference this is making. He said that there were people there who were praying for us today. You know, people say things like that all the time, but for some reason this really struck me. My eyes got a little teary--yes, it's true-- as I pictured Bonongwe. Violet. Mwalabu. Jeannie. Countless others. I felt so connected to them in that moment. They're so grateful for what they do have, and so hopeful for what they might have someday. Incredible, and an awesome reminder. I try to be positive and thankful every day, but it's good to be reminded.
After the ceremony was a 5k that I foolishly convinced my junior high youth group kids (who are apparently all also cross country stars) to enter with me. They were all super crazy competitive and ran their 6.5 minute miles in circles around me. One of my girls promised she would run with me the whole time, no matter how slow I needed to go. She actually did stick with me, and we kept a slow steady pace of almost a minute and a half faster than I run on my own. I was sore later, but it was a beautiful sunny happy day.
I brought two types of Malawian food to share: cassava and fried bananas. I didn't even cook the cassava (you might see it called yucca in grocery stores, although it should really be yuca) to really emphasize how bland and starchy this last-resort food is. On the other end of the spectrum was fried bananas (mash bananas, add flour, fry in oil), which we bought from a woman passing through the village on brick making day-- very tasty, but definitely not something that the typical villager gets to enjoy often, if ever at all.
The connection I felt today to that place over 7000 miles away was incredible. I hope to go back and see those people-- and their new, clean, covered wells.
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Just had some serious lunchtime fun learning about cassava. I had always read about manioc but didn't really know what it was - now I do! I was confused at first, because yucca is something very different (I usually hear of it as good for making baskets or woven sandals in the southwest US...it's also very sharp and painful) - but yuca is the Spanish name for cassava/manioc. Also there's apartently a South American legend about the origin of manioc. So cool.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that I have a friend I can discuss such things with.
ReplyDeleteAnd good catch on my spelling error (and Shop Rite's-- it was sold as yucca in the grocery store, but I swear I knew better)!