That is basically what we are supposed to do. We learn first of all from Jesus Himself, through His Word and also through those He brings into our lives. Then sharing with others what we have received. A wonderful lifelong interaction!
The women of the literacy class are struggling. If you never ever did anything with letters in your first 30 years it doesn’t come as easily as it does when you start to ‘play’ with letters from your toddler years. What have we been privileged! How we take the rich learning environment we grew up in and all skills gained in it for granted. Now it’s our turn to share that with less privileged around us. The literacy process might go slow, another process started quicker than we even hoped for: the desire for change! The women are watching us closely and listening attentively when we open every lesson with a devotion. “Can you teach us how to pray, so that we might ask God to change our lives? We see the difference. You are free, free from fear and guilt, free to love. We are bound with fear.” And so we share how Jesus taught us how to pray and how to love.
It was Sunday morning and it was pouring at the time we were preparing to go to church. Outside it seemed like one big mud-ocean and the noise of this tropical rain shower on our sink roof made all verbal communication impossible! With weather like this, many people here don’t even try to go to church. We are privileged to have a vehicle and umbrella’s so somehow we got in the car and in the church…somewhat embarrassed with our muddy sandaled feet. To my great surprise, my sister and faithful assistant in the ministry, Grace, was sitting in the front row of the church, with her whole family! How did she get to church and how did they remain so clean?! “Every Sunday we leave home at 7 so that, what ever happens, we will surely reach church at 9. We always pack a set of clean clothes and shoes in a plastic bag, in case it rains, so that we can change when we arrive at church.” Grace lives in a traditional community where roads and houses are made out of dirt and where everything changes into mud when it rains. The first 4 km they walk till they reach the tar road, the remaining kilometers are covered by means of bicycle taxis. Her commitment to come to church is exciting!
In the last couple months I have been contacted by various individual women with the request to mentor them somewhat. One asked me to help her organize and plan her homemaking duties. Every women does it differently, it depends on her personality. She visits me often and likes the way our house is organized and how I make my week planner. Of course, living in Africa required a lot more flexibility, but my planning is like a guide. Someone else asked me how to make your own yogurt, how to dry fruit, how to process peanuts, how to bake on a charcoal stove and provide recipes adjusted to whatever is available here. Often I use an existing recipe (from our church cooking books) and creatively substitute ingredients we cannot get here with what we can get. I love creative cooking and baking…! An expecting mother asked me to share some vital child rearing information. I am glad to borrow the books on that topic, that I have been blessed with and answer any question the best I can. I am not at all an expert but the four years of Pedagogic and Didactic training, all the good Christian books on child rearing I read and being a blessed parent of four over the course of 13 years leaves me no excuse to share what I have learned.
One very important lesson I am learning from Grace is to be thankful and content under all circumstances. How often I find myself open to grumbling and frustration; sometimes over small things like the house getting dirty and messy so quickly after having cleaned it or people not showing up at the appointed day. When we received the message from the church that we could not use their facility for the children’s programs, I was sad but Grace said: “We have to thank God that He gave us an answer. Now He wants us to learn to expect everything from Him and not from people.” Some weeks later, when we were handing out (or trying to hand out) donuts and 250 kids went ‘crazy’ and helping mothers even ‘helped’ themselves rather liberally, her response was: “Let us thank God that He revealed to us their state of heart. Now we know specifically what to pray for them and we know what things we need to add to our teaching; how to behave when you receive something, what the Bible says about sharing etc”. The kids receive little formative instruction; they spend most of their time with each other, teaching each other ‘morals and values’. Their parents probably grew up the same way and so little change takes place. I tend to get very discouraged, but Grace teaches me how to use every situation as an opportunity.
Together with my Zambian friend Christine, a pastors’ wife, I started a Pastors Wives Platform. We are convinced that pastor’s wives, too, could benefit from learning and sharing with regards to the particular calling of being a pastor’s wife. It’s a high calling and the Lord asks us to excel in it, give it our all. On our journey of ministering we need encouragement, we need to grow, and we need to sharpen iron with iron. We open God’s Word and study various topics like: Biblical Counseling, Mentoring, Pastors kids, How to deal with stress (criticism), Christian marriage, Personal Bible study, Leading Women Bible study etc. It is my prayer that this means will help strengthen the church here in Malawi.
Thank you so much that I could share this with you. Thank you for sharing your gifts and blessings, struggles and faith with others. Whatever we receive, God is the giver; He has blessed us with His Word, time, talents, money, materials, skills, success, trials, health, children, spouses, and much more. Let’s use it to share and serve.
Most of all, let’s pray for one and other!
