It’s all around us. Trash, children, murky water, corn stalks, chickens, mini buses, pungent odors, street vendors, people shouting…..
Life in Malawi.
I’ve watched my team take in the poverty. I’ve seen them close their eyes to shut it out. I’ve seen them weep over it.
I’ve seen all these emotions. Yet, I could feel none of them.
The poverty here is no different than any other third world country. It is heart wrenching, but it is the same. I tried to cry for the child with no parents crawling along the street or the paralyzed man in the market…but I couldn’t.
If you’ve read my previous blogs you know about the two girls that got swept away in the road-turned-river. My heart broke that they can’t walk to school without fearing the raging red river that is the road after rain.
And that’s where He started it. He isn’t breaking my heart for the obvious..He is breaking my heart for His dreams.
God is creating a dream in me to help the people of Africa. Not with orphanages or feeding programs, but with work. The dream God has begun to shape in my head seems unattainable. But then, if it was attainable for me then I wouldn’t have to rely on Him for help.
The people here use bicycles for everything. EVERYTHING. They use them as taxis. They us them to transport goods. They use them for whatever you could possibly imagine using a bicycle for. All the bicycles have some things in common. They are old and falling apart and have no gears on them.
Here is the vision God is shaping in my head:
We need to build drains in the villages. The men in the villages need work. They would work for Kwacha, the currency here, and for a mountain bike. In doing this five major problems are solved.
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Children can walk to and from school without fearing flash floods.
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The homes lining to road are no longer washed away.
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The men are given good honest work.
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The economy is stimulated.
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The men are given mountain nikes to continue work once the drains are built.
If the people in the villages help build the drains they will upkeep them more than if the drains were a handout built by outsiders.
This dream is something that could last for posterity. I know nothing about drain building. I’m not a banker. I’m not an engineer.
But I am a Kingdom Dreamer.
Maybe this is the dream I am to see through to completion. Maybe this dream is meant to inspire someone else. Maybe this is just the beginning of an even bigger Kingdom Dream.
I don’t know right now. I don’t need to know yet. God knows how it will work out. I do not have the right credentials, I just have Jesus….
and He is all I need.
“Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:5
