HELLO!
It’s now just over 3 weeks since we first arrived in Malawi
which is pretty crazy! Time flies! We feel well settled in, our Chichewa’s
starting to improve and we have met so many wonderful people.
This week we’ve all been involved in visiting villages and
supporting them in their afforestation project - we’ve planted a lot of trees!
The villagers found it pretty funny that we were digging in the soil with our
bare hands as they were and after trekking through the dense maize field our
face, neck and arms had a nice grimey layer of grass and pollen on them! Poor
Jonny’s been a bit of a victim this week as his skin flared up with a reaction
to the maize pollen and he’s had to walk through deep mud puddles in his
sandals! (the second one I found rather amusing!)
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| David being pro planter |
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| Lois, Jonny, Nia & Ben cutting grass and weeding maize fields with farmers |
As a team we’ve spent every evening doing “devotions” where
we’ve been able to reflect on the day’s activity, share thought and feelings
and look at the bible. In our devotion time the other night we discussed some
questions as a team and so I thought I would share these with you..
What have been the most challenging things so far?
Adapting to Malawian time has been quite difficult as we’re so task focused in Britain and there’s such an emphasis on time. Here, it’s very normal to be picked up an hour after the planned time and they’re really casual about it.
Although we’ve had a lesson or two on Chichewa, trying to interact with the communities with limited vocabulary and understanding of the language is a bit of a problem.
Coming face to face with extreme poverty has been really tough, especially seeing children with swollen bellies in rags.
Adapting to Malawian time has been quite difficult as we’re so task focused in Britain and there’s such an emphasis on time. Here, it’s very normal to be picked up an hour after the planned time and they’re really casual about it.
Although we’ve had a lesson or two on Chichewa, trying to interact with the communities with limited vocabulary and understanding of the language is a bit of a problem.
Coming face to face with extreme poverty has been really tough, especially seeing children with swollen bellies in rags.
What are you enjoying and what have you learnt?
The Malawian thunder and lightning storms we’ve experienced are both awesome and terrifying, there was a huge, impressive thunderstorm and we were all like ‘woooah!’.
Life is lived almost entirely outdoors and communally here and we’ve felt so welcomed by the community members.
We’ve also learnt a lot about the genuine concern that Malawians have for the environment and we’re so encouraged by the way that they’ve taken ownership of these Climate Change projects and the joy and pride they feel. The farmers celebrate every tree that’s planted and it’s been such a blessing to be involved. The trees serve in a different way in the communities’ e.g protection from floods or strong winds, and to prevent soil erosion which destroys maize fields. Before coming here we didn’t realise how affected third world countries are by the effects of climate change and this has been quite hard hitting.
The villagers have made it clear that they’re really grateful for AGREDS work in their community. We’ve seen that people aren’t relying on relief and handouts- the work here is sustainable and brings a lot of hope to these communities.
The Malawian thunder and lightning storms we’ve experienced are both awesome and terrifying, there was a huge, impressive thunderstorm and we were all like ‘woooah!’.
Life is lived almost entirely outdoors and communally here and we’ve felt so welcomed by the community members.
We’ve also learnt a lot about the genuine concern that Malawians have for the environment and we’re so encouraged by the way that they’ve taken ownership of these Climate Change projects and the joy and pride they feel. The farmers celebrate every tree that’s planted and it’s been such a blessing to be involved. The trees serve in a different way in the communities’ e.g protection from floods or strong winds, and to prevent soil erosion which destroys maize fields. Before coming here we didn’t realise how affected third world countries are by the effects of climate change and this has been quite hard hitting.
The villagers have made it clear that they’re really grateful for AGREDS work in their community. We’ve seen that people aren’t relying on relief and handouts- the work here is sustainable and brings a lot of hope to these communities.
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| Soil erosion has been a big issue since 2001 in the village of Magumbwa |
What have you enjoyed about being with the team? Have
there been any challenges you’ve come across?
We’re really blessed to be a team of a variety of people with different gifts
and personalities but there has been a good sense of consensus on decisions.
We’ve been able to be very honest and open with eachother and this has been a
real blessing as we’ve been able to discuss things we’re struggling with and
have been able to get to know eachother quickly. We’re always having banter
with eachother but we are really big on DMCs too. (DMC = Deep Meaningful Chat,
and Ben is a huge fan of these!) This
has added a lot of depth to our relationships and we all love a good worship
sesh and our nightly team bible devotiony time.
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| Our weekend off at Senga Bay |
What are you looking forwards to most?
We’re looking forwards to being able to talk to people in Chichewa so we’re going to need to be super swotty and storm our vocab list! We’re also really excited to building our relationships with the local communities and the people we meet along the way. We’re hoping to make more school visits and hopefully local hospitals too.
We’re looking forwards to being able to talk to people in Chichewa so we’re going to need to be super swotty and storm our vocab list! We’re also really excited to building our relationships with the local communities and the people we meet along the way. We’re hoping to make more school visits and hopefully local hospitals too.
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| Students tree planting at Linthipe Primary School |
As a team, we thought it would be a good idea to come up
with a vision statement (it was mainly Ben’s idea- the DMC man thinks deeply
once again!). It’s taken us three weeks to come up with it but here it is:
Love Humbly
Bring Hope &
Be Changed
for God’s Glory
Bring Hope &
Be Changed
for God’s Glory
We all feel really blessed by your support and prayers so a
big thank you from us all!
We’ve written up a short Team Prayer Request/Thanks list and
we would really appreciate your support in prayer for these things:
●Health
●Learning to be patient and flexible with time
●Learning Chichewa and improving communication with the villagers so that we can build strong relationships with these people
●Thanks to God that he’s blessed our team relationship and that it will continue to be positive
●Thanks for AGREDS – the work that they’re doing and their hospitality
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| Transform Team meets John -AGREDS director, and Vincent -Malawi's Tearfund rep |
Team Malawi x
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