Day 4 in Malawi, August 18th

The Village Projects!

Today we had the first two village projects! The Lord blessed us with a beautiful and fruitful day. The Village Projects were amazing!

The first village we went to was William Village in Bvumbwe. There were about two hundred families there. They were expecting us. We gathered around outside in front of the church. We had a brief introduction of us Americans and then opened with a prayer. Lloyd and Thandie shared Simion's testimony. He is from William Village and was near death when we took him into Good Samaritan. The people were very encouraged to see how strong and healthy Simion is now. They were praising and thanking God for the work of Good Samaritan. I then used the Child Evangelism Curriculum One Way. I taught the one way song and and then the story of Cain and Abel. The children and adults were very attentive. Lloyd then gave the plan of salvation in chichewa and over a hundred people raised their hands and received Christ as their savior. Praise the Lord! Then it was time to hand out the care packages. Lloyd had each family sit together and then we handed a package to each family containing, 6 bars of soap, 3 bags of sugar, 3 bags of salt and a Gospel Tract. It was very orderly. It was such a wonderful blessing! The people were so warm and friendly and so happy to receive the packages. I had the opportunity to meet Simion's sister, Ethel. It was so hard to see her dressed in rags and looking so dirty and unkempt. Even harder to see her standing next to Simion dressed up in a suit. It was so hard for us, especially Thandie to leave her behind. Next was candy time. The once orderly group became a bit rowdy with the passing out of the candy. When I started having trouble keeping my feet on the ground, we handed the candy to the Pastor and headed to the next village.

Village Number 2 was Chisitu in Mulanje. James from the Children's Home came from this village. We have many children from the Mulanje area, but just James is from this particular area. The second village wasn't expecting us but a crowd grew very quickly. We had about 160 families gather around a shady area. Reminded me so much of the Bible Clubs at Lighthouse. The children just kept coming. The order of events was the same as the last village. James gave a very touching testimony of how when he lived in the village he had knives and made bad decisions, but how he found Christ at Good Samaritan and is now living right and full of hope and joy. The people were very encouraged. Again over 100 hands were raised for salvation. The people in this village were even more excited to receive the packages they began singing praises to the Lord and thanking God for sending us. The people in this village were even poorer than the first village and many had gone without these supplies for quite sometime. I was wishing we could have done more. They even asked us if we could come every month. My heart was so full of joy for what God was able to do through us, but still the need is just so great. This time I threw the candy out the windows of the vehicle as we were leaving. It was so fun and I wasn't in the middle of the mob. My favorite part at this second village was to see the look on James' face as he was able to give back to his village and be a blessing to them. The whole day was a great blessing!

After we left William Village we stopped by Lucia and Edna's villages, also in Mulanje. We realized that there were some more packages still in the back of the minibus, so we handed a few packages out at each of their villages and took pictures of the girls with some people who remembered them. We had about 25 packages left and decided to go to the Mulaje Hospital. In Malawi, the hospitals are not able to provide food and linens for the patients. Each patient must have a guardian to take care of those needs. At each hospital there is an outside are where people can cook on hot coals and wash linens. We went to that area and handed out the rest of the packages. This was such a blessing because we got to see people open the packages and actually use the items. We got some great pictures.

It was a great day!

P.S. I added an update to the bottom of Day 3