Turtle Flipping

This month marked the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death. Though she wasn’t a Christian during my upbringing, she did accept Jesus about a year before she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. As I ponder my childhood, I realize she inadvertently taught me Christian principles throughout my life. One in particular has been weighing heavily on me. 

My Mom and I with Banjo,
the Dog She Gave to John and Me

When we first got cable television at our house, I watched a lot of National Geographic. I loved the animal documentaries. Mom seldom sat down to watch a show, but she would walk through the living room and comment. One time, during a documentary in which a land tortoise had been flipped upside down and left for dead in the hot desert sand, my mom, who was very practical, threw out, “Why doesn’t the camera man just turn him over?” I never watched National Geographic the same way after that. The lesson was immediately apparent and, though I love photography and writing, it destroyed my chances of becoming a journalist. I would ruin too many stories by flipping over turtles. 

When John and I visited Malawi last May, we saw so much need that we couldn’t ignore it. I could almost hear my mom say, “Why don’t you just go and see if you can make a difference?” Or, maybe that was Jesus’ voice I heard. Either way, we’re here now and have already been involved in several real-life documentaries. This week we're helping a mother in the village get hernia surgery on her infant. The cost is about twenty-five dollars, but for someone who can’t pay for a bus to get to the hospital, it might as well be twenty-five thousand. We're also starting a phonics program in the same village for kids and adults who want to learn English and to read in their own language (Chichewa). Many just want to be able to read the Bibles we've given them and have been studying from. Another woman just had eye surgery to remove a cyst that was causing her pain. There are other stories, but I won’t go into all of them now. Instead I have and will continue to post them here. 

I used to assume that, like in the United States, there were programs in every country to take care of the population’s indigent. Not so. If someone here is sick and cannot afford proper medical care, she dies. Sure, there are free clinics and hospitals, but not every issue can be addressed there. Also, if someone is hungry and can’t afford food, he starves. Yes, there are missionaries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) addressing these issues, but there is not enough help. I don’t know the statistics and I’m not aware of every effort to improve the quality of life in Malawi, but I don’t need to know all of that to know there's still a great need. I have personally met people who are sick and cannot afford transportation to get to the free clinic, and I have met people who are hungry and have no food. I've heard the stories first hand about friends and family members who have died of starvation and disease. We're confident this is where we need to be. Giving a handout helps immediately, but we're also looking at longer-term goals. We want to be a part of lasting changes in the way of education and training that will help people who have never been given opportunities to improve their lives.

I’m going to continue to post photographs and write stories about our experiences in Malawi, but our primary goal is to flip over as many turtles as we can. I can talk about all of our hopes and dreams for this ministry, but I would like to take a page out of my mother’s book and be more practical than that. If you make a donation to this mission, we will use it to pay for someone to eat or go to the hospital. It’s that simple. Thanks to those of you who sent money this month to allow us to take care of the people I listed above. Here is a photo of Enellese and baby Wonderful, the one in need of hernia surgery. Thanks to your generosity, he'll get it soon.

Enellese and Baby Wonderful (She wanted me to tell you
"Zikomo Kwambiri,"
which means thank you very much.)

Please send donations to: Westworth Church of Christ, 5728 White Settlement Road, Ft. Worth, Texas 76114, ℅ Malawi Mission Work, or you can give with a click at http://www.westworthcoc.org/malawi-mission/