A church in Malawi

We went to a church in Malawi. Since we were on a missions trip, this isn’t a very surprising announcement. Yet nothing about that day fit with any church experience I’d ever had.

Not the tiny crumbling brick building; not the kids in the children’s choir wearing clothes so tattered, I could see as much skin as fabric; not the “pews” made from mud and clay, just rounded little rows of benches set impossibly close together; and not the nearly four hundred people crowded in and around a building meant to hold fifty.

Not the staggering generosity of the villagers who shared their meager lunch with us. Not Matt singing with the children, the tallest one reaching no higher than his waist. Not the vestry meeting held in the shade of an acacia tree while goats nibbled nearby.

And not the tiny hand that bravely slipped into mine.

The kids in the Salima district were fascinated by us. Most had never seen white people, plus Matt’s just so dang tall. I suspected his lanky freckled self would cause some stares, but I hadn’t figured on kids being freaked out by my blond hair. Munchkins would stop dead in their tracks to gape at me. When I motioned for them to come say hi, they ran in the opposite direction.

So, at church, Lauren and Alison held warm little ones in their laps, singing and clapping, while I looked on enviously. Kids crowded closely around all of us, but whenever I made eye contact with one, she’d glance nervously away.

Towards the end of the service, one boy, maybe seven years old, wedged himself between the kids in front of me and glanced over his shoulder at me. I smiled. He looked away.

Little by little, his edged his back toward my knees until, at long last, he rested against them. Then, up came his elbow, inching ever so slowly towards my knee, until, finally, there. And then, the best. He reached his hand back, back, back with his palm up, until it rested on my knee, too. I covered his hand with mine. He jumped but didn’t jerk away. Eventually, I closed my fingers around his.

When the service was over, he slipped out the door, maybe to a group of boys, where he’d brag about his courage. Or perhaps he ran home to tell his family about the strange azungu that came all the way from America to worship with him.

I wonder if he still thinks about that Sunday, the one where a lady with a white face and yellow hair stood up and told him and all the children there that they have talents and gifts and skills, and that they must not hide these talents, but that they must share them. And that in this sharing, they will find joy.

Really, though, I’m not sure these kiddos need more joy. They laugh and sing all the livelong day. What they need are clean water and dry beds and school supplies. We westerners can keep sending money and goods and teams of people who so desperately want to help.

And make no mistake, I’ll keep sending and going and praying.

But the answers for these children? These brilliant, beautiful children?

I don’t have them, really, other than a few ideas here and there. I have a hunch, though, that all they need to know—really need to know—already exists in their flashing eyes and keen minds.

Perhaps that’s my part. To show up. And to keep telling them how smart and beloved they are. Because the deal is, I think I need these kids and their families, these people living on the very edge of survival, just as much as they need me.

I pray to keep seeing that brave, open hand. And I pray to be bold enough to open my own.