Testimony PART 9 of 12 Malawi

I look back and have to laugh. You see, I got myself all stressed out trying to implement God’s plan. But it was God’s plan and it had to be done in God’s timing and for God’s purpose.

Our move to Malawi was exactly that. The timing was perfect. You see at that time the mission was disheartened. They had had a number bad experiences with some short term mission's people and the idea of taking another short term family was troublesome.

There was also an ongoing building project that was seriously distracting one of the missionaries away from his core duties at the Bible school. I wouldn’t say that the missionaries were burnt out, but they were on the road to it; too much work and not enough hands. Again, God’s timing. Had were gone to Malawi a year and a half earlier we would not have had the same healing presents to the mission, nor would we have been able to take over the building project. God’s timing for God’s purpose.

Our time in Malawi was a stretching time for us. We had never see poverty like that, we had never see death like that and we had never smelt death like that.

Before going to Malawi we had read an article in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper about how the hospital in Lilongwe Malawi didn’t have any surgical gloves. While still in Canada we went around to some churches and friends and did a glove drive. We ended up will a full hockey bag of boxes of surgical gloves.

The Hospital was our first stop in Malawi and this was our first real look into the 3rd world. The smell was so bad in the hospital that I chocked back vomit. There were people lying everywhere. The halls were full of the dying, just laying on the floor on a grass mat.

What was once a water feature in the center of the hospital was now a mop bucket where the janitor dipped his mop to clean up the sick that was all over the floor.

In the yard of the hospital was where the families of the sick and dying lived. You see in Malawi the family must cook and bring food to their sick relatives. As I looked out over the hospital grounds I saw hundreds of small fires with ladies stooped over a pot stirring a mixture of corn flour and water that is locally called Nsima.

We found Nurse Monica Bottoman from the newspaper article and gave her the gloves. Mrs. Bottoman is an amazing example of God’s love. She is a woman giving hope to the hopeless, a woman working without gloves in a hospital, in a country where the HIV rate is hitting 60%.

Before I got to the hospital I planned on taking some pictures. Pictures I thought would inspire people to give, and to pray for the people of Malawi. However, as we walked back through the Hospital my heart broke. The Hospital was so bad so horrifying that out of respect for the dying I did not take any pictures. The drive back to the mission was silent. None of us could process what we had just seen, what we had smelled.

Over our time in Malawi we were involved in a number of outreaches. Jodi and the children worked at the Crisis Nursery loving on HIV positive babies. This again stretched us for the babies that were being loved on today where dead tomorrow.

I was given the opportunity to head up the building project, to layout an irrigation project at the PAOC’s Lifeline Malawi in Ngodzi and the privilege of preaching in a village church as well as at the Bible School.


There were a few more memorable moments; we got to be a part of an old-time tent meeting and a 3 night open air viewing of “The Jesus Film” in a village made of mud and straw. Most of the people there had never seen a white person and even more had never seen a white child. My twin daughters’ hair was the thing to touch.



Malawi was a time of great change for our family. We truly became more Christ like, we learned to look past the smell and appearance of people, and we learned to love people right now because tomorrow they may be dead. We learned that we could not feed and clothe the world but we could share Christ and the hope of an eternal life with Him. You see we could feed and clothe the homeless of Milwaukee but how does a family of 5 feed and clothe 10 million people? We learnt that the most important thing in all the outreach is to show the love, hope, and salvation that Jesus Christ brings.

Eventually we ran out of money and or time in Malawi came to an end. We cried, and cried and cried some more as we left that little country. It was like leaving a loved one.


Please come back for part 10 in a couple of days

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