Today in the Village

Today in the village we taught class to a group of about sixty people from one month to sixty years old. Some of them want to learn the Bible, some English, and others to read in their own language. It’s a tricky dynamic but seems to be working. We’re not giving anything but education and that seems to be enough for them. Others have come and gone when they realized we weren’t there to give them money or food, which is one reason we’re careful about what we bring to the meetings. I know they’re learning because John quizzes them on Bible facts that he covers, and I test them in English vocabulary. They are studying. 

The men sit in chairs and the women and children sit on reed mats. They always try to tie a tarp to the trees above us for shade, but today it was ripped off by the wind. The blowing sand was almost unbearable, but nobody got up to leave, so we sat through it, too. John taught from the book of James, introducing the concept that the Bible is like a mirror for us to see how we’re doing and fix things out of place. I taught them that a Q in English always has a U with it and what a pronoun is, though they don’t have a word for pronoun. That’s what they learned. Our family learned a lot more.

There was a new lady who came over from a neighboring village. She’s been curious about what we’re teaching but afraid that she’ll be beaten for showing up. She’s part of an animistic religion that punishes anyone who pursues any other faith. She worries she’ll be cursed for joining us today. Next to her was a woman holding two newborns. She came because someone from the regular group invited her. The twins she was holding have three siblings, and their father was killed in a bar fight the day after they were born. She came because she was invited but didn’t expect much from us or our God. The group agrees they want to help her and her children. I just held one of her babies and said I’m sorry, one of the few phrases I know in Chichewa. She seemed to appreciate that and put her hand on me, which told me she understood. I was proud of our group.

Another man who has been coming to the studies told us today that he cannot hear much of what is being said but wants to learn. He showed us a wound on his leg that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, except in pictures. The majority of his ankle and part of his foot seem to have been eaten away by an infection, which was not covered by any bandage. He simply lifted his pant leg to show it to us. After coming to our classes for several weeks, he says he feels like we’re safe enough to ask for help. He’s HIV positive and has had the open wound for eighteen years since his mother accidentally dropped a hoe on his leg while working in the field. Because of his HIV it has never healed and no medical care facility that he can afford can do anything about it. I sent a photo of his wound to a friend who works in the medical field here to see where we can take him for some help. We’ll see if anything can be done to improve his hearing after we get the more urgent need of his foot addressed.

Our family has never been so entrenched in such need as we encounter each week in this village. These people have the same capacities we do but hardly any resources. The kids that our boys have befriended will soon be going back to school, some too far away to keep coming to our classes. They say they are required to go but aren’t learning much. They tell us, for example, that they would like to stay in our English classes because theirs has 300 kids to one teacher and is taught by someone who doesn’t really speak English at all. They say that only the families with money get a decent education. They have no idea what they’ll do when they graduate and don’t expect to have any specific skill or fluency in English. Where does that leave them? It doesn’t seem right. Surely these kids could be the doctors who heal and the teachers who educate their own people in the future. 

We told them we’d like to open a school for them and raise money to pay for their books and more teachers. We told them we would like to have a clinic that would assist them in finding the help they need if we can’t give it. One man pointed out, “You already have a school and clinic. It’s here.” We didn’t realize they saw the situation that way. I guess that means we just have some expanding to do so we can educate and serve more people. I hope you’ll consider how you can help us through prayer, financial support, or even your presence, because this is a much larger endeavor than we can pull off on our own. We’ll keep reporting. You let us know what you can do. Thank you!