Contrasts

Looking forward to my next visit to Malawi, I started thinking about the contrasts between our 'richness' and the Malawian 'poorness'. I write this between quotation marks on purpose.

When I step out of the airplane on Chileka Airport, which is approximately one hour drive away from the place where the For a Change people live, I 'smell' Malawi and I 'feel' that it is so different from my homecountry.

Of course, it is not my purpose to do like Malawi is 'everything' and in the Netherlands it is 'all wrong', but I do not experience the high workloads from the Netherlands in Malawi. And besides this...it is a completely different world you are visiting.

The poor people from Malawi are 'giving', although they almost do not have anything. In the Netherlands, there are also a lot of 'giving' people, but they usually give from their abundance.

The Malawian people are very helpful. I experienced this when I arrived at the airport. There are always people who want to carry your luggage. And of course, I realise that this is not purely being helpful, because as 'azungu' (white man), I am like a walking wallet. This is also the case when I visit a marked. There is always a child that is willing to carry my rice or corn for me, and the child expects me to pay him for this. And I completely understand this. What would I do when I would have nothing at all? And at the same time, a question rises: What am I doing when I am blessed abundantly, and have opportunities to help my neighbours? Sometimes this means giving something personal away, or being content with less than usual. I have to say: I am falling short in this...

And then I visit church on Sunday. The pastor starts with giving thanks to God for the good life. There are not only poor people in church, but still...Giving thanks for the good life when life is hard usually (at least, when we compare it to our Western standards)? We are used to sit on comfortable chairs in church, but in Malawi, I sat on a platform of concrete, which is quite uncomfortable. But I found out, again, that this is not the point in church. It makes it easier to compare this service to the services I hear at home. At home, I hear a lot of 'Lord, please give us this', or 'Lord, please do that'., and I often miss the words 'Thank you Lord!' For me, this was an eye-opener.

And this makes me saying: Thank you Lord, for giving me the opportunity to go to Malawi again soon, if the Lord is willing.