The morning had a hectic start when Rose knocked on our door
at 7:20 and told us the time for church had changed from 8:00 to 7:30! We rushed to get out the door and walked to
the church – the girls were all trying to fix the chitinjis to wear them the
proper way. We had a quick
lesson from a kind woman named Miriam on how to tie the chitinji before walking
in to find a completely empty church! We
wondered, “are we in the right church?”
Soon after arriving we saw a few people who were setting up things for
worship so we asked them, is the English service in this space? “Yes,” they said, “it starts at 8:00 or 8:15
a.m.” Thankful to be in the right place,
we decided to be glad we were early for church!
The service was wonderful and followed the same order of worship as our
service back home. Our children sang the
songs we practiced and it was beautiful.
Ellis even led the singing of “I have Peace Like a River.” After singing the children were dismissed for
Sunday School and our children decided to go and join them. Visitors were asked to come up front for an
introduction. A group from Denmark was
also visiting. The sermon was delivered
by a pastor who is originally from Malawi but lived in New York after studying
at Union Theological Seminary and now has been in Taiwan for almost ten years
teaching at a Presbyterian Theology school.
His sermon was GREAT! We all
enjoyed worshipping today here and would like to have more than one
Sunday. At the end all us joined the
praise team to sing and dance to “I am a winner.”
Before lunch Kim and I went over to the hospital for her to
check on several patients and I worked on collecting information to help a
mission team from First Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg coming in
October. The hospital has list of things that are not working and our
job is to collect information about model numbers, type, manufacturer, etc. so
that they can bring as many parts as possible to fix these when they are
here. Parts are VERY difficult to find
in Malawi and many have to come from South Africa if they are available in
Africa which means they are very expensive.
Tomorrow I’ll go back and see the hospital technician who can tell me
more.
The afternoon included the arrival of Martha Sommers, PCUSA
missionary who is a physician practicing in Eckwendeni. Since Martha lived for many years in
Embangweni, everyone was excited to see her.
We all went to Rose’s house for a visit and tea, where we were also joined
by Mr. Hara and Gertrude, from the hospital.
The children all went to the chicken coup and later played card games
and tag outside Rose’s house. Ben
pretty much stayed with the chickens the whole time and brought different baby
chicks to the den to show us. We enjoyed
tea and African cake that Rose made.
Sugar is very expensive here, so most sugar it seems is used for
tea. The cake tasted like a slightly
sweet cornbread. We all thought it was
delicious! Around 4:30 we went to look
for the football match, but it did not happen today. TIA – apparently the team coming could not
get transportation.
Martha joined us for dinner at the guest house. Kim and Trey talked with her about the
medical side of things here in Embangweni.
She had several great suggestions as well as confirmed that a lot of
what they have already done will have long lasting effects. Having the expertise of Martha who knows the
language, culture, and people so well was extremely helpful to us as we think
towards future trips and Westminster’s involvement in Embangweni.
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