A question for you

The exams have been taken, the mad rush by the teachers to mark about 600 papers (6 subjects, 100 students) and then rank them and fill out their school reports has been completed just about successfully, and Term 2 is over. We’re officially half way through our teaching here. Which feels quite strange to say.

And now we are on our way to Lilongwe, and from Lilongwe, Zambia, and from Zambia, the world! Or possibly Tanzania. I did think about writing a profound post about how going travelling with no set plan or certain destination is like training for following Jesus, not knowing where he’ll lead you, but knowing it will be awesome in some way you didn’t really ask for, but I can’t be bothered. So I’ll just quickly share with you my current dilemma instead and ask for your prayers or possibly even your advice.

So the dates for the school holidays were always going to be from the 22^nd of March to the 22^nd of April, a nice round month, plenty of time to see Victoria Falls and then continue on into Tanzania or Botswana – whichever takes your fancy – and visit a game reserve or something like that. However, yesterday, just before we left our school we were informed that the government has changed the dates – nationally – and Term 3 will start on April the 8^th. That’s a two week holiday instead of four.

So my partner Michael is part of a group of volunteers who have rented a car for the month, and he’s talked to his fellow teachers and they are happy for him to stay away for the whole month of the original holiday, which he’s keen to do so as not to waste his money and to enjoy the opportunity to travel as much as he can, which is fair enough. However, for me things are not so simple. My fellow Standard 6 teacher, Miss Chakola, has been granted her request to transfer to another school, so is leaving and is supposed to be replaced by a new teacher for next term. So I’m not sure how acceptable it would be to ask this new person to teach my subjects for two weeks and then take them off him/her again. Perhaps more importantly, I also teach about 4 hours a week of English to the Standard 8s, who are taking their primary school leaving exams in mid-May. They are massively important for their future, and 40% of the English exam is writing compositions and making sentences, which they struggle with massively, and I have been helping with. (Or, to be more precise, trying to help with.) So two weeks of lessons for them is quite a big deal.

So now the question is – where does God want me? I was introduced to an awesome bit of the bible the other day, from 1 Corinthians 15:

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.”

So I’m determined to stand firm and let nothing move me – but the problem is, which ‘work of the Lord’ should I give myself to fully for those two weeks?

God has been so good so far in giving me awesome conversations and relationships with the other volunteers – I’ve made some great friends and even had the chance to help one guy really rediscover a faith that he had started to lose, which is definitely in my mind one of the most worthwhile things I have been able to do in Malawi. I love chatting to people about Jesus, and everything that following him has done to change my life, and how much awesome stuff he’s done for me, and in the people that I know. I genuinely love it – and I sometimes God uses my life as a way to tap someone on the shoulder and let him know that he’s there. And that’s pretty much the greatest privilege I could ever have! So I have no doubt that travelling with my mates is the work of the Lord, God loves them and he loves it when me and the other Christians care for each other and encourage each other to love him more, and he loves it when we introduce other people to him.

But…

Obviously teaching kids to speak English better and hopefully get into secondary school, then get a job and help their families and countries to develop – that’s God’s work too. He loves that. And he loves me spending time with the other teachers, and receiving so much awesomeness and generosity from him through them.

So what should I do? I’ve got a week or so to pray and think and work it out. So if you could ask God to give me wisdom, and then courage to stand firm, that’d be awesome. And if you have any advice that’d be great too!

I have five nipples (and 9 other things you might find interesting)

1.      I have five nipples at the moment. At a time and location unknown, 
actuated by motives that remain unclear, a mosquito has bitten me
three times in a neat line across my chest. It’s beautiful.
2.      We cooked African cake with our deputy headmistress a couple of
weeks ago – it’s quite easy, you mush up bananas into baby food, add
maize flour, and deep fry – but she gave us some freshly cooked
‘mandas’ – basically deep fried sugary bread – and they were
absolutely incredible. Unfortunately Michael (my hilarious partner)
managed to convince me that the mystery liquid in a bottle in the hut
was golden syrup. I dipped and ate. He laughed. I swallowed,
unimpressed and slightly confused by the taste. He gleefully informed
me that it was pork fat. From a week ago. Yum.
3.      I took a ride on an ox cart the other day. Michael drove it for a
while – but was quite ineffective – it turned out this was because the
driver encourages the oxen by prodding their private parts with his
foot.
4.      Cooking in a rural Malawian kitchen – mud oven thing inside mud hut
with no chimney, in which you burn firewood – is more challenging than
I had imagined. I tried to cook some eggs there because I couldn’t be
bothered to start our fire – and found myself coughing uncontrollably
and completely blinded by the smoke! Brian told me to sit down on the
floor or just let his niece do it – this worked well. Never let a
stupid westerner use Malawian technology.
5.      A big thunderstorm blasted a lot of whitewash off one of our walls
the other week (we were lucky, one teacher’s fence collapsed and
another watched his whole kitchen hut as it was dislodged by the wind
and thrown into his house – the house survived intact, the kitchen not
so much). It’s now been resurfaced, but they had no whitewash so it’s
mud grey. So our house has now got quite a funky art-deco feature-wall
look. Some students from the school also ‘resmeared’ our mud floor,
which is great, it just raised the floor level a bit, which meant I
had to scrape away some of it with the back of a fork to allow the
door to actually open!
6.      I climbed a tree at school the other day, and I’m pretty sure I
could see for 10 or 20 miles across the savannah to the mountains. I’m
getting strangely accustomed to spectacular beauty.
7.      Last week fellow teacher and general legend Mr Robins Kamanga came
into my class and asked if he could have some of my learners who had
missed the manual work after school yesterday. I wasn’t a big fan of
them missing lessons, but I supposed if a few of them had tried to
skive, they should have to do it like everyone else. He said something
in Chichewa and my class promptly dropped in size from 70 to 15.
8.      This morning we drove back from Mua to Mtunthama, leaving at
4 in the morning. The main road for this route includes driving through
a game reserve. This meant we were treated to the sight of a whole family
of baboons on the road, including a couple mating. Not the sort of thing you 
usually see on your morning commute.
9.      This Sunday I am doing the talk at the evening church service of
Kamuzu Academy student chapel. I was going to talk to them about how
they should not be stupid and western like me, but I think now I’m not
going to try and tell them what to do, I’m just going to read the
parable of the lost son, and tell them how incredibly, personally, and
permanently their Dad in heaven loves them. So please, if you pray,
ask God to calm some of my nervousnesses about that and to speak to
them through what I say.
10.     Finally, I’d like to boast about how manly I am now. The other day
a little kid thought it’d be funny to throw a live caterpillar through
the window into my classroom! There was some commotion, I established
the cause of it, took a deep breath, walked through to the back where
it was, picked it up, and threw it right back at them. MAN.

Rejection - the dementor of the muggle world - and the only true patronus

Rejection might just be the most painful thing we experience as human beings – setting aside gallstones and giving birth. To be unwanted, unchosen unloved. Like a dementor, it seems to suck some part of your soul out through your ribs and leaves you feeling utterly and unbearably empty.

But at the same time, it is, in a way, what makes being human possible. Because without the other person having a real choice, it means nothing to be chosen. We wouldn’t understand what it was to be ‘wanted’ in a world where ‘unwanted’ didn’t exist. Love cannot exist without unlove.

And it’s more than that – maybe without rejection, God couldn’t be God. Why do I say that? I was reading John’s first letter in the bible recently, and there’s a bit where I honestly weep sometimes when I read it. (It’s 1 John 4:7-12 if you care about such things.) First it says that God is love. That’s who God is. And then it defines love: ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’ Sin, basically, is when we reject God. So love is God’s response to rejection. That is what true love is. And it’s the very fibre of God’s being.

Jesus once asked his disciples, “Why is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?” Well I think Jesus had to “suffer much and be rejected” to be truly like God. Because to be God is to suffer much and be rejected. And for us to become like God – to be children truly like our Dad – we too must be rejected. In order for us to truly love. And this rejected love is not that of the stalker – the hand snatching what it can from that which it ‘loves’ – it is the love of the father, sitting up all night, waiting for his runaway daughter to come home. ‘Jesus, how many nights should I wait for her? A week?’  - ‘I tell you, not seven night but seventy seven nights.’ Do not stop waiting. Do not stop loving. Because every night you will know more what it feels like to be God. The father who sits, and waits, and weeps, and knows that some of his children are never going to come home.

My mate Fatsani

The other day I’d set my Standard 6 class some work to do and I was sat on my chair watching them do it. So a few of them have started talking a bit, so I look around for who it is. I notice at the front Fatsani Munkhondya talking to the girl next to him. Fatsani is pretty small, not up to my shoulders, ridiculously enthusiastic, and has the most happy-making smile in existence. And I just watched him chatting away, grinning like he does and making this little tiny girl laugh, and in the end when he saw me looking and thought I was going to tell him to be quiet, I just smiled.

Now I just think about that moment – the two of them laughing together about something in Chichewa that I didn’t understand – and I think, God is a good creator. I mean – laughter – who thought of that? Imagine the kind of person that invents laughter. Dostoevsky once said that if God knew he was creating a world where one child would weep desperately for its lost mother he should have chosen not to create anything at all. And that’s a beautiful thing to say. But why let suffering triumph over joy? Why not say that if God knew that just once, in a little village in the middle of Africa, Fatsani Munkhondya was going to smile like that and make the little girl next to him laugh, then everything was worth it.

What if the long hard journey home was worth it not just for the warmth of the embrace on the doorstep, but for the moments of bizarre beauty and joy that sprung up like wildflowers along the way? Maybe it’s an act of faith – maybe it’s just a good idea – to lift our eyes from the brokenness to the beauty long enough to start cultivating joy in the burnt and barren fields of the world.

I’m not saying we ignore suffering – that would be as far from being like Jesus as it’s possible to get. I’m just saying that when I come out here to the back porch to pray or write, I don’t look that often at our rubbish pit, and think about the kids I saw searching through it once. I look at the mountains on the horizon. And the sun glittering on the morning dew. And the chickens wandering around in their own weird way. And I think about our Dad, our Creator, the one who invented the chicken and the sunrise and I think about how he knows my name. How my name is carved onto the palm of his hand. And it means that when I get up, I can walk past those kids I saw in our rubbish pit, and when they shout ‘Kuvina!’ – that’s dance in Chichewa – I can do a little, stupid dance with a genuine smile on my face and enjoy it when they laugh at me. I can choose joy. Just like Fatsani does.

The Perfect Pearl

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God.

Jesus told a short story – a really short story – about a man and some buried treasure. He says there’s a guy, and somehow – who knows what he was up to – he finds hidden treasure in someone else’s field. Obviously he’s over the moon – this is the greatest find imaginable, he’s set for life – and he puts the treasure back where he found it, runs home, sells everything he has and scrapes together the cash to buy the field. And he gets the field and the treasure. And everyone lived happily ever after, except possibly the original owner of the field, when he notices that the poor guy he sold that field to is suddenly some kind of dancing-for-joy, lottery-rollover millionaire.

Anyway, straight away Jesus told another two-liner story. He said there was a merchant looking for fine pearls, and then one day he came across one of immense value – a lot like that guy in Toy Story 2 when he finds Woody in the jumble sale – and just like the other guy he runs home, sells everything, absolutely everything, and buys that pearl.

And Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like that treasure, and that pearl.

And my favourite bit is where it says – about the buried treasure guy – “in his joy he went and sold everything he had”. Just imagine selling all your stuff. Imagine selling your fridge – complete with a few carrots and some yoghurt – your kitchen table, your phone, your favourite clothes, that thing you’ve had since you were in primary school, your mattress, your bed, your house. Imagine watching the boxes go out the door and into the van and off to auction. Imagine the hammer falling again and again as memory after memory, useful tool after beautiful thing goes for some amount or another.

Now try to imagine doing that, joyfully. Imagine running to greet the van and skipping a bit as you run back to grave the first box of stuff; imagine grinning inanely at all the people as they walk out holding your phone and your ipod and just bursting our laughing when you hear them whispering to each other, trying to work our if you’re crazy or you just racked up a lot of gambling debts. Imagine striding up to the auctioneer as the last person leaves, taking his hammer and having a go at banging it yourself, laughing with him and giving him a massive hug. And it’s not as if you hated your stuff, it’s just that you’re not really thinking about it – you’re thinking about what you’re about to get. And every time you do the temptation to woop or clap is overwhelming.

That is how good God is. He’s that good. And if we could just grasp how high and wide and long and deep Jesus’ love is – we would burst out into some ridiculous dance, or just lie down and laugh for hours, or run and hug everyone in sight. Every moment of beauty we’ve known, every burst of joy, every overwhelming surge of love for another human being is just a shadown, a tiny glimpse of this ultimate beauty, this perfect pearl.

And I say all this because this week I’ve been a bit like the original owner of that field. Woefully oblivious to the awesome, awesome, awesome thing that I’ve had all along. I realised today that I’ve thanked God for plenty of things this week – he’s given me real joy in my teaching, some genuine Malawian friends, a great relationship with the other Standard 6 teacher, a brilliant day-after-Valentine’s Day, a lovely chat with my parents and all sorts of little things – but it all felt a bit weird, a bit empty, a bit hollow. Because I forgot to thank him for him. I forgot to praise him. I took my eyes off how beautiful Jesus is. I ended up thiking his goodness consisted of the stuff he does for me, but this goodness is way, way bigger than that. He’s the one who moulded the galaxies between his fingertips, and invented the dragonfly. He’s the brains behind smiling, and the touch of someone else’s skin, and that feeling when you’re out in the open air at night, and B flat minor.

He’s the Dad who’s so desperate to have us home that when we come crawling back he tells us to forget about the money we stole and the crap we spent it on because he’s invited the whole neighbourhood over for a party. He’s the shepherd who picked his way through the dangers of the night to try and find us wherever we’ve wandered off, because he won’t let us go through it alone. He’s the one who took on death and won.

He’s worth selling everything for. Easily. He’s worth giving up Rachael for. Easily. He’s worth giving up my family for. Easily. And that’s far too easy to forget, but when I remember it – I know it sounds pretentious but I think the only way to say it is – then I am alive.

Malawian Match Day

Fairly ordinary day to start with – picking ants off bread for breakfast (admittedly this is a new low in food hygiene), failing to wash (again), walking for an hour and a half to town, and indulging my penchant for ten kwacha roadside baked goods (today a kind of chewy potato/tomato/onion maize flour fritter, and then a donut that is more like nice bread really, but on the plus side, is a bit like nice bread). Also taking a bike taxi over some slightly soggy dirt roads.

But then it got interesting – it was the day of the big match, the first round of the national primary school football and netball cup, the winning of which is worth 1.6 million kwacha (it’s 500 kwacha to the pound so you can work out how much that is if you want). We were up against Chidampa at Ergo ground. Ergo football pitch is half sand and half thick grass, thistles and all. We were there just before kick-off time, 2:00pm. The opponents were nowhere to be seen. Then it started raining torrentially, for the second time that day. Our players and the smaller supporters who had tagged along found what shelter they could but got extremely wet and cold in their shorts and t-shirts. To keep warm they did some singing and dancing which any English choir would have been proud, or possibly incapable, of. And then the rain calmed down after an hour or so, and some Chidampo people arrived, and, to my astonishment, we actually started playing.

The sheer Malawianess of the occasion is impossible to describe – a kid wearing a hat woven from some grass and sticks, along with our team’s kit – a random goalie shirt, then 9 identical ‘SAHA’ Man U kits in a bring yellow that Man U have never even contemplated wearing, and for the captain an Arsenal shirt with ‘FABREGAS’ on it, in the same unimaginable yellow. The girls play netball in skirts and even faker Arsenal shirts. There are no visible sidelines so older kids patrol the edges of the pitch wielding big branches and smashing them down occasionally to discourage anyone from standing where they are just about to be, and thus fend off the inward creep of the crowd. The aforementioned crowd continues to shiver in the occasional showers and bitingly cold wind – and it does cross my mind that this is supposed to be Africa. A large group are keeping warm by dancing around the edges of the pitch (in fact on the pitch at all points other than the actual goals), chanting and clapping something that seems to have some relevance to the game. And then we score. And there is a huge pitch invasion – mainly conducted by five to ten year old kids about four foot tall – and I even see a giant doll – about the size of the kid holding it – that seems to be our rather inexplicable team mascot.

This happens after each of our four goals. It’s quite a comedic game of football – players slipping and sliding wildly over the pitch (it’s pretty tough playing football in a bog when no one has studs and in fact, only about half are wearing shoes). It is, I must admit, even funnier when the netballers slip over. And then it’s all over – 16-1 in the netball, 4-0 in the football. So our fellow teacher and avid dictionary reader Mr Robins Kamanga informs us that we have ‘clobbered them’ (he refrains from adding, as he likes to, ‘in grand style’) and Brian, the head coach, is so happy he gets us all some roasted maize for the walk home. Which is a lot better when it is hot and you are cold.

When we get home all is back to normal, and we cook rice, egg and tomatoes on our charcoal burner, as we do about every other night, and eat it with lots of salt and some orange squash. Then couple of

(delicious) Malawian toffee bar things, some chat, some use of the greatly anticipated toilet roll which we got yesterday, and brushing my teeth on the front porch (spitting anywhere because it just soaks into the ground). Then change, brush the roof-dust off the mattress and the sleeping bag (pyjamas and beautiful new pillow have been cunningly stashed inside the sleeping bag so are largely dust free) and then write this, and go to sleep.

And that was match day. Malawi-style. I’m really quite enjoying this now.

One month down, or possibly up, or sideways.

I left England on the 3^rd of January so it’s now 33 days since I was at home.

Which makes it 33 days since my feet were actually clean for over a minute; 33 days since a day of my life passed without ants featuring heavily; 33 days without seeing a potato, or real milk; and 33 days since I had a proper hug.

Those who know my love (some would say obsession) for Coco Pops and milk will be surprised to learn that the milk thing hasn’t bothered me too much. And actually anyone who knew me before I was 14ish will understand the joy of the news that we’ve found peanut butter in a nearby town! (Which, on inspection, claims to provide 25% of my daily fat intake in one serving. Just how I like it.)

Anyway, most of the time nothing is really getting to me, apart from the hugs thing. Before this trip I maintained a cool-guy stance of never really missing people – I have now thoroughly abandoned this stance. If you’ve ever given me a proper hug, I probably miss you. And in fact, of all the things I thought God might teach me in this time, I never expected that it would be to love and appreciate my grannies more! But sure enough, this he has done.

So anyway, I said last time about God humbling me, and he is still doing that (Including the way that the other Michael is consistently battering me at bananagrams AND ligretto), but he is not in any way being nasty to me. He is being spectacularly kind – so here are a few things that, if you pray, you are welcome to thank God for with me.

1)      The invention of the Kindle and setting me up with a teacher who should really be doing English at Cambridge instead of me!

The Standard 6 teacher who I’m helping, Martha Chakola, was looking through a book I was using in a lesson and asked me if I’d brought any more, so I ended up teaching her to use my Kindle and lending it to her. At first she said she’d give it back when she’d finished all the books on it, ‘so maybe tomorrow or the day after’! But while I explained that was a little bit optimistic, she’s getting through them at a crazy pace – I especially enjoyed getting it back and finding it set to huge font – she explained afterwards she had been trying to read in the dark!

So that’s just awesome, especially because she’s really getting into some of the books about God I’ve got on there, so it’s giving her a chance to explore her faith as well I think.

2)      Food. I have never meant ‘Thank you for this food’ so deeply as I do at the moment. Cooking Malawian beans for 3 hours has really taugh me to appreciate my dinner like never before (this works especially well if you didn’t realise and you started cooking at half 6!). And the other day I went and helped my mate Brian and his family fertilise their ‘garden’. I was imagining a little vegetable patch kind of garden, out the back of the house. In fact, Brian has  little hole next to every maize plant with a stick, and us putting a spoonful of pellets into each one. After the first 100 plants, with 1000 or so to go, this gets – in Brian’s words – ‘tiresome’. In this country, generosity has a real cost, and it really, really matters whether it rains. And yet their kindness and open-handedness, and their trust in God, is genuinely inspirational. And quite challenging.

3)      Creating. We camped at Kasungu National Park last weekend, which used to be amazing apparently, but has been thoroughly poached so that now it’s pretty much just hippo, and some awesome, awesome views. You might have read about the guy who made the six foot valentines card for the girl he liked – and how he thinks waterfalls and sunsets are a bit like God doing the same thing for us. Well, I honestly got out of my tent on Saturday night, looked up at the stars and said, out loud, “I love you too”. I know I’m a bit weird. But God is a bit awesome too.

PS. Here’s something you didn’t know. A perk of having a mud/charcoal floor, is that if – hypothetically of course – you had managed to spill a whole bucket of water into your living room/kitchen the other day, the floor would simply have absorbed the water by now. No sweeping or bailing required. Nice.

Weaknesses and Wonderfulnesses

I love Jesus sometimes. I mean obviously I’m aiming for the whole time but I suppose genuinely loving him on occasions is a good start – and, you will be glad to learn, I hope, that this is one of those occasions.

So, have some background. I’ve been asking Jesus to humble me for what must be nearly a year now. I know it sounds weird that I’m asking Jesus to change what I’m like rather than just doing it, but if you’ve ever tried you’ll know that something like pride is surprisingly tricky to change just by trying, so I ask Jesus to humble me, and I try to humble myself, and I hope that he’ll manage it with some help from me. Background over.

At the weekend I was feeling pretty exhausted. I’ve been pretty busy as you might have guessed, and even the ‘holiday’ weekend was quite effortful, and I haven’t had a proper Sabbath day off for ages, and I haven’t managed to spend enough time just chillin’ with Jesus. (Apologies to those with a more sophisticated taste in language, but I think chillin’ just about sums up what I’m missin’.) And the tiredness was starting to do that thing where it spills over from physical into mental and emotional and you just feel a bit like curling up for a long time, and it feels a bit silly when you remember that God promised that ‘those who hope in the LORD will ... soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint’. But then I got an email from my brother where he mentioned 2 Corinthians 12 verse 9. And I couldn’t remember what it was so I looked it up, and it just hit me like a really good hot shower. Paul writes this:

“To keep me from becoming conceited... there was given me a thorn in the flesh... Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I honestly - no religious kid exaggeration - felt such joy from reading those words. “My power is made perfect in weakness”. It just hit me that it was OK for me to be weak, to be struggling, even to fail – it’s OK. It’s even a good thing, because when I realise that I’m not ‘good enough’ all by myself, I get to see just how good Jesus is. You never know how much your dad loves you until you really, really need a hug.

And then this morning I had a double English lesson to start the day – that’s half seven until twenty to nine. But last night it rained (which is good, the crops needed it) but this meant (the causal link is yet to be fully explained to me) that the students were incredibly late. At 7:30 there was one person waiting for Standard 6 – my class. We started at quarter to eight with about 10 kids, and they were still arriving at 8:30. My lesson failed miserably, and I felt miserable. And I had half an hour before my next one. And I came back to the hut, and I got on my knees and I prayed. And I found myself thanking Jesus that he had actually humbled me – that I had realised that I am actually not very good at this. I am not very good at making myself easy to understand, I am not very good at remembering their names, or planning lessons that work at their level, or resisting the temptation to use more and longer words when they are struggling to grasp the few short ones I started with. And I prayed that his power would be made perfect in my weakness. That my struggles and failures would somehow help to reveal how beautiful he is. And then I went out to my next set of lessons.

And, because Jesus is cool like this, they were absolutely brilliant. Not perfect obviously – those problems haven’t just evaporated – but they were much more fun, they felt pretty successful, and as I was doing them I just got happier and happier and happier.

I hope this hasn’t been sickeningly cheesy for all of you – and thanks for reading how I’m doing! If there are things I’m failing to mention that anyone would like to know, please do ask!

Auf wiedersehen,

Mike

Mikey's Big Day Out

I heard somewhere that walking around barefoot actually makes your feet more sensitive over time and you end up having a fuller experience because you’ve stimulated the sensory receptors - or something like that. I feel a little bit like I’ve been metaphorically living barefoot these last few days, and it’s been really good.

I’ve moved into the mud-hut now, and it’s great, but I won’t start there I’ll start with the journey. Because in one day I experienced just such a volume of stuff, it almost felt profound. So I got a couple of buses (catching a Malawian bus is an experience in itself but we won’t get into that) and while I was waiting for the second bus to go, the conductor ripped his T-shirt trying to load someone’s bicycle on. And after a while he turned to me and just said, “Could you give me a new shirt?”! And he showed me the rip and pointed at my bag and asked me again, and now he’s kind of grinning and I look around for some kind of idea about what to do, and the other Malawians are kind of laughing too – so I laugh with them – and in the end we shake hands on the deal that I’ll give money to a charity rather than just giving him a shirt. Then once that bus got going I had a great conversation with a pin-stripe-suited, walking-stick-carrying septuagenarian school teacher, who was just one of those lovely old people who ooze kindness and all of that. Then I got off that bus and walked along the road for a while – and there was a moment that really looked like art, with one man doggedly cycling up a steep hill in the road, completely alone, with blank grassland stretching out on either side. Then I got picked up by my new host, Richard Hewitt – in a way that reminded me really weirdly of getting lifts back from town with Dad. Except it was a lot hotter. And the car was filled with a pleasant selection of African sculptures, which Dad’s usually wasn’t. Also, in the car, we were giving another guy a lift, and I was eating some custard creams (interesting they actually taste of custard here) and I offered him one, he said, ‘No, no you keep them’, so I had some more and offered again a bit later. He said, ‘Thank you!’, took the rest of the packet and put it in his bag! I tried to hide the look of mild confusion. Then I had a beautiful moment standing in a car park in Lilongwe, when I looked up and saw the moon, and it struck me that it’s the same moon that I could see back at home. I don’t think that’s as profound as it felt at the time, but there we go. And then on the next leg of the journey we stopped off for cold drinks and I got a bottle of ‘Peach and nectarine juice’ which contained mainly sugar but also milk and I probably would have thought it was disgusting in normal circumstances but after a hot day is was the sweetest nectar that ever passed my lips. (Excuse the poetry.) And then there was the most incredible sunset, and it reminded me of something I read the other day – the guy was telling a story of trying to woo this girl by making a 6 foot cardboard valentines card and delivering it to her office, and was sort of wondering if all the waterfalls, and sunsets, and deep sea fish with electric lights on their heads, aren’t a little bit like God making us a six foot valentines card in the hope of getting our attention. And that made me happy. Oh and I also saw a man cycling with a dead goat tied to the front of his bike.

That was just part of one day – loads of cool (and some less cool) stuff has happened since then. Current status update would probably be: very very tired, but really excited and loving the way God’s challenging me and encouraging me all at once.

This isn’t the most coherent piece of writing I’ve ever created – but I think I used up my artistry and wordsmithery on the short story I wrote the other day before I left Domasi, so you can have a read of that too if you want!

Empty Pavements

He made his way, hesitantly, and with knees and ankles jarring at every step, along the pavement. It felt alien and hard, as if the stone was jealously protecting its personal space. People stared at him as they walked past, some even stopped to talk about him, pointing and laughing. But not talking to him – it was as if he wasn’t even there. In a way he felt that he wasn’t.

He felt dislocated. Like a shoulder socket wrenched from its place he was floating painfully in a pool of pale fluid. These people were not his people. This ground was not his ground. And the funny thing was that it was spreading. His feet did not feel so much like his feet as they used to; and his thoughts were beginning to scatter and hide as if scared of eviction.

***

He was pounding the street s in breathless sprints – casting his eyes this way and that – desperate but with the patient air of one practiced in desperation. Beads of sweat rolled uninterrupted down the sides of his brow and flew from his jaw, warm brown eyes searching, searching, scanning the cityscape horizon with an intensity that made you long to be the one he was searching for and at the same time made you scared that you might be. He turned another corner.

***

Sure enough he felt lost, but it must be said that he didn’t know it. He caught glimpses in his mind of a memory or a hope, a feeling of welcome, a warmth, almost his own reflection, but whenever he tried to identify it all he could do was watch it flee into some darker corner of his self, scared by the clatter of his feet on the pavement. To walk on ground that is not your own for too long – it is the ache. The ache is nearly unnoticeable and nearly unbearable. A fatigue crept up his limbs and into his body. A loneliness. A dullness.

His heart beat faster.

***

His heart beat faster. His gaze melted into the deep, deep affection of fatherhood. His breaths became longer and less hurried but his steps quickened and grew lighter.

***

A thrill of peace rushed through his body, he could feel blood rushing out around his body as his feet became his once more, his thoughts gathered themselves from the nooks and crannies of his restless mind and assembled into one, overwhelming, gentle lump, one word: found. He had found himself, he had found what he had been looking for – he had realised what he had been looking for! – and he had been found. All at once. Fond memory and cherished hope crashed together like two great opposing waves and his soul was filled to overflowing with liquid peace. Rest. He felt the arms reach around him and gather him up. He felt his feet softly lift away from the alien ground.

***

The shepherd gently placed his sheep across his shoulders and, ignoring the startled looks of the city-dwellers passing on either side, began the long walk home.

Two Contradictory Blogs For The Price Of One

I'm really enjoying the shop names here in Malawi -
here are my top 3 so far besides this one:
3^rd – GOD IS LOVE BARBER SHOP
2^nd – GOD IS WONDERFUL HARDWARE SHOP
And in first place,
the very best example of this
bizarre marriage of theology and marketing
– GOD IS ABLE PHONE CHARGE

We’ve arrived now in Domasi Mission (where we’ll be working for the next seven months) and I don’t really know where to start! The good-news-guilt has subsided and been replaced by simple gratitude for how well looked after we are, and how beautiful the place is – just in case anyone still thinks I’m in any way a hero for coming here, the three of us have a kitchen with microwave/hob/oven/fridge/freezer, lots of working toilets/showers, and this is all in a guest house nearly as big as my house back home, easily capable of housing all 28 volunteers if it needed to. And we’ve got a view of a forest covered mountain. And today we got a lift in the back of the school pickup truck into Zomba[1] to get ourselves various foodstuffs including jelly. This is a good place.

The other big news is that we were introduced to the kids at the secondary school today in their morning prayers. Morning prayers is basically a mini church service that they have every weekday[2] - but the really cool thing is that it is led by the kids! A team of them tell everyone what songs to sing, lead the prayers, read the bible readings, and then one of them does a short talk – and this morning it was really good! Somewhat appropriately it was about confidence in God, and given by a guy called Michael. Can’t go wrong with a Michael. Anyway, I really enjoyed it, the only downside is that it’s difficult to join in with the awesome singing because the songs are in Chichewa! But maybe we’ll learn a few before we go.

And just in general I am really very happy because God has just been so kind in this last week - it still absolutely blows my mind that it’s only been a week since I left. I wrote down a list in my notebook of Good Things God Has Done So Far and it didn’t fit on one page. So many answered prayers, even a couple that seemed impossible, and I just keep marvelling at His creative genius – not just in the landscape of this country but in the other volunteers that I’ve got to be friends with. So, as they say here in Malawi, ‘God is good, all the time.

---

[1] The nearest town, most famous as the birthplace of Latin-American fitness dance classes

[2] At 6:30am!

....OK, so that was the blog I wrote on Thursday evening. I didn’t manage to put it up until now but in the meantime quite a lot of stuff has happened. I got a call from my mate Sam (another volunteer) telling me that he is going to leave his intensely rural placement (we’re talking genuine mud hut) and go somewhere else, and he was wondering if any of the three of us here wanted to swap with him. So obviously I’ve been praying about that a lot, and talking to various wise people, and it’s pretty certain now that I’m going to go. Sam’s now worked out a few ways that he can leave even if I don’t swap with him, so my original hope of him taking a bit more time to try and get settled into his place is not going to materialise – so my choice is basically stay here so that there are four volunteers here and one (Sam’s partner Michael) left out there, or make it three here and two there. And it seems that the primary school in Chimbowe (that’s where the mud hut is) really does need a lot of help. So at the moment it seems pretty clear to me what the right thing to do is.

Obviously it’ll be a fair bit tougher out there but I’m not too worried about that, Michael and Sam tell me it’s an incredibly welcoming and generous community, and a pretty nice mud hut as mud huts go! And even when it is hard, I’m not too worried – genuinely because, as it says above, God is good, all the time (and for that matter, Jesus Never Fails). I heard a quote once from a Christian who was persecuted under communism in the eastern bloc – he said, ‘Christians are like nails, the harder you hit them, the deeper they go.’ So I’m actually pretty excited about what this adventure could do for my faith and my trust in God.

So obviously I would appreciate all your prayers, and please send me emails and things – I have no idea how the signal is out there so I can’t promise I’ll reply any time soon!

Cheers for reading!

MalawiBlog Number Two

I am in Africa.

It’s quite exciting. Very green and stuff. So far though we’ve spent pretty much all of our time in Mabuya Camp training and things with the other volunteers – so I haven’t got vast amounts of exciting things to tell you about the country as yet. But I can confirm that the road from the airport was pretty top notch!

Anyway, I thought I’d share some interesting GAP-YAH psychology with you. I’ve been trying to name it but I can’t quite – I was thinking about ‘greener-grass-syndrome’, but I’m going to go with ‘good-news-guilt’. What I mean by good-news-guilt is that when you find out more about your placement and where you’re staying, good news is bad news. Whenever you hear someone say, ‘Oh, yeah, apparently we have electricity and showers at our placement’, their voice is saturated with the cocktail of guilt and disappointment that comes from talking to a bunch of people who won’t have showers or electricity, and have just been telling you that they’re really glad about that because they didn’t come to Africa for it to be comfortable!

I am not immune to good-news-guilt. It crept up on me over the first 24 hours (we are apparently at the nicest accommodation out of anyone). But then I dragged it out of my subconscious and had a think about it. And really it brings you to the question – why are you here? And I’ve thought about it, and I think the main reason I’m here is because I love the idea of just serving and loving people 24-7. I did a falcon camp a few years ago (a Christian holiday camp for kids who wouldn’t get one otherwise) and I just loved it, because you forget everything else and you get up in the morning and worship Jesus and then all you do for the rest of the day is try to make people happy. It just felt like what being properly alive is all about. And the less boring, non-love-distractions you have to deal with, in my opinion, the better. So I’m hoping this is going to be like a giant version of that – with none of the things that distract me – just loving people and loving God for seven months in the middle of a beautiful beautiful bit of the world. I mean I’m not trying to make you all jealous, but that’s the life, isn’t it?

So, in short, I think it would be fair to describe my outlook as pretty optimistic!

That’s it for now I think – so until next time, if you pray, I’d love it if you could pray for me and the guys I’m doing this with, and if there’s anything anyone would like me to pray for, I would love to do that just drop me a message!

MalawiBlog Number One

Hello.

I did a lot of saying goodbye today so I thought I would do a bit of saying hello, and give everyone a pre-departure update so I get used to how this whole blogging thing is going to work.

So, status update:

I have not yet packed, as the photo will testify. I have been thoroughly equipped by various lovely family members and friends with a veritable cornucopia of miniature items (mini-alarm-clock, mini-torch, mini-speakers, mini-first-aid-kit, mini-sterile-first-aid-kit, mini-guitar...) but this bazaar of bite-sized goodness is, at time of writing, still wherever Mum put it when she took it out of the living room. (For those of you who know my house, that’s the playroom, just in case you were confused, but I didn’t feel comfortable admitting to having a ‘playroom’ in my house at the age of 18 in front of the whole internet.)

All the flat surfaces in my room look a bit like this

Real status update:

 But the state of my room is not what you are really interested in (I hope), it is rather the state of myself. So I will start as I intend to go on by including in these updates my real health in all its forms rather than just the medical and the practical.

So obviously saying goodbye has been quite sad, but in a way I think that’s good news – if I was saying goodbye to everyone I know for seven months and that wasn’t sad, that would make me a very lonely person – so I am glad to have been sad (and will be glad to be sad when I say goodbye to Mum and Dad on Thursday).

But I hope you will be happy to hear that I am not scared. This is not me trying to sound brave and cool – I am very much not brave or cool – because I was scared, I was getting increasingly frightened from Christmas day onwards last week, and I was fairly sure that was justified; it’s a big step to go somewhere like Malawi for such a long time, there is a lot to get ready that really matters, and I don’t really know anyone that will be out there with me. So a little bit of fear is only natural. But then joyfully I was woken early by a phone call from my mate Naffy on Sunday morning and this gave me time to go for a walk down to my favourite tree, and spend a good hour or so talking to God and reading my bible. And nothing spectacular or ‘supernatural’ came over me, but as I spent time with God he really did comfort me. There’s somewhere in the bible that it promises that he will “quiet you with his love” and maybe that’s a fair description. One of the parts of the bible I spent time with was in Jeremiah 17 where Jeremiah says, “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed. Save me and I shall be saved.” And it made me think of a story I heard recently of a girl in Africa whose parents had just been killed by a militia who were rounding up Christians: as they pointed their guns at her they taunted her and asked, “Let your Jesus save you now!” – but she said to them, “My Jesus has already saved me.” And that’s just incredible, and I believe it’s true. And I just thought, faced with that, how can I be afraid of anything – let alone an exciting gap year trip?! And I genuinely ended up shouting “I AM FREE, NOTHING IS SCARY BUT YOU, GOD, AND YOU ARE NOT SCARY!” at a field full of sheep!

So there we go - hopefully I haven’t convinced you all I’m crazy with the very first blog - and hopefully these will be fairly interesting (I think they'll get more interesting when I actually arrive!). Please everyone let me know how you’re getting on while I’m away, and also a special thanks to Andy (Hood) for being a true brother in every sense.

Love, Mike.

Uninvited

Mr Jacob Israel was sitting at home. It was a good chair, he had always liked that chair – it had cost him but he loved it. And he had it set up just beside the wood-burner, so that on the long winter evenings he could sit comfortably on his chair, in the warmth of the fire. Sometimes he would have a sense of gratitude – of oh my, this is the life, how did I come to be so gloriously comfortable? – but quickly he would answer himself, he had slaved away at the factory for hour after tedious hour to get here. Oh, he had made sacrifices for this alright. All those years on the factory floor – the dripping fat, the thick, sickening haze of scent – he remembered once dropping his wallet into pool of liquid fat. Soaked right through. Saturated – like a Big Mac. But he was passed all that now - the big break-through had been when the regional manager had come round for lunch. Jo Malone cane-sugar fragrance, Marks and Spencer’s canapés, and he had cooked that roast lamb to perfection. Of course Malorie would have done it better. But - it had worked. No more slaving for him anymore. And now the next step was coming – the new boss was bringing his wife round for dinner on Sunday. It could be a big moment – Mr Mammonson was a pretty powerful man.

Jacob was roused from his reverie by a knock at the door. A wave of panic ran through him as he half imagined that Sunday had come already and it was Mr Mammonson. Hurriedly he shook himself into alertness, realised that it was still Friday night, crossed the room, and opened the door with a tired smile on his face. The smile disappeared at the sight of the man on the doormat. He was, well, he just wasn’t quite what you expected. It certainly wasn’t Mr Mammonson. This man looked poor – at first Jacob struggled to pick out a reason for this – but he thought perhaps it was all the scratches and scars on the man’s skin, or the strange simplicity of his clothing. Nevertheless the man was looking at him. He had a truly arresting gaze; Jacob was a little disconcerted by the affection he saw in those eyes, and there was something else in them that worried him which he couldn’t put a finger on.

He realised they had been standing looking at one another in silence for an inappropriate length of time. He said, rather more sharply than he’d intended, “What do you want?”

The strange man’s brow furrowed slightly and he asked, “Did you not call for me?”

“No I didn’t! I don’t even know who you are!”

“Well yes,” said the man, “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

And he came in and sat down on the floor opposite Jacob’s chair. Jacob, surprised and feeling slightly threatened, walked over towards the man and the fire, trying to look taller than he was. Somehow the man looked taller now he was sitting on the floor. Another thing that worried Jacob.

After a short pause in which Jacob tried, and failed to think of anything to say, the man spoke again.

“It is not upon me that you have called, Jacob, rather you have tired of me, Israel. Not to me have you brought lambs as your burnt offerings, and with your sacrifices you have not honoured me.”

“What? Of course I haven’t... Why would make sacrifices for you?”

“Indeed. I did not make slave of you through offerings, nor tire you out through incense. Not for me did you buy fragrant cane at a price, and with the fat of your sacrifices you have not saturated me.”

“Wait, how did you know...”

Jacob’s voice trailed off into silence as the man got up and walked towards him. Jacob opened his mouth to speak and almost raised a hand but before he could react the man stopped and knelt down at his feet.

“You have, however, made a slave of me by your sins, tired me out by your iniquities.”

Jacob looked at him, motionless. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I – I am the one who wipes clean your rebellions, for my own sake, and your sins I do not remember.”

There was a pause, as the man waited for Jacob to reluctantly meet his gaze. Then, looking up at him from the floor with that same arresting gaze he said,

“Remind me.”

“Sorry?”

“Let us reach a judgement together. Give an account of yourself so that you may be acquitted.”

Jacob felt a strange sense of compulsion, of necessity, and he found himself asking, “Where should I begin?”

“Where did it begin?”

And he knew where it began. So he began to speak, and suddenly words were tumbling forth like a torrent – half confession, half justification, he complained and explained and told him everything until he began to weep, like a little child.

“Jacob.”

At the sound of his name he fell onto his knees in front of the man and grabbed him by the shoulders. He started shaking him and quickly the man reached out, took hold of him, and the two men began to wrestle. They struggled intensely – sometimes staggering across the room, sometimes opposing each other so fiercely and so evenly that they were almost completely still. As they stood, locked in this shuddering embrace the man suddenly freed his right hand from Jacob’s grip and tapped him lightly on the hip. Jacob let out a guttural roar of pain and anguish and crumpled over as he felt his hip wrenched from its socket. He staggered forward, grimacing and grunting and clung to the man once more, almost bent double by the agony.

“Let go of me.”

Through gritted teeth Jacob replied “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

“What is your name?”

“Jacob.”

“No. Your name is Israel. It means, ‘One who wrestles with God’.”

Israel looked confused, uncertain. “Please. What is your name?”

“Why do you ask my name?”

Israel did not answer. Instead there was a long pause as the two men looked at one another. Breaking the stillness the man took a deep breath in and out, a sigh, somewhere between sorrow and satisfaction.  Then he answered,

“I, I am the one who wipes clean your rebellions, for my own sake, and your sins I do not remember.”

The World is a Mess

The world is a mess.

Of course it is.

Two artists, fathers, Colin and Joshua, both want something to put up to decorate the hallway in their houses – and as artists, they both decide to do it themselves.

Colin sits down in his studio and begins to paint. He works hard and carefully, and his technique is flawless. Every curve is perfect, every colour precisely lifelike and every shadow sharp and real. He sits back and smiles, the perfect painting. He carries it inside and hangs it in the house – his children gather round and admire his work – they compliment him warmly, they are all very impressed, and very proud to have such a talented artist for a father, very pleased to have such a beautiful painting in their house.

Joshua sits down and thinks for a moment. Then he walks to the easel, lifts off the canvas, and puts it down on the floor of his shed. Then he gets out three palettes and fills them with all sorts of brilliant colours. He mixes blues and greens and violets and oranges, and each of the colours is different, and each of them is marvellous. And once he has done this, he walks out of his shed, through the garden, and up to the house. He calls his children, and invites them to follow him back to Daddy’s painting shed. Then he gives them each their own palette of colours and one of his brushes, and says, “Go on, paint! Paint whatever you like – I want it to be beautiful”. And he watches them set to it with glee. Sometimes he crouches down to give them advice, or guide their hand into something especially wonderful. After a while he stops just watching, mixes some colours of his own and kneels down beside them to join in. He sees what they are doing and he adds to it, he reflects it, he draws what they are doing together into one painting with incredible skill – picking the perfect colours and shapes to combine the work of his children. And soon enough the canvas is completely full, and they all step back and look at their work. They can all see that it’s not perfect. The older brother scowls at his siblings when he sees the splodges and blobs they’ve put on by accident, and his sister almost starts to cry when she realises that she’s nearly ruined a whole corner by trying something far more complicated than she could really manage. They all agree that it’s a mess. But as they look at it they all start to say that they think perhaps it is a good mess. Joshua tells them that he thinks it is glorious. They all smile, even though they’re not entirely sure what that means! Then he tells them all to help him carry it inside, and they take it in and hang it up. And every one of them feels very proud indeed that he wanted to put up their painting. And he gives each of them a big hug and tells them that he’s proud of them.

But somehow none of them feels like they are quite finished. And after a while the oldest brother looks at his father and says, “Daddy, couldn’t you try again? You could take all the good bits from what we’ve done but start again and do it without all the mess! Maybe we could even help, if you showed us what to do?” Their hearts all leapt up in their chests – that was a very exciting suggestion indeed!

And Joshua looked at them all and smiled his very biggest smile – it was their favourite smile.

“Son,” he said, “that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

So here's the question: which is the better painting?

Who is the better artist?

And who would you rather have for a father?