WorldHope Corps

I just returned from spending Friday/Saturday at church with my two daughters and their youth group. We were taking part in a “30 Hour Famine” fund-raiser for World Vision and the Y-Malawi fund (which supported CitiHope last year). I really didn’t mind fasting for 30 hours or sleeping in a Sunday School room (at least I had a cot). It was a worthy cause. I got to share my slides of the people of Malawi and their need for food, medicine and fresh water from a well. What joy it was to watch my daughters and their friends get passionate about ending hunger and AIDS in Malawi, and to want to do something about it. This youth group (of about 30-40 kids) raised over $10,000 for hunger relief! Amazing how they were able to articulate the need, get sponsors, and put the funds to good use. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. As the season of Lent draws to a close and the new season of Easter begins, it is time for my March Travel Blogs to be filed in the achives. (if you want to read all the Travel ...

Certainly the highlight of the trip for me was the experience of sharing my faith and a gospel lesson with prisoners at Nkata Prison. Thank you, Gabriel and Dennis, CitiHope Malawi staff and our wonderful hosts for our mission trip! As is so often God's way, this life-changing opportunity to help lead our wonderful group to Malawi seemingly came out of the blue. It soon became clear that God had a transforming experience in store for all of us! For a team of 10 folks who didn't know each other well at the start, we sure bonded in a hurry. (Dennis, Trin & Mo - Fryball, anyone? 8>) Before leaving, friends and family expressed a sense of fear, bordering on dread, for the despair and devastation they (and I) assumed we would meet in Malawi. "It will be so hard to see that," they often said. Well, they were right, but not in the way they thought. Our first day with the kids at the day care center run by the Presbyterian Church in Mzuzu, St. An...

Nearly two weeks have passed since our team returned from Malawi. So many memories come to mind, but there are four images of the people that have found their place in my heart: We, the CitiHope team, were the first “white people” this girl had ever seen. She lives in the Village of Nkhwali, located in the middle of a rubber tree forest in Malawi. CitiHope delivers food to the Nkhwali Nursery School. Her sense of wonderment and delight is obvious in her eyes. In the smoky, outdoor kitchen of Nhkata prison in Malawi, a young man steps close to me and says softly, “Please, Lady, take my picture”. I nod in agreement and motion for him to step away from the dense smoke. He went into a posed position. I took his picture, then showed him his instant image on my tiny digital screen. As he looked at his picture, his countenance changed to one of relief and a peacefulness of sorts. He responded, “Thank you, Lady”. The simpli...

all right, more than a week has passed since we returned from Malawi, and i'm ready to give this whole reflection thing a whirl. you know, it's really funny. actually hilarious. normally when i come home from mission trips or any other life completing trip for that manner (read: anything from a band trip to cruise) i am FLIPPING OUT. like can't stop talking about it, breathing it, living it, missing it like CRAZY. but man oh man, this africa trip has proven me totally wrong. because honestly, i came home on friday sooo excited to see my friends. just so excited to show them pictures, to tell them stories; though more than anything, just really excited to get back to life. and i wasn't really thinking much about africa. more about wrapping myself back up in senior year. and i did that quite successfully. out with my friends the next night handing out my little tokens for them- a rubber ball, a broom, ostirch jerky, wooden feet- showing them the rainbow bus, etc....

I thought a lot about "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" while I was in Malawi. Ten days in a land of scarcity. Most of the people in that part of Africa operate on the lowest levels of that hierarchy -- focusing on obtaining drinkable water, food and shelter. And yet, everywhere we went, the people welcomed us with singing -- and joyful singing, at that. This is in spite of the fact that the third largest industry in the country is the manufacture and sale of coffins. And the fact that 20% of children don't survive past the age of 5. And the fact that 14% of the population have HIV/AIDS. And the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of orphans -- many of whom have HIV. I could go on, but you get the point that there are stark realities in the country. Still, those whose lives are characterized by such loss and need and pain expressed great joy for our visits. And after what I've seen of the people there, it's no wonder that Malawi is called "t...

It had been years since I had attended a chapel service at Drew Theological School. A seminary student invited me to chapel in December during World AIDS Week to hear a Children’s Choir from Uganda sing and Dr. Michael Christensen speak about Global AIDS. He invited volunteers to go on a mission trip with him to Malawi in March, and much to my surprise I found myself calling him later for additional information. In March my 13-year-old daughter Libby and I were headed to Malawi. I wanted her to see firsthand the daily challenges many people face just to survive, and to learn that there can be joy in struggle. During our two weeks in Malawi, Libby learned more about joy, hope, faith, and Christian community than many people learn in a lifetime. Everyone we met, whether in Orphan Care Centers, hospitals, or prisons, expressed gratitude for our being there to learn about the joys and challenges of the people living in Malawi. I was especially moved at Nkhata Bay Prison where...