Due to weather conditions, all in-person daytime and evening programs have been canceled across the church’s locations for Wednesday, except for the Recovery programs and Food Pantry at Overland Park. Decisions for Thursday daytime programs will correspond with local school district decisions and will be posted on the church’s website.
Scheduled programming has resumed for Thursday, February 13 at all Resurrection locations.
Our second full day in Malawi began as normally as any back home with a hearty breakfast and coffee. After eating, we traveled about thirty minutes over roads in varying degrees of repair to the Dzaleka U.N. Refugee Camp in Dowa, where 50,000-60,000 refugees (mostly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also from Mozambique, Burundi, Ethiopia, Somalia and other war torn and/or famine ravaged countries) have settled into a camp built for 10,000 people.
As we entered the camp, it was clear our notions of poverty were to be challenged. Ramshackle buildings lined the streets, and people walking to unknown destinations were everywhere.
Our driver Chimundo was somehow able to squeeze our pink bus down a narrow side alley, which was cut down the middle by the erosion of wastewater flowing over a period of years, where we stopped and saw a grey concrete building with the words United Methodist Church scrawled over the doorway in white paint. We were greeted by the sounds of a service already in progress, as well as several children (seemingly ranging in age from three to eight), who had been attracted to the area but the noise of the bus’s diesel engine and the arrival of a people they likely had never seen before.
The looks on the children’s faces was at once suspicious and curious. Stoicism, one could imagine earned over a short lifetime of hardship, was broken as easily as a thin china cup with a wave and smile from a team member, resulting in an ear-to-ear grin that would radiate from their innocent but experienced faces.
All this was set to the back drop of the exotic singing and drum beats emanating from the church. Hugo let us know that the congregation was singing a liturgy for us as we arrived. The sound of the impassioned and beautiful singing, set against the squalor of the camp, was surreal.
Walking into the church building (a simple one room space covered by a tin roof), one was struck by the mass of congregants huddled near the front of the sanctuary, their bodies undulating in focused singing to the rapidly increasing beat of drums. Many members of this group held and expertly used small percussion instruments, such as rattles and blocks, to emphasize the beat. Their singing was passionate and intense, and one got the sensation that one was listening to a melody that has evolved over thousands of years.
The pungent aroma surrounding the bodies of refugees who may have been living in this place for years was dicotomous to their bright and well cared for clothing. It was clear that these people went well out of their way to dress appropriately for their time in worship.
The singing and dancing evolved into song after song, the group being led in their musical responses by the happy provocations of two or three leaders, who would alternately provide directions so subtly that the uninitiated observer would scarcely notice.
When the liturgy ended the people returned to their seats and a woman, obviously an elder and respected member of the congregation, stood up and led the people in a prayer, spoken in Swahili. Although the words were as foreign to us as the place we were in, we knew part of that prayer included the words Jesus Christ gave to his disciples so long ago.
Suddenly and without warning, the people in the congregation broke out into their own, personal prayer, spoken in what might as well have been a dozen languages, all aloud and without reservation. The volume and intensity of the prayers increased over a period of a few minutes until, in unison, the people reverted back to speaking a prayer together.
This cycle of singing, dancing and prayer continued for some two hours before our own Stephanie was invited to give the message, Chains of Hope. Her words were translated into Swahili by one of the musical leaders of the congregation and was well received by the parishioners, both local and from abroad.
We left the church and traveled to the Opulence Demonstration Farm in Madisi, where we were introduced to Mr. Chimimba (the manager of the project), Mr. Chikumbutso Lyford and Mr. Bizwick Kusala who work for Opulence at the farm. This is a self-sustainable farming operation that Opulence is teaching to local farmers in an effort to reach the overall goal of food security in this area.
We then traveled the short distance to the farmers market that Opulence is building to provide a space for the permaculture farmers they have trained to see their surplus, as well as a quality market for people to purchase organic food.
Our final stop was to the newly constructed Community Library that Resurrection has financed and Opulence has built. The building is set between three primary and two secondary schools, which have lent support to the project. We will work in the library on day six, sorting and shelving the childrens books we brought and setting up the three.