Malawi - First Impressions

Yesterday (Saturday) we landed in Blantyre, Malawi after a long overnight journey from London through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Despite being pretty wiped out when we arrived, the stark difference in scenery, people and activity we witnessed driving into the city certainly kept our attention. This part of our journey marks Miriam's first time in sub-Saharan Africa and first time south of the equator.

After getting settled in, we found a local shop to buy 10 liters of bottled water which we thought would get us through our four days in Blantyre. However, as of this writing on Sunday evening, we will certainly need at least one more 5 liter jug - a reminder about how much water we drink and use to stay healthy and hydrated.

The highlight of the day was connecting with and having dinner with Lynn & Carol Norstadt, friends from First Presbyterian Church in Fort Collins. The Norstadts work for a pastor training organization the provides a kind of mobile seminary for local pastors and equips them to then train other pastors. We will be joining them for the next couple of days to participate in one of their seminars (Old Testament) and they have even invited us to share in some of the teaching. They are particularly keen to have Miriam lead a session as they are slowly working towards the inclusion of women in ministry in the church. It was wonderful to catch up, share lots of news of our recent adventures and theirs, and prepare for the coming week.

This morning (Sunday), we had the privilege of worshiping at St. Michael's and All Angels Church, the "mother" church of the Central Church of Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) denomination, a sister denomination of ours at home. The historic cathedral sanctuary (dedicated in 1891) at St. Michael's is closed at the moment because of damage from the recent cyclone. The CCAP was born out of the legacy of David Livingston and his priority both for establishing a church that would be led by Africans for Africans and his work to dismantle slavery.

Today, there are five or six services on Sundays, some in English and some in Chechewa, some traditional and some contemporary. While we worshiped in a packed annex hall at the 8:30 a.m. traditional English service (2 hours!), there was an equally packed multi-purpose room across the lawn with a lively charismatic service in Chechewa. We were warmly welcomed, shown the ropes by kind folks sitting near us and enjoyed an inspirational sermon, prayers that included many places and people around the world and a hilarious children's message. Sharing the words of the Apostles' Creed and Lord's Prayer was a good reminder of the history and traditions we share in the worldwide church.

This week mark's the beginning of the harvest season which was a theme throughout the service, including a few bags of grain that were brought forward as part of the offering (a procession of everyone to the front to place your offering in the baskets!). A particularly poignant moment (knowing that Malawi is near the bottom of global economic scales) was the inclusion in prayer that "We are blessed with the beauty of God's creation around us, we are blessed by our children and families - all signs of God's love for us. We are not a poor country. We are rich. We are rich with God's abundant blessings."