Last week in Malawi..

Realistically speaking, this will probably be my last blog update here in Africa. I leave Malawi a week from tomorrow. This weekend was probably the best way that I could ask to spend my second to last weekend in Malawi. I was able to travel with my two dear friends and fellow swim coaches and my favorite band of Aussie's up to one of the places we are donating nets for swim for malaria. We borrowed a truck, loaded up as many nets as we could fit (280) and headed up north along the lake shore to our destination of Kande Beach. I think I have mentioned before, Northern Malawi is amazing. The northern lake shore is absolutely spectacular. To be able to spend one last weekend on the lake, with some of the people who I am closest to in life right now, while being able to bring nets to bless others, filled my heart with joy. We were able to fit 280 nets into the truck, but we still have another 120 to bring up to Kande. In total Mphatso (which means gift) Children's Center will get 400 nets. Mphatso has 10 nursery schools throughout villages in and around Kande, as well as feeding programs and an HIV woman's group. As soon as we arrived we were positive that we had made the right choice in giving nets to Mphatso. I don't have enough good words to say about what I experienced this weekend and what their organization does. Today we were able to give out a net to one of the little babies- his name was Gilbert- who is receiving formula from Mphatso. When a mom dies or is unable to produce milk here, normally the baby is in significant danger of dying as well. Formula is very expensive. Common villagers can't afford to pay for their babies to get the food they need to survive when a mother isn't in the picture to produce milk. Gilbert was almost a year old- his birthday is June 10th- but looked like he was maybe 7 months. Apparently he looks great compared to what he looked like when they first brought him. This is an all too familiar story here. I hear it over and over. To the point where I am almost desensitized to it. Poverty, sickness, death, it's all so common here... it's hard to allow it to break your heart. It's something I really struggle with.... Anyway, back from that tangent, as I was looking through Gilbert's medical records, I saw that in his short life of not even a year, he has been treated for malaria four times. Now I know that doctors will give out LA- which is the first line of treatment for malaria- without being 100% sure that the patient has malaria, but he definitely had malaria twice.... bad enough that he was admitted to the hospital- twice- for an I.V. Quinine drip- twice. Again, he isn't even a year old. :-(... anyway, it was really cool to be able to see that 1.) Mphatso is doing such an amazing job helping to care for these kids, and 2.) that the nets that all of you helped us raise are really going to be used to bless people who might very well die from malaria in the next couple of years without it. There are so many unknowns in the time to come. I have no idea what I am going back to. I have a place, I have friends and family, but I have no job, no idea where God will take me in this next phase in my life.... But I have learned that that is OK. Given, I am going to want to get a job so I can do the things I want to do, and see the people I want to see, and bless others with resources that I have been blessed with, but I have decided that I am in no real hurry to do so. If something comes my way in the next little while, I won't turn my nose up at it, but I don't think I am going to actively seek something just yet. Malawi has become a part of me. These past two years has transformed my life in ways I couldn't have even imagined. My dreams are different. My heart is different. My confidence is different. My faith is different. Malawi has wedged it's way into my heart. I think it will take a toll on me leaving. I know it will take a toll on me leaving- how much of a toll is what I am worried about. So right now my plan is to go home and figure out how to live in America after having lived in Africa for almost two years. How do I go back to the rush and pace and consumerism of the American culture. How do I go back to living in a place where there isn't such a dire need of people to help so close by. Don't get me wrong, I know there is a need in America, I know there are people to help, but it's different. People say that once you touch foot on the red earth of Africa you will never leave.... and I would have to agree. A part of me will always be here, whether or not I am here physically, a big part of my heart will be here. I just hope now I can figure out who I am back in the States. I hope that I can figure out how to use what I have seen and learned to help others. I hope that I don't loose sight of what is really important in life while surrounded by the unimportant things. I hope that I can stand firm, and not conform. Last year there was one verse in the Bible that stood out to me above all others. Romans 12:2-Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world- Over the past year this has still been my guiding force, however other verses have proven to help grow me as I stand firm in not conforming. Now that I am leaving and returning home, I look back on this verse and pray that I can stand firm, not forget who I have become and what I have learned, and not conform. So for the next week I plan on spending as much time with the people whom I have grown to love dearly as I can. I plan to eat as much nsima as I can. I plan to experience all the things I love so much about this amazing and wonderful country as I can. And I plan to try as hard as I can NOT to freak out and trust that in all off this, in all the uncertainties and unknowings, God DOES truly have a plan for me... even if He doesn't want to tell me just yet.