On Tuesday of last week (12 November) Pam and I were invited to the home of a Scripture Union of Malawi (SUM) national executive member for our official welcome to Malawi and to Scripture Union. It was an informal and low-key gathering with a mixture of national executive members and staff. It was an evening for meeting some key people and to find out more about their involvement with SUM. For me it was good to see familiar faces again and catch-up with folks I have known for over 10 years. For Pam it was good for her to get a chance to meet some of the people involved in the SUM ministry.
As with many gatherings of this nature there was an abundance of fried chicken, rice, nsima, tomato relish and potatoes! We were all satisfactorily filled and enjoyed the taste of good home cooked Malawian food.
The evening concluded with the normal opportunities for people to speak and in-turn give Pam and I the chance to speak. Throughout each of the speeches we certainly felt very welcome and caught a glimpse of the expectations of this new partnership we are embarking on – a partnership of mutual learning, of patience with each other, and of a great desire to see the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed across this nation.
We were given one piece of cultural advice: we are to remember that what a Malawian does is more important than when he or she does it! A reminder for us to get out of our cultural perspective of how things are done at home and refresh ourselves in the culture around us.
We enjoyed our evening and look forward to starting work in January with this movement that is passionate about making disciples of Jesus Christ.
On another note, our language studies are going well and our tutor says he will have us fluent by Christmas! I think this is a bit of a long shot, but I admire his confidence.
