Our First Visitors

Posted February 5, 2008
Written by Stephen

Sunday, January 27th, was Jordan’s 10th birthday, and also the day we hosted our first visitors. We were told a few days earlier to expect a visit from “a few” members of one of the house cottages of St. Columba Church where Stephen serves as the associate pastor. St. Columba is one of the largest congregations in Malawi with over 10,000 members. Each member is assigned to a cottage-a geographic group of church members who meet each week at a home to pray and support each other-like our home churches. There are 13 different cottages-some of them are huge in number. On the last Sunday of each month, one of the cottages is assigned to visit the manse (pronounced man-say) of the “abusa” (pastor).
The cottage assigned to visit us was the Mt. Pleasant/Sunnyside/ cottage. It is one of the smaller cottages with only 150 families. At church that morning Stephen was approached by one of the elders who said he had been assigned to accompany the cottage on the visit. When asked how many would be coming, he said about 12-15 and that they would stay for about 45 minutes.
At 1:30 the cell phone rang and we were told the cottage had arrived. The gates of the fence leading into our yard swung open, and cars began pulling in. There was a line of traffic coming up our little lane. They parked all over our lawn (it made us feel right at home), and they began filing into our house singing as they came. It was an exciting and joyful gathering. There were about 30 all together. Since we only have about 12 chairs in the whole house, the women spread their colorful wraps and sat on the floor. We were handed a typed program that included singing, prayers, scripture reading and preaching. There was also time for gifts and “speeches.”
The visit began with formal introductions all around. We proceeded to sing a hymn. their voices filled the room with natural harmonies as we sang, "What a Friend We Have In Jesus”. We then moved into the rest of the worship service. Members of the cottage led all the parts, and a woman preached a sermonette -a short message of only about 15 minutes (short relative to Malawian standards). Then it was time for the gifts. The entire group got up and walked out to their cars and came back in singing, clapping and swaying hips. They had with them baskets of food overflowing with fresh vegetables and other groceries. There were chickens (prepared for cooking-not live), milk, soap and rice. Pasta, sauce, salt and flour. A woman got up and read off each and every item and how much everything cost, and then they gave us an envelope with another 5000 Kwacha (about $35). We were overwhelmed. This was a huge gift! Evidently this is the church’s way of supporting the pastors, since pastoral salaries here, like most salaries, is paltry.
We gave our speeches-first Liz (mi-abusa), and then Stephen (abusa). We were nearly in tears as we felt so honored by this heart-felt outpouring of love and support.
Since it was Jordan’s birthday, we had a birthday cake and brought it out to share. As we did this, the cottage disappeared outside again and came back in with crates of soft-drinks, all kinds of foods, muffins, chicken etc. They told us they are a “traveling kitchen.” Everyone stayed for fellowship for another hour or so, before all was packed up and the entourage drove out of the yard with waves, smiles and beeps.
Perhaps we should adopt this tradition at APC. Jenna, get ready.