July 10

Wednesday we hit the ground running. When you're on a short term missions trip every day counts. That's one of the first lessons you learn. In the morning, the team took a tour of the Passion Center and got to meet a lot of the staff. Everyone is so kind and welcoming. Especially the kids. As we were touring the Mulunguzi Primary School (which is next to the Passion Center multipurpose room) the kids would just flock around us, hold our hands, and want us to take their picture. The next lesson we learned was that taking out a camera means the kids will swarm toward you. Simple things in more developed countries, like getting your picture taken, are a special treat for them. And it's required that you show their picture to them afterward. They love seeing their picture.

One of the things you learn while you're in Malawi is that things run on a simple schedule: the morning and the afternoon. Everything starts when the sun comes up and stops when the sun goes down. It's weird to look back on the first day and realize how much we did, but how slow things went. It's really nice to be able to take your time at each activity, especially the widows visit.

During the second half of the day we took two teams to two different groups of widows and got to share some testimonies and short bible lessons. It was a beautiful moment to see the cultural divide bridged as a few of our team shared their personal stories. The first thing you notice about the windows is their eyes. You look in their eyes and can see the depth of their experience, pain, and strength. It was a blessing to also bring some care packages of nutritional food and some cooking materials. The Passion Center team was extremely thoughtful in putting those bags together to make sure the widows got the materials they need to survive. We got to pray over individual widows and hear a bit of their stories. Just to be there with the Community Health Network (a group of people from Malawi who travel around the different villages to gauge and assist in the health of the community) visiting with the widows was a powerful experience. It will be great to continue to see the ways the Passion Center is being used by God to bless the children within their walls and the rest of the community.
-Nathan