Medical team: Sunday church was the most amazing music and experience that you could possibly imagine. The church was filled with many people who sang and danced, everyone on the team truly enjoyed the experience of worshiping in Madisi. We even got the chance to enjoy Pastor Patrick’s (Rez Downtown) sermon, what a blessing! After church, ladies from the church prepared a great community meal for a couple of hundred people, many joined in fellowship and all felt welcome. After the meal, the Medical team held a three hour clinic at the nutrition center by the parsonage, where they saw approximately 50 patients and dispensed medicine. Its time for us to prepare for tomorrow, until then, Zikomo kwambiri (GOD bless you)!
Education team: This morning and lasting into the afternoon we experienced a most lively services of worship. We were prepared for a long experience but not for the endurance God gifted us with to make the time pass by so quickly. If lack of sleep from the long flight hadn’t been made up for in the previous night’s sleep, the spirit surly helped make up the energy for us. Between lively prayers, several choir performances, and a re-enactment of the Nicodemus story, we received a real treat. I (Patrick) had the honor of preaching this morning; sharing my experience of growing the church through a focus on people’s gifts, creating gathering spaces, importance of grace in welcoming strangers into our journey. We have shared a couple of Malawian meals together and will be further nourished by tonight’s revival. We pray for continued endurance as many of us would otherwise be going to bed around 8pm when the revival is to start. We also had the opportunity to visit as a team with a couple of the local pastors helping us lead tomorrow’s training on membership expectations. They are eager to evolve their process for membership and we are eager to work with them on things like tracking giving and attendance when their current structures seem very far from the multi-faceted and highly technological systems we implement back home. Mostly we hope to teach them what happens inside a person when they commit to the responsibilities of membership in the church and fulfill those commitments. Furthermore and just as important, we hope to learn from them what God is doing in their churches that we can take home with us and share.