Thoughts...May 2011

Malawi is located in South East Africa, and is bordered by Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. Malawi is among the world’s least developed countries, and is listed as one of the world’s ten poorest countries. HIV/AIDS affects one in eleven people in the rural villages and one in seven in the city. As a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, one-million children have been orphaned. Malawi has low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates. The average Malawian child attends five years of school…To many these statistics are sad. Perhaps they cause you to count your blessings, thankful for what you have. To most these statistics are simply statistics.

Rebecca, Grace, Chimwemwe, Adija, Promise, Wezzie, Gracious, Patience, Haswell, Dina, Rhoda, Henry, Esenart, Felix, Lidson, Gordo, Lucy, Maggie, Fiskani, Tikambe, Madalitso, Lankford, Doris…to me, these statistics have names, faces, hearts full of hope, eyes full of faith. Each one of these names represents a child with a story to tell.

I spent 14 months in 2009 and 2010 learning the stories, names, faces, and hearts of the people of Malawi. I can only describe it as the best worst year of my life. During my time, I learned what it feels like to be truly desperate, utterly out of control, lonely, dependent and beat up. Ironically, the living definitions of these words taught me the concepts of grace, mercy, patience, faith, love and even peace. Mother Theresa taught us the importance of being faithful in the small things, for in them your strength lies. Faithfully, I followed my calling to Malawi. In the little things like holding a baby or the hand of a child, putting a Band-Aid on a cut, in sitting with someone with whom I could not communicate verbally, I found my true strength.

Most of you know that I am a teacher in Jefferson County, Colorado. I teach because I believe with all of my heart that educated children change the world. I carried this belief with me to Malawi, Africa where I partnered with an orphan care organization to start a secondary school for the children in their care. I wrote curriculum, tutored children, taught the parents, aunties and village leaders about the importance of literacy, hired and trained teachers, fought tooth and nail for books and school supplies, wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote budgets and proposals, made myself known at the Ministry of Education, fought with contractors, sought out resources, developed and taught lessons in my strange accent, and even shaved heads in my role as “Educational Consultant”.

I also walked hundreds, if not, thousands of miles with the hand of a child in mine. I became a part of their hearts and they became a part of mine. Their stories, their eyes, their sheer hope and determination became the driving force behind my actions in a position that I could not have filled on my own. I quickly learned that God does not call the equipped, and I quickly found peace in the realization that He equips the called. In miracle after miracle that I witnessed and received, it was made clear to me that He does in fact, equip the called.

Of course, I have a million stories. Yet every time I begin to articulate my journey, one in particular comes to mind. It is the simple story of a Band Aid and it goes like this:
On my first day in Malawi, I went for a walk through the village next to the compound where I would be staying. Children and women ran to me anxious to greet me and hold my hand. One little boy reached out to hold my hand and I noticed he had an oozing cut in his hand. Like a typical American, I rinsed his sore with hand sanitizer and applied a Band Aid faster than he could blink. Soon after, he and his mother were showering me with thanks. They kept telling me that God had sent me to heal the cut and that his hand would be saved, a true miracle! They showered me with praise and humble thank yous. I remember thinking, “Enough already, it is just a Band Aid!” After some time, I came to realize that this is the way Malawians react to most things that they have no access to. A little dramatic I thought, yet in a country where an infected cut can lead to death, I suppose not. I got used to their reactions, bordering on embarrassing. Eventually, I learned to smile and nod…and then one day, I received a gift. A gift that seemed simple to the giver, but humbled me to tears.

It was some time in March or April of 2010. I had run out of support funds and literally had .30 cents to my name. I decided that God was telling me it was time to go back to Colorado. Later that day as I was trying to wrap my head around my situation, preparing to write a letter to my parents asking for a plane ticket home, two American men entered the gate looking for me. They had been in country for three days and were trying to get to a town about 30 kilometers from where I lived. A friend of a friend had told them about me and assured them that they could get in touch with me if they needed any help. Consequently, there was a diesel fuel shortage in the country and the car they had borrowed ran on diesel fuel; they were stranded. They decided they would visit me to see if I could help them get fuel or find a way to hire a non-diesel car. I met them and chatted with them about the project. I showed them the classroom building on progress, and introduced them to some of the secondary boarding students.

After a while, they excused themselves for about 10 minutes. When they came back to me they told me that they felt burdened to support me and one of the men handed me an envelope containing $350 U.S. dollars. I fell to the floor, overwhelmed with emotion; all I could do was cry. I pulled myself together and told them my story to which they replied, “If God brought us all the way to Malawi for this moment, it was worth it.” To them, I am sure their actions were simple, follow the voice in your heart and fill the need. To me, it was a miracle.

Today, I want to say thank you to all of you for the Band Aids you placed on the wounds of my journey. You felt called to help and though it may have been a little sacrifice to you, it was a life saving sacrifice to me and the children of Malawi. With your support I was used to save the lives of kids, kids who have a hope and a future. I often find myself at a loss for words. I do not think there are any words to thank you for your support, to express what it means to me. Your financial contributions, prayers, care packages, kind letters, and belief in me and my kids mean more than you will ever know.

JFK said, “Let us think of education as the means to developing our greatest abilities because in each of us there is a hope and dream, which fulfilled can be translated into benefit for everyone.” It is my greatest hope that my pictures have captured the courage, hopes and dreams in the eyes of the children of Malawi. Through the education that you have supported, God will use them to do amazing things in their villages, cities, countries and even the world. Education is enabling them to see a future, a future with a dream that is possible. They want to be teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, Ministers of government, farmers… they want to apply Band Aids to the wounds of the wounded. He is at work in them and he is using us to enrich their stories.

Today, I honestly do not know what is next for me. I am headed to Malawi on August 1st- 16th. From there I will listen and follow and humbly partner with you as our journey continues. I do know that there are many people out there being used to do amazing things. When people ask how they can help, I reply that it is important to find someone who is doing what you believe in. It could be someone working in Colorado, Nicaragua, Ukraine, or Malawi, but they could not be used to put band Aids on the soul of the world without the prayers and support of people who believe in their calling.


Online donations can be made at: www.hc3.org
Memo: Annie Brown- Malaiw