Zomba Theological College

January 30, 2008
Written by Stephen

Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I travel to Zomba to teach New Testament at Zomba Theological College (ZTC). Zomba is a pretty, small town at the base of the Zomba Plateau, a mountain about one hour north of Blantyre. I travel there with others who live in Blantyre and work in Zomba. The road is poked with potholes and it is always nerve wracking dodging potholes, minibuses, pedestrians, bicycles, mudslides and other obstacles along the way. I leave at 6:30 and usually get home around 6, so it is a long day.
ZTC is the main theological school of the CCAP. It has a faculty of 10 and a student body of about 100 divided between 4 classes. The school year of three terms runs from January-October. I teach NT II (Paul’s letters and Hebrews) to the second year class of 18, and NT III (Johannine literature-the gospel of John, the letters of John and Revelation, and the letters of James, Peter and Jude) to the combined third and fourth year classes of about 60. I teach both classes each day making for a total of 6 one-hour classes each week. It is a huge amount of material to cover in depth in a year. It is very demanding and I am working extremely hard to prepare for the classes and stay ahead.
The classrooms of ZTC are simple concrete rooms with old fashioned desks like you would find in an elementary school-the top lifts up and students keep their Bibles, notebooks and pencils in the desks. Each student has an assigned desk at which they sit each class. In the front of the room is a table with a podium and a blackboard. That’s it. The students have no textbooks. There is a decent library and a computer room for their use.
I am just beginning to get a feel for teaching in this context and it is difficult to judge how effective I am. The students tend to be pretty quiet and I feel like I have to work hard to draw them into discussions. I often find it difficult to understand their questions and sometimes have to ask them to repeat a question several times. If I’m having a difficult time with their accents, I’m sure they are also struggling with mine. As time goes on they're beginning to warm up to me, and even laugh at some of my jokes and comments. Occasionally I even get an “Amen!”
I am beginning to make friends with some of the other faculty members, all of whom are African pastors. I have lunch on Mondays and Wednesdays with Silas Ncozana, a fascinating pastor who courageously played a huge role in helping to peacefully end the dictatorship of Malawi in 1994. He is a terrific person who graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1981-the year before I began. I like to joke around with the school secretary-Violet. She’s not as talented nor laughs as much as Joan (does anyone?), but she is funny. I sense this will be a rich part of my time here.

Typical Day

At 5:00 a.m. the roosters begin to crow. They freely roam our yard and have no consideration for the sleeping. At 6:00, we are all up and getting ready for the day. This is a morning culture.

The public school system in Malawi is free for Malawian citizens up through 5th grade. It is poorly funded and does not offer a very good education. Therefore, many private schools dot the city with varying degrees of educational opportunity. St. Andrew’s International Secondary School, where Terra attends, is the best opportunity in the area. Terra’s school begins at 7:00am. We walk. It is a busy road to St. Andrew’s. Many people are walking and driving, with a few bike riders. We turn right onto the road that leads down to Terra’s school. It is narrow, with two way traffic. Many shiny SUV’s hog the road in and out of the private school. They have no courtesy for pedestrians. I have jumped off the side of the road several times to avoid being hit by a side view mirror.

Jordan’s school is right across the street from our back yard and so we walk her through the gate and into the courtyard of Phoenix Primary school. The children must wear the standard striped uniform. The children look adorable in their pin stripped dresses. Both girls are doing well academically.

The girls are adjusting socially as well. Both have made solid friendships with other girls from the UK and Malawi. They begin to feel more comfortable with our new life here in Malawi. Terra was invited to a Friday night “youth group” gathering. She noted that of course nobody is Mrs. Collins, nevertheless, she had a great time, playing games and hearing a Christian message.

The girls finish the school day at noon. Sometimes they come home for lunch and we go to Open Arms Orphanage to hold babies. Sometimes they stay after school for “activities” such as sports or “house” meetings (like in Harry Potter). While they are at school, Stephen is either teaching at Zomba Theological College or working on a sermon and I am trying to discover ways in which to be connected.

Patrick does the laundry by hand in a tub outside under the tree where there is a water spigot and clothesline. Laundry is usually a 3-4 day process. It typically does not hang on the lines too long before it begins to rain. I help Patrick quickly gather the clothes off the outside line and bring them in to hang on lines strung down our hallway. The clothes do not dry very well in the dark, damp hallway, so when the sun comes out, the clothes are moved back outside.

All laundry hung outside must be ironed. Putzi flies lay their eggs on damp patches of earth or clothes. And as Alexander Fuller describes in her book about growing up in Africa, “Unless the clothes are ironed, the larva will work their way into your skin, becoming maggots, bursting into living squirming boils, emerging as full-blown, winged flies.” Therefore, all clothes, sheets, and towels must be ironed to kill the eggs. That thought really grosses me out! We iron everything!

By sundown, all businesses close and people are home. We have been warned not to go out at night, to close our windows and curtains as soon as it is dark. There are gangs. And so by 6:30 we are all home, no night meetings, no sports activities, no youth groups. We have dinner together, sit around the table and listen to everyone’s stories of the day gone by. We wash and dry dishes, finish homework, practice violin, read and check e-mails. The pace of life is much slower than our life at home, harder in some ways, but simpler. The girls like our evenings. We enjoy being together. We all check the blog site continually and relish comments, encouraging words and prayers. Thank you to all of you!

Getting Around

January 22
Transportation is a big problem here. Cars are very expensive and gas costs about $7/gallon. The vast majority of people in Malawi walk. (There are only 7 cars for every 1000 people.) In the mornings there are hundreds and hundreds of people from every walk of life walking along the streets-kids dressed in school uniforms, woman in traditional costumes with babies on their backs, men in suits and ties, girls with large packages balanced on their heads. Since there are few sidewalks the people crowd the side of the streets making driving hazardous.
Some who can afford it have bicycles. They are often packed with huge bundles of charcoal, or other goods from the markets and being pushed up the hills. We’ve seen the handlebars of bikes lined with live chickens hanging upside down. Once we saw a goat riding in the back of a bike.
Public transportation is provided by the dreaded “minibus”. These 15 passenger Toyota vans are normally crammed with 25 or more. Most have cracked windshields and huge dents. The men who drive them have little regard for regulations or human life. They careen crazily through the streets or are speeding at break-neck speed along the roads beeping their horns and daring walkers not to jump out of the way. In fact, one of the babies who lives at Open Arms was orphaned when a minibus crashed, killing the mother and throwing the baby from the vehicle.
Many of the vehicles in Malawi are bombs. Trucks labor up even slight inclines belching smoke. Broken down vehicles are everywhere. Many cars look like the winner of the demolition derby-beat up and barely running. They have worn tires, huge dents and we wonder what keeps them going. There are of course many decent cars as well. We are shocked at some of the brand new SUV’s we see dropping kids off at the girls’ schools. Cars are so expensive to buy and maintain here, nice cars are for the few, not the many.
We bought an Izuzu pick up with two seats, sight unseen, before we came because we heard that it is very difficult to find reliable used cars in Malawi. We were told that this truck had been “well maintained”. Our first glance at our new vehicle made us wonder. The rear view mirror was held in place by a piece of string. The headliner (upholstery on the ceiling of the cab) was hanging limply. The emergency brake didn’t release. The tires were nearly worn out. It runs, and compared to many vehicles here, it is a dream. Sunday morning I went to go to church and discovered that we had a flat. I was able to get a ride. (no small feat since I was preaching at the 6:30 am service and discovered the flat at 5:45.) After church it took us more than an hour to change the tire since the jack only went up 8 inches forcing us to raise the car, and prop it up with bricks and then raise it another 8 inches until it was high enough to change. Monday it wouldn’t start and now the car is in the shop with a broken starter and leaking brake fluid. At least we got home safely from a long trip we took Saturday in the pouring rain. Just another typical experience of the challenge and the grace of our new life in Malawi.

Home Sweet Home

To get to our home you drive up a short driveway that is badly rutted and washed out. You come to the security fence and someone has to get out and reach through a small hole in the gate to open the latch. The house itself is a sturdy 4 bedroom 2 bath brick structure. It is beautiful on the outside with large trees and colorful plants all around. It has a covered carport connected to the front steps which is nice since it rains so much right now. Inside it is very simple. It has concrete walls and floors with chipped paint and cracked tiles everywhere. It is sparsely furnished. We have a few living room chairs, a bookshelf, a dining room table with 4 chairs and some bedroom furniture which the synod provided-that’s about it. The kitchen is small. We have a stove, sink, refrigerator and a microwave. There are no cabinets nor countertops. We wash all the dishes by hand. The power has gone out for part of three days in a row which makes us feel somewhat like pioneers- improvising meals, eating by candlelight, washing dishes by hand, and basically living very simply.

We sleep under mosquito nets suspended from the ceiling to avoid being bitten at night and contracting malaria. Sleeping under the nets can be a real hassle. Jumping out of bed at night, tangling with the net to try to reach the pot in time can be a mess! All of us have had to deal with vomiting or diareah since here.
The hot water for showers comes from a large suspended tank called a geyser. It only has a few gallons of hot water in it, so we get wet, turn off the water, shampoo and wash, turn back on the water to rinse, and then turn it off so the next person has enough hot water. No long leisurely hot showers.

Security is a huge issue and a major pain. Every time we either enter or leave the house we have to unlock many locks-the lock in the door, the two locks on the bars guarding the door, the lock on the front gate, etc. All the windows are barred and at night we were told to close all windows and draw the curtains. We have a key chain with no less than 12 keys for all the different locks to the house. Not only is everything locked, we have a “caretaker” who lives on the property who is the day guard, and two men who are in the backyard at night as night guards. This is common practice for virtually everyone who lives in a house here. All of this unlocking and locking makes even simple things like running an errand a major project.

Patrick lives in a house that is in our side yard with his wife, two children and two others who live with them. He works for us during the week-cleaning, doing little projects, washing laundry etc. This is common practice, and his income from working for us provides for him, the others who live with him and several other family members scattered around Malawi. He is a gentle soul. We feel we can trust him, and are grateful to have him. He worked for the family who lived here for the past eight years, and so he knows the house inside and out. It was three or four months between their departure and our arrival so when we arrived he was desperately waiting for us. I don’t know how they survived, but he did not want to leave since living in the house is a major perk of his job.

Safaris Aren't What They're Cracked Up to Be!

Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008

We rose before dawn this morning so we could get an early start. We were off to explore our first game park, a small one only an hour away. People warned us that the wet season is not the time to go to game parks; roads are washed away and the lush foliage hides the animals. But someone had told us this particular park was man-made, small and you could see animals no matter what. We thought this would be an exciting adventure for the girls on our first free weekend.

No signs to mark the Park. We found our way by asking. When we eventually arrived to the entrance of Nyala Park, the rickety gates were locked and a worker from the sugarcane plantation came over and called the game warden on his cell. It was clear we were the only ones interested in going into the park today. The game warden warned us about the roads and reviewed a map with us so that we wouldn’t take certain trails where we might get stuck in the mud. Did we want to hire him as a guide? No, we're fine. We have the map. We can do it by ourselves. We're off the see giraffes and zebras.

A minute into the ride the interior of the car swarms with huge flies. And they bite! We quickly roll up the windows and swat at the ones trapped inside. Poor Stephen! Insects always seem to prefer Stephen from the rest of us. He was trying to drive, navigate puddles, keep from skidding off muddy roads, read the crude hand drawn map while slapping the dozens of flies landing on his neck and other other exposed skin. He was getting eaten alive! We met the game warden again driving his motor bike down the paths, probably making sure we weren't stuck in the mud. We were overjoyed to see him and invited him to jump in. We did not want to get stuck and become stranded out there by ourselves.

The car became a sauna with the windows up. Quick, get the camera. Our first sighting, a herd of Impalas. The camera lens steams over and I miss the photo. At one point one of the girls says something about a mirage and I say, “A welcome mirage would be a sighting of the exit gates.” I don’t think our guide understood the humor but we got to giggling and the howling with laughter as Stephen slapped another fly. We couldn’t stop.

The trip was a disaster, but a hilarious one. At least we didn’t get stuck.

Open Arms, Friday, January 11, 2008

Friday, January 11, 2008
This afternoon was another plethora of emotions. We went to visit Open Arms orphanage. It's operated out of a small house and it’s primary responsibility is to serve children from ages 1 day old to 2 years old. These children have lost their mother or both parents and there is no one else in the family who is able to care for them. The intention is that after two years of age, the orphanage returns the babies back to their villages. Infants demand so much care that often it is too overwhelming for grandparents or aunts and uncles, who are already caring for several other children, to take on an infant. This orphanage cares for 39 babies. As we toured the ministry, we had to be careful of where we stepped. Babies speckled the floor. I held Esther, the tiniest baby I had ever seen. She was 18 days old. Her mother is dead from Aids.

This visit was a highlight for Terra and Jordan. They loved holding the babies and the staff was great with the girls! Later that night Terra told us, it was like she had entered a huge nursery, where every room was full of babies. “A nursery,” I said, “only mama never comes back.” This was hard for Terra to hear. She buried her head in her pillow and told us to stop talking about that.
The ministry is powerful and so needed! They have a ratio of 1 "mother" (staff) to 6 babies and they are grateful for volunteers to come in and love these little bundles. Jordan got stuck holding a baby who "kept drooling and crying." Finally one of the "mothers" came and rescued Jordan so she could pick up the baby she really wanted to hold, Sarah. They bonded. Sarah clung to Jordan.
Terra was naturally in her element and upset when I told her we would return next week. "You mean we aren't going to do this everyday?" She held babies, fed them and played with them. She became attached to a little 2 year old named Gift. It was a beautiful sight. I sat there quietly watching the girls, chocking back the tears. But then again, lately this seems to be a common experience.

Sunday's Service

Sunday, January 7
We worshipped at St Columba’s Church. It is a congregation of purportedly 10,000 members. In the first service, led entirely in English, the massive church was packed with standing room only for over 1200 people. The service began at 6:30 and lasted for almost two and ½ hours. We were introduced to the congregation and after the service there was a reception with light refreshments. The second service which began at 9 was led entirely in Chechewa, the local language. There were fewer in attendance-maybe 800 or so. The services were marked with remarkable restraint and formality. At each service several different choirs sang-the youth praise choir, the children’s choir, the older woman’s choir, the gospel choir, the woman’s Guild choir, and several soloists. The music was beautiful with many part harmonies. Much of it was accompanied only by electric piano, or sung a capella. The hymns, interestingly were old classic hymns from the Church of Scotland. We recognized several such as “Blessed Assurance”. They were sung in a slightly different cadence, but not with any particular feeling. There was very little response from the congregation during other parts of the service. Some occasional laughter, but not the usual loud boisterous “call and response” that one would hear in an African American church. There were no “Amens” called out during the sermon. The preacher at the traditional Chechewa service was very loud and emotional-a very powerful speaker even though we could not tell what he was saying- but the congregation was quite subdued-with little audible response throughout the message. Throughout we were shown great deference and honored as special guests. It was a fascinating experience of how the gospel has been transplanted from one culture to another, with some of the forms of the old culture clearly still in place, but with the new culture adapting itself to these forms.

Romantic Visions to Harsh Reality:

After two days of travel, we arrived in Blantyre, Malawi, Africa on January 2. Before catching the second leg of our flight out of Johannesburg, we made sure to dress in appropriate “church” clothes (dresses for the girls and a clerical collar and jacket for Stephen) even though it was the middle of summer here. It was a beautiful day; hot with perfect blue skies dotted with puffy white cumulus clouds. We had been told to expect a large boisterous welcoming committee of church leaders, singing and dancing African hymns as we got off the plane. Instead were met by one Canadian woman. She immediately apologized and explained that the son of one of the key church leaders had died two days earlier from AIDS and his funeral was that afternoon. This, in a strange way was maybe the most appropriate reception we could have had, for it reveals much about the reality of life in Malawi.

We have been in Malawi for one week now and life feels overwhelming most of the time. Everything feels other worldly; the color of our skin, dealing in Kwatchas (Malawian money - $1 = K148), driving on the wrong side of the road (for all you Brits) and poverty everywhere! Each on eof us has experienced a myriad of emotions and shed tears. Yet in the middle of all the strangness, we continue to eat healthy, sleep soundly and worhsip God. Keep the prays coming, especially for Terra. She is having a hard time feeling like she belongs at her new school. Are middle school girls the same all over the world?