Walk this Way

For Wednesday, our last day at Adziwa, we asked James to place us where he most needed us. We felt that we weren't really contributing in construction as they were only making bricks. With previous teams and the first few days of our team, there were a lot of different chores.  With the brick making, we felt like we slowed the process down. James thought it would be good for all of us to prayer walk. Mighty Richard wanted to go at brick making, so he stayed behind at the site while we forged on to Kauma. Mary we join back up with Richard at 10:00 am so that they could go to Pastor Henry's house for lunch. One thing we have observed with prayer walking is how James walks. He is so elegant and carries himself with so much dignity, yet he walks really fast. For a man of his height, he sure can take long, fast strides. We can hardly keep up with him. Well, we are stopping to shake and high five with the children. We visited with about 6 families while prayer walking. The first lady we visited with was Menus. She was a christian widow raising 3 grandchildren and 2 orphans. She asked us to pray for her son's health who is positive and for her to have long life so that she can care for the children.  The next lady we visited was Teresa who cares for 2 orphans, 5 children and 3 grandchildren. Her prayer request was to have enough food for her children and for their health.
Next, we visited Nila and Kathleena who took care of 5 orphans and 4 children. They asked for prayers to get money for basic necessities such as a bucket for water.
Next, we visited Suzy and Tucker (yes that's what they said there names were but as we learned in Malawi, people change names every day sometimes. We think their names were Tuga and Suz but accents are different). They were sisters helping their mother with orphans, their children and grandchildren. In all there were 5 orphans and 2 children in their care. They asked us to pray for Suzy's store/business. As well that her husband would get a job.
Next, we visited Grace who is a widow taking care of 3 children and 2 orphans. Her prayers were for her roof to be repaired and for her children to behave. Lastly, we visited Banda and Dinah who asked that we pray blessings on their home and on their family. Going into the prayer walk, we noticed that the first day the team walked, 1 person accepted Christ. The second time, 2 people accepted Christ. The third time, 3 people accepted Christ. We laughed that 4 people were going to accept Christ this day, but everyone we visited had already accepted Jesus and declared Him as their Lord and Savior, which is amazing. To God be the glory. 

After we visited with the families, we headed to the market to help get some of their basic needs such as relish, sugar, salt and soap. We even bought Nila and Kathleena enough timber to replace the old timber on their roof.
Also, we bough a huge bag of maize flour for Tucker and Suzy. We loved going to the market and taking some of the burden off their shoulders. We found that most people only ate 2 times a day, so to provide more was nice. We made sure that we explained that God provided for them through us as God laid it on our hearts to come to Malawi in the first place. We are filled to be emptied. That's what we did. We emptied our blessings to bless others. 

After the walk, we headed back to the Adziwa to prepare for the woman's program. Mary was to speak today and we were nervous when we got back, and she wasn't there. No one else had prepared to speak, so we were nervous and about ready to start cramming when we saw a van with azungu pull up, it was Mary and Richard. The women started arriving shortly after 1:00. One thing that we will miss is the praise and worship of the women. They have so much joy when they sing and dance. After praise, Mary told the story of the women at the well and tied it to the women of Malawi as they go to a well everyday to get water and Jesus finds them just as important. Mary used the evange-cube once more, and offered an invitation for women to come forward and pray the prayer to accept Christ.
Three women came up, and right when we were about to start praying another woman came up. That makes the 4 that we joked about earlier. God knew what was going to happen and we couldn't help find joy and happiness in the fact that He knew.
We handed out bibles to the new believers that had received Christ that week. We said good bye to the beautiful women.

Next was the awana program with the children. We were expecting to do a lot with the children: bible story, craft, worship and games, but that wasn't the case. Our time with them was short, and it made us sad. The children sang songs and then Tucker told the story of David and Goliath.
Afterwards, the leaders had us tell the kids good bye one by one and leave them with a word of encouragement. We were fighting back tears. We said our good byes to the kids, hugging necks, shaking hands and just embracing them.
We went to the back office with the committee members so that they could distribute the items that we were leaving behind that were our own items. We were elated to give specific items to James and Joy as they had been our life line at Adziwa.
Then the committee said a prayer over us for safe travels. It was just as hard, if not harder, to say good bye to them. It wasn't good-bye to James as we would see him again.

We made plans to go to Mama Mia's for dinner, a nice quaint italian restaurant. We invited James and his wife to join us.

We picked them up at Adziwa. We ordered pizza's, pastas, desserts and cappuccino. We gorged ourselves as it was the most familiar food that we have had the entire time. James said that this was the first time that he and his wife had been out to eat since they were married last October. How we take things for granted. We enjoyed laughter and great food. We dropped James off at his house in Kauma. It was really strange driving through the small, clay roads that we had walked days before. It was really dark and quiet. Some were nervous to take out someone's house with the car. While others were nervous about breaking down or getting stuck and having to walk out of Kauma in the dark seeing we had given James our flashlights. By the grace of God, we made it out. 

We our honored and blessed to have had this experience. Our lives will be forever changed by what we have seen, the people we have met and the memories we have made. God's hand is truly on Malawi. It's apparent by the way the people wake up with a smile on their face and a song in their heart. Thank you to the people of Malawi for allowing us to be a part of your life for these 2 weeks. We hope to see you all again.

Oh and to end on a funny note....one little kid gave Will a special good bye present