A Quick Note

Hello friends and family!
So since we had a difficult time sending emails over the last couple of days, we thought we would catch up on what the rest of the week has been like for us.
Our fourth of July was pretty anti-climatic as far as celebrating as we assume most of you did. There is another American family in the area.
He is working for Action International, and he threw a party for the holiday. However, we were not invited! (more on him later)
We did go to two of the local secondary schools in the area. The first one we went to was the District Secondary school, which means it is one of the nicer schools in the area. It is a boarding school, so all but maybe 3 students live on site in dormitories. We had the chance to peek in one of the dormitories, and it was quite similar to a college dormitory except that the rooms were two sets of bunk beds. That is all that would fit in those rooms. Overall, though, the school had nicely kept grounds, pretty nice classrooms, and from our limited perspective a good teaching staff. However, they still had a huge shortage of textbooks (and the ones they have are old), very few library books, and only 3 computers that worked (for a student body of over 600). After leaving this school, we walked across the road to the second school, Community Day Secondary School. As I mentioned before the education structure, this school is on the bottom level. Therefore, the school has much less funding and is not very well kept. Unlike the district school, this school had no windows and very small classrooms. However, we are reminded still that the students who get to attend this school are blessed and have a much better chance of becoming career people after school than many youth their age who either cannot afford school or drop out due to early marriage or family obligations. The neatest part about both of these schools, though, is that SOM pays for about 16 students to attend these schools (16 orphans). Even more exciting to us is that these students now have a connection to West Michigan as a few of these students are being supported by Chosen Hope (a West Michigan based NGO started by Jane Graham and her partner).
After touring these schools, we headed out in the afternoon on our first public transport experience. To briefly give you a description of these transportation services, just picture an old Volkswagon van with 5 bench seats that each seat 4 people. Our bus was FULL to the max, and we were packed in there like sardines. This scared me a little as I could just picture our bus flipping over on the narrow roads. We rode this bus to and from a Kid's Club with Naomi. This Kid's Club was about a ten minute ride to area where one side of the road is Malawi and the other side is Mozambique. We can officially say that we have been to Mozambique now! :) We had a great time with the kids, handing out soccer balls and some Skittles. The students were especially excited to receive the soccer balls as they normally play with a rock wrapped in newspaper and plastic bags (all tied together with strips of rubber taken from old tires). The students cheered for us, singing songs of thanks. We felt very appreciated, but we also realize that we should be the ones appreciating these students as they showed an incredible love for God and a resiliency against the trials they face. We thought later about one of the songs that the youth sang during their Kid's Club time. They sang a song about fighting against HIV/AIDS. We realized that this would not be a song that would even cross the mind of our youth to sing. These youth face completely different challenges than our youth in the states, and therefore, God to them takes on a completely different image. God is a warrior to them, and they should therefore be warriors too. They should fight the diseases and enemies that attack them with the strength of God. Many times in the states, we view our relationship with God as very individualistic. However, here they cannot view their relationship with God outside of their community. It is a communal relationship, and it must be because they are fighting their battles together.
This brings me to the second half of this email. We have been struggling a little over the last couple of days - feeling homesick, feeling like we've been left without much guidance, and feeling a little useless. We are realizing that much of our feelings are cultural. We thought that we would be more scheduled, have more day-to-day living guidance, and would in general be made to feel more useful. However, we were forgetting to look at life through the eyes of the Malawian culture. We were not making the connection that we come from a "low context" culture where we do not assume that everyone "knows" our systems of life (such as how to order in a restaurant, how to call a taxi, how to shop, etc.), so we are more apt to explain everything upfront or write detailed instructions. Here in Malawi, the culture is much more "high context" where in general people live in a system of a shared and assumed history and life process. Therefore, our guides (the SOM staff) do not necessarily think about the need to help us or explain to us how life functions here. This can be frustrating for us and leave us longing more for the comforts of home, but we are trying to change our viewpoint to see more of where they are coming from and to explain more to them our needs. They are more than willing to help us when we ask.
The realities of cultural differences are very evident to us. There are times when we think, "we would never do it that way," and we know that there are times when our hosts are probably thinking, "crazy Americans!" God is making it very real to us, though, that there is a need when doing mission work to really study the culture of the people you are trying to reach. We cannot assume that our modes of ministry, our modes of life, and our understanding of Scripture and God are the "only ways." For example, I mentioned the other American missionary in the area. We have been told that he came here with the desire to work with all the pastors from the different churches in the area, so SOM helped him out by setting up meetings for him with the pastors.
However, when all was said and done, he said he only wanted to work with the Presbyterian pastors and their Presbyterian volunteers. The SOM staff was shocked by this. They thought that this was ridiculous because he was dividing people instead of working together with everyone. As Naomie said, he is splitting communities into sections - only giving money to the Presbyterian people and leaving the rest out.
Naomie said that this is very much against their culture. However, for Nate and I this isn't surprising as this is how Christianity functions in the states. We split ourselves up by our denomination, then by our individual churches, and then by our small groups within the church. We are not a very community based society. There is much for us to learn from the Christians here in Malawi (and in reality the rest of the majority world church). How much more good could we as a Christian body do if we left behind our theological differences, our worship style preferences, and our self-centered natures to join together in one voice to praise and worship God and do His work? Something to think about...a beautiful vision to have.
Please pray for us that we will feel more at peace in our situation, that we will learn to communicate across cultures, and that God will continue to teach us lessons.
Blessings,
Nate and Bekah