Write Their Names on the Tablet of Your Heart

The past few days have been full of smiles. Yesterday, during our lunch break, Chase and I rode on the back of bikes into Namitete to find Baking Powder (for our secret meal). First, we did not have a small enough bill to pay the bike riders (K100—$.67—for a 6 kilometer bike ride). The driver walked around to every banana shop in the area trying to find someone who could break a K200. Next, we checked out at Peoples with baking soda, juice, and soap only to discover that we didn’t bring enough money to buy the things we set out to buy and to ride the bikes back. After a huge hassle (and two pieces of bubble gum for change), we finally left with what we thought was juice, soap, and baking soda. But again, we didn’t have exact change to pay the bike riders. Luckily, another bike rider was eager to help make change.

As we were finally putting things away after our disastrous journey, we noticed that the baking soda was missing. The cashier forgot to put it in the bag. Mission not accomplished. At that point, all that was left to do was to close our eyes, shake our heads, and smile.

As it turns out, we were lucky not to have found baking soda. The cashier at Peoples must have known that we were going to have a special visitor. Later that night, a small white car pulled up to our house. Sitting in the front seats were John Banda and his beautiful wife Twina. Faith, their two year old girl, was playing in the back with her teddy bear. For those of you who don’t know, John was my mom’s favorite patient last year. Paralyzed in the arms and legs, he came to St. Gabriel’s last year specifically to do physical therapy while my mom was there.

The John Banda that visited us last night was a completely transformed man. Although he was still weak in strength, he was strong in spirit. His joy was apparent not only in his laughter as he feed himself carrots, but in his wife’s smiles and his daughter’s giggles. His renewed dedication to his family was a reminder that if we are faithful in the small things, in them our strength will lie; that sometimes we can't do great things, only small things with great love.

Chase and I quickly made some pasta (no baking soda needed), and we all ate together. They were happy to “experience the food of another culture”. When they think of American food, they will forever think—plain pasta. Whoops.

After smiles, tears, and goodbyes we headed to Peter’s house. We had our second dinner of the night (“chips” and ground nuts). We met Peter’s wife as Eminem played on Peter’s stereo. So far, America has been catastrophically misrepresented in Malawi.

This weekend, we visited with John (the nun’s cook) about his church. He wants to build a church and an orphanage in Namitondo. They already have a community of about 200 members (50 orphans). Within ten minutes, he had already offered Chase a position as founder, missionary, and pastor. One week from Sunday, Chase will give his first sermon in Africa. One week from Sunday, Chase will give his first sermon ever. Needless to say, we are all very excited. Don’t worry, we’ll get the entire thing on camera.

Yesterday, we also visited the primary school. First, the teacher proudly distributed the supplies donated by Evergreen Mill School. The kids were excited and eager to get their pictures taken with their new pencils. We sat through two interesting lessons. In the Standard 6 class (equivalent to 6^th Grade), they spent thirty five minutes subtracting 2,235,675 from 9,357,798 using counters. That was their mathematics lesson for the day. Next, they spent thirty five minutes learning the incorrect definition of an adverb. Twenty students were there out of eighty in the class.

Today was another successful day of cell phone training. Seventeen Community Health Workers showed up. For those of you who are interested, I have included a few links that are related to Josh’s project: his blog, a BBC article, and a PC world article.

http://mobilesinmalawi.blogspot.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7502474.stm

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147679/witnessing_the_human_face_of_mobile_in_malawi.html

Tomorrow, we will meet with the Matron and Sister Annie to discuss our pharmacy propositions. With that project done, Chase has begun working on the hospital brochure, and I am creating a poster of Josh’s project. We are all getting excited to travel to Lake Malawi this weekend. We are all happy and smiling. As Mother Teresa would say, peace begins with a smile.