Jesus loves the little children......

And so we were privileged to another glorious day in Malawi. Our day started by having our own devotions over breakfast. Debbie read from, "Simple Compassion: devotions to make a difference in your neighbourhood and you world," by Keri Wyatt Kent. As a quick side note here if you are in need of a new devotions book, this is a great one. From a person who rates her books on a scale of one to ten this is a 9! She read about, "Seeing" and how easy it would be for us to stay blind and small. We so often don't realize how fulfilling being a difference maker can be. Jesus invites us to be people who see then act. And have you ever had a moment when those scales fell from your eyes and you saw truth in a way you had never seen it before? We see plenty of people here and at home in need and we know that we cannot meet their every need. But we can do this: we can listen to the voice of love and obey it. We can be willing to let God's love flow through us to even one person God brings across our path. We can truly see we can be a conduit of grace - willing not just to receive it but to let it flow through us.

Our journey today took us to the village of Chitembe, where Teresa, the head of Somebody Cares is a chieftess. She has never lived there but her father was a chief in the area and because nobody in her family wanted to be the "big Kahuna" therefore chieftess became her role. So we arrived in our 12 seater van full to the brim with our team and Somebody Cares staff, the chieftess Teresa and boxes and suitcases of donated items for the children and expectant mothers in the village. Our contribution to the day here was 16 layettes for expectant mothers. A layette consisted of 2 receiving blankets, 2 sleepers, 3 onesies and a hand knitted tuque made with love by the generous ladies in Lydia's church and Winkler area. Picture this a soft pink tuque on this little curly black head with the most precious brown eyes that melts anybody's heart. And you tell me how we are not going to want to bring some of those babies home with us at the end of July?!? Being a GoGo (grandma) is fast approaching for me and I must say I can hardly wait after seeing all these babies.

We were greeted upon our arrival in the village by a group of young mothers with baby strapped on their backs and voices of angels and dancing that brought such joy to our hearts. They are such gracious people - opening their village to these Azungus! (white person) The babies heads were just like bobble heads as their mothers danced. It was quite funny. There was a young mother there who had a baby sitting on her shoulders that was no more than 1 year old and then one strapped to her back and that did not stop her from shaking! A different shaking than the shaking we were doing down those cow path roads yesterday. By the way today's roads were somewhat better plus we had a van that actually came with shocks today therefore the ride was a tad more comfortable. But as our motto is on this journey, "It's all good!"

After the warm hearted greeting we went to visit the school. And open sided centre that is approximately 14'x30' holding 360 angelic faces. No, I did not make a mistake in typing that number - there truly were 360 children there today and they actually have 700 registered for school in this area. One teacher who is 18 years old - he was amazing and a few volunteers to help. Those of you who are teachers have probably dropped your jaw by now! But there might as well have been 3 kids in that room because there was order and control it was amazing. They had a few children stand in front of the room and show us what they knew in English. How memorable to watch 2 little 4 year old girls shaking hands and asking each other with a loud high pitched little voice what their names are, where they live, how old they are and what is their favourite thing. I am still struggling with, "How are you?" in Chichewa! We then sang some action songs for them and they were so enthusiastic to repeat the motions and try to sing in English.

We then helped with the meal program. And again all in a controlled fashion. A lesson for us adults next time we stand in line at the grocery store and somebody tries cut in front of us.

Then came our meal program. We were hosted by the chief of this village to a traditional meal in Malawi - mustard greens, sema, and chicken and we got to eat with our fingers! It was simply scrumptious. Sema is made with maize flour and is their staple much like rice and potatoes are for us. The only difference is that we get to add a few more things to our plate to compliment those starches we so enjoy but they don't. Sema is more often than not the only food on their plate. And the drink of the meal was Fanta! Big expense for the chief to host us plus we were there with some of the team from Phoenix. But he was very proud to have been able to offer us this meal.

After lunch our team were able to hand out our layettes to the pregnant mothers. They all seemed so young. Well, they are - many of them marry at age 14 - the father might be 16 or 18. I thought of the African saying, "It takes a village to raise a child," because how else can a teenager be raising a child in this poverty without the help of many.

Our send off was just as grand as our welcome. Drums, dancing and singing. As our Zimbabwean daughter said this winter when she tried to go skating, "White people should stick to skating and black people should stick to dancing!" How true this is as they encouraged us to shake our booties with them. Despite the fact that we are not all flat footed Mennonites it still doesn't shake the way they would like to see it shake! Nonetheless they were excited that we had attempted the motions!

And there you have another day in the land of Malawi. A land that is the 7th poorest country in the world but only in material not in richness of faith and heart