When the storms arrive

Student Outreach Malawi is STORM. Groups of students come every year to Malawi for a whistle stop tour, which this year is even more whistle stop, just 10 days in duration. Before they arrived, those here in Malawi were preparing, because 'the storms are coming' (Mary, cook at Fisherman's Rest). Now that they are here, Pastor Rogers of the Church of Disciples refers to us as the 'Stormy team'. In with a bang, out in a whoosh, full of impact, he's not far wrong. And in the wake of the Storm lie many emotions, memories, good times, confusing times, and unfinished thoughts, which will want finishing in the months after. So here I am, processing a few of them.

Storm 1 arrived on the 28th of June on Air Zimbabwe. Subsequently, Air Zim decommissioned their Heathrow flights, so all the rest of STORM has been air-hitching rides from South African Airlines. Nevertheless, they arrived, as did all their luggage, and proceeded to settle into Fisherman's Rest. While there they met with some village school teachers and organised to visit the school and teach one morning's school, and visited the new Fisherman's Rest trust, which runs a children's program each afternoon of the week. The program had just got underway, and the energy and manpower of the team, along with their white faces and shiny footballs, really kicked things into gear. For the team, it was a good chance to see rural Africa not as tourists but as neighbours and participants. The next day we visited Chikwawa Prison, but, lacking the official paperwork that would have allowed us access, we went for drinks in Chikwawa. As we were waiting, a whole school full of kids came by. Their teacher had died, so they were released from school and very willing to spend the morning with Storm, playing baseball and chatting. A short drive took us to Majete Game Park, where we walked with elephant, and drove through herds of nyala, impala, eland, kudu, warthog, as well as spotting a good number of hippo, crocs, and birds. The highlight of the trip was, as we were rushing back to the camp before dark, coming face to face with a huge bull-elephant coming the other way on the narrow track. He was more scared than we were, and thankfully gave way.

Wednesday we rose early and visited Tiyamike Mulungu Orphan Center in dusty Bangula. We ran games with the kids and generally got stuck in, eating in the mess hall and leading the morning devotion before waving a hurried farewell and jetting off the Simbi Village. There, Pastor Kennedy, grateful to have a car available, took us to a bush church where a Thursday morning service had been arranged to greet us. Afterwards we were invited for lunch with the pastor...time constraints meant only half of us stayed, the other group heading to Hope Village mission project to lead yet more children in the Funky Chicken and Go Bananas. I doubt the Village will ever be the same ;)

Friday we taught in Mbame and Madziabango Full Primary Schools, tiring ourselves out and being a little disappointed by the unwillingness of the children to involve themselves in classroom activities. We can only imagine that their syllabus lacks opportunity for interactivity, and they were therefore unused to it. Saturday we taught from the Bible, an overview of our relationship with God, in two interdenominational teaching centres near Fisherman's Rest. Yet again, their were children by the score hanging around outside, so those not teaching organised some group games.

Sunday, we kicked off the day at City Pentecostal Church with drama for the streetkids service, after which Tim Hofmeyr and the musicians led the international service in worship. After a large lunch, we headed to the airport, where we were hoping Bethan Carter was going to arrive and join the team. The previous night we had received a message from her that her ticket had not been printed as SAA had promised, and had heard nothing since, so had been praying. After a tantalising wait while every other passenger came through, she finally emerged, without her suitcase (which we had forgotten to pray for), much to our joy. We all went straight to the Henry Henderson Institute, with it's old church and mission buildings, and took a brief trip through the history of Blantyre. While there, we met some of the local Presbyterian missionaries, who invited us to stay and join their evening prayers, so we did.

Monday and Tuesday, the team (minus Beth and myself) went to Liwonde game park for 1st class game viewing, and then to Club Mak to see Lake Malawi at its finest. They returned home late Wednesday night and flew early Thursday morning. Simon and Vix Ewing, Beth, and I headed straight north in a hired car, aiming to visit the northern lakeshore.

In Lilongwe we ran into problems in the form of a new police speed trap. Simon was driving and the policeman took down all his details and summoned him to court the following morning. This didn't sound like much of a holiday to us, so we appealed to the head of traffic police - Simon was a visitor, the speed restrictions had just been introduced, and the speed limit sign had been obscured by a parked truck. 2 hours later we were granted grace to leave, with the possibility of being followed up later. We still had to queue for an hour to get diesel - there had been a shortage all week - but we used the time to buy ourselves dinner and supplies for the weekend. We finally left Lilongwe at about 7pm, and took 4 and a half hours to finish the trip up to Kande Beach, where we pitched camp and hit the sack.

Kande beach is a lovely resort, with little picturesque cottages on what must be one of the longest stretches of beach on Lake Malawi. On Friday, having heard nothing from the police, we rented a pedalo and headed out to a little island several hundred yards offshore, where we prayed together, snorkelled with cichlids, and dove off rocks into the lake. After pedalling back to shore and packing up, we then drove south to Nkhotakota Pottery Lodge, where they make famous clayware, and where guests can make their own mugs and plates. We declined this pleasure, however, preferring to use our time driving through the Nkhotakota reserve looking for elephants...none emerged. We took a back road to Lilongwe, stopping for lunch in Ntchisi, and avoided all police presence and the way back through the capital city. We were back in Fisherman's Rest by sunset, just as a chiperoni fog enveloped the place.

Storm 2 is now midway through, but you'll have to wait for the next installment if you want the brief on that!

A Report on one year

I feel I ought to report. Sort of. But then, I wonder how many will be sincerely interested in this report? And how many, having read my concerns, will be spurred to try to be sincerely interested in my report, where no previous interest existed? Or how many, having happened perchance upon my report, will discover that where they had been unaware of an interest, one nevertheless lurked and was coaxed from hiding by reading this report…?

It’s been very nearly a year now since our delayed Ethiopian Airlines flight deposited me on Malawian soil to begin a voluntary job encouraging, supporting, training and getting to know the music/worship team here at City Pentecostal Church. I’d never been a Pentecostal before…I’m not sure I’m strictly one now, though I’ve really enjoyed and grown with a church who experience the gifts of the Spirit so freely. Come to think of it, I hardly knew anyone in the church when I came, but I soon grew out of that. As Pastor Tom Lupiya taught me pretty soon, ‘there are no strangers in the house of God, only family and friends.’ And I have been a part of the family. Why else would they have put up with my loud shirts and bad renditions of Chichewa worship songs?

But 9 to 5 you don’t tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how wonderful it is to be a part of God’s family in Malawi. It’s much more usual to take that for granted and focus on the work at hand, particularly its problems. When I arrived, the chief problem with the worship team was the lack thereof. There were 5 members, one of whom was dying to get out of it so she could focus on other ministries, and another of whom was racked with guilt because his lifestyle didn’t quite match his role in the worship team. So within a few weeks we were down to 3. But I was in the mood for a challenge, so I began recruiting with a vengeance. Soon enough 2 more drummers has appeared out of the woodwork, 2 violinists had returned from holiday abroad, and several of the young people in the church had signed up for lessons in music with a view to join the worship team. IN fact, within a few weeks it seemed that all of Blantyre had been waiting for me to arrive so that they could realise their lifetime ambitions to become great music stars. They soon realised that I was not entirely capable of handing them that blessing on a plate – the time commitments were too heavy for some, others had no money either for lessons, or, when I offered a few free lessons, even the transport money to get to and from lessons. In fact, attendance at lessons was seldom above 50%, which, when I was charging about 70p an hour, was somewhat frustrating. We solved that problem by starting to charge people through the nose after Christmas ;) Actually, I’m still the cheapest teacher in Blantyre, but the prices are now designed to induce people to attend more regularly if they don’t want to waste their money.

Tell you what, teaching privately helps you meet the community. I’ve had students of African, European and Asian extraction, from all different churches and mosques, aged 8-50yrs. Most have only lasted about 3 months, several have stayed for 6 and a precious few have been with me from the beginning til now, 10 months. In that time I’ve seen so many musical talents blossom that it’s blown me away and converted me forever to music teaching.

But worship is so much more than teaching. Because I lead the congregation as well as the music team on Sundays, I;ve had ample opportunity to speak (albeit in 1 minute intervals) on worship. I’ve also been blessed by people in the Uk and here donating me an enormous resource of worship teaching. I’ve gleaned even more from the internet, and the learning experience has been one of the chief joys of my year. I look forward to getting plugged in to Woodhouse Eaves Evangelical Baptist church worship team when I return there in August, and continuing my studies through that.

But one of the biggest parts of my year has been the vision God has given me to stay and work full-time in Malawi as a luthier and dealer in musical instruments. I’ve spent the last 6 months studying and sourcing good hardwoods within the country and various items of hardware externally. In September I hope to begin an apprenticeship with a luthier in Leicester, Mark Finney. We’ll see where we go from there.

I’ve also had the privilege of running a 30min radio show of music looking at Christian themes on Capital FM here in Blantyre this last 6 months. I’m writing this in their studio, having just had a power cut in the middle of mixing down my show, so I’m praying the autosave has preserved my work! It’s been a great ministry, although, as so often with radio ministry, I’m never quite sure who was listening and how they’ve responded. Still, we pray and are assured that God uses these things to his adulation.

And then the unquantifiables – the friends I’ve made here, the good times over braais, on wildlife safaris, just spending time together over meals in the market, playing jazz music with the team in Naperi… the various places I’ve visited and still hope to visit. The various minor culture shocks, thefts, and disappointments on the road. The irrational fears of new situations, irrelevance, loss of faith…the equally unpredictable joys of being alive, celebrating faith, meeting new people and seeing God in them…

This is not the official report, by the way. This is a blog. If you want things more neat and orderly, please subscribe to my newsletter by emailing me. If you don’t know my email and don’t know anyone who does, put a post on here and we’ll see what we can do.

God bless you all loads. Why don’t you guys write me reports of your year, eh? Why am I the only one ‘missionary’ enough that people around the world might benefit from my experience?

Eternal Reverberations

There’s a rhythm beating in my brain. It thud-thud-thuds away. When I’m in a good mood, it gets me going, charges me up, feet tapping, head nodding, fingers troddlin’ away. When I’m down, it’s a dripping tap, a banging hammer, the screech of too-long nails on a too-old blackboard. When I’m in between it beats with my walk, rotates with my legs pedalling up the hill to town, and just strings things along. But it’s there. It’s there.

Class 5-&6-combined are playing Indian drums, and Billy’s call-rhythm echoes my mind once again. In lessons, Memory is trying her best to play it on the kit, but never gets beyond three or four bars. Nicholas is strumming it on Saturday morning with the worship team. The engine of Joonas’ 125cc bike seems to be pumping it out as I ride with him to volleyball. The birds are singing it as I wake up. Sometimes I think it’s stopped, and then I go all quiet and listen. Soon I am able to tune into my pulse, and there it is again.

It’s a simple four-beat rhythm. It contains infinite variations, but always, it returns to where it came from, and it does not return void. After running from the house to town, late for work, I am breathing it…in…out…in…out…bass…snare…bass…snare…yoh…hey…vah…hey.

This rhythm is a message. This rhythm is a word. It’s the world’s premier brand-name, and it’s written on everything you see. It’s written on that Coke bottle, just behind the big C-O-C-A-C-O-L-A letters. It’s all over the sky in enormous gilded font, so that the birds are forced to fly through it or bump their beaks.

Yoh...Hey…Vah…Hey.

I meet a guy at Phoenix school. He is cold and confident. He tells me he doesn’t believe, and he says it with immense pride. My heart is about to fall, but then I listen again to his words… There…is…no…God…and hear Your rhythm echoing in his words. I see his chest rise and fall in Your tempo. In…out…in…out. He’s still part of the symphony. You’re still the Master Drummer.

Why, O why, have I not spent more time learning to dance?! My mind is dancing to this song, this ceaseless, endless, peerless beat, but my body can’t keep up. But aaaaaargggghgh it wants to! Yeah, go on and laugh at me, and I’ll join in. But I won’t stop this movement, beating time with my hands, gyrating, stamping, shouting, trying so hard to use all of me, every bit of me, to be a part of this piece.

Y…H…V…H

Can you hear it? Listen for a moment to the hum of your computer. That’s the sound of a fan blowing air…beating, beating as it was designed to beat by a designer who himself was designed by a designer. Take a few moments to breath in that same air, and breath it out. Or, if you’re in perverse mood, try not to. Go on, I dare you, just try to stop breathing His name. If you find you can’t, do us all a favour. Stop trying. Stop trying so hard to recompose yourself. You’ve been well orchestrated already, to be a part player in the symphony of everything. There’s an eternal reverberation shaking the walls of this universe. Get up and dance.

Fullness of Time

What a beautiful phrase, hey? We have such strange ideas about time, killing it, converting it to money, telling it, managing it, spending it. But time fills up, slowly, bit by bit until the time comes and then God says that time is full. And when time is full, something happens. Something good.

I started teaching the little monsters at Nyasa Junior Academy how to sing this month. Not well-behaved enough to be teachable, but not rough enough to get seriously tough with, I’ve spent the month trying to claw some order out of the anarchy that is 6&7 yr olds. I’m not sure I’m winning yet, but the honour of being invited to teach at a Muslim-run school keeps me in the game.

A friend informs me that I’m on the timetable at Phoenix school again this term, which is nice to know, because no-one actually contacted me to ask if I’d like to be. But I would, so I guess that’s ok.

Private lessons are becoming my down-time now, because I’ve been doing them for 6 months so I have some sense of what goes on in them. There’s a certain satisfaction to having every single hour of my teaching time taken by a willing and progressing student.

The radio show at Capital, ‘The Spirit of Music’, has now been aired 2 out of 3 times we’ve recorded it, amid controversy over the quality of my home-recordings, the hassle of actually getting a studio technician organised to record in the studio and the general lack of communication between Capital and myself. The show is pre-recorded, and features 6 or 7 tracks of ‘international music’ (i.e. what I normally listen to) tied together by a theme…God, sex, angels’n’demons, death etc. I heard it play for the first time this week, and it actually sounded ok. The miracle is that they actually played it, though, because last week they decided to scrap it at the last minute and not tell me.

Two of the young people at the church, Eddie and Reuben, have now had turns at MCing Sunday meetings and sorting the music, both fairly successfully. We have a new guitarist in church, and one of the street kids (Gray – one of many homeless kids/runaways who congregate at CPC on Sunday mornings) had his debut on the drums this week, which was really good to see. Despite my many logistical ineptitudes, the worship team training day was an awesome success, like last time.

The young people’s group at the church is finally morphing out the shape it’s been in for 5 years (all the ‘young people’ were 25+ when I arrived). The Bible studies have stopped, because they tended to turn into dusty-crusty debates where one or two older guys soliloquised for longer than any of us thought necessary. Instead we have pizza at a fast-food place (eyes right) on Wednesdays and films on Sunday afternoons.

The guys from Kalibu have largely disappeared since they had a team of attractive young ladies from Finland turn up a fortnight ago, but Yorick still drops by about once a week to take me out on the back of his new 650cc BMW.

My time is full of all these things. But these things are just filling time. In the fullness of time, through or despite every bit of energy I can chuck into Blantyre/church/my friends, God’s going to move. He is. Is he? Definitely. But where are the signs? Honestly…I’m not sure. There are a few signs in my heart, but who trusts their own heart? There are a few signs in my friends, but who’s to say they’re conclusive? I just know it.

Watch this space.

And while I’m watching, you’ll find me at the Muslim school, in the rented church building, at the fast-food joint, and on the back of the BMW.

Urban(e)

I live in a city. It is a large city, somewhere in the region of a million inhabitants, though I've never seen it on any of the 'million-city maps', so maybe just a wee bit shy of the grand ton. I'm sitting, as usual, in 'my' internet cafe, next to someone who lives in the countryside. His name is Rory, and I used to live next door to him. We are going to play football and he is giving me a lift. He has had to drive in to town specially for the occasion. I have had to step out of the office.

Visions of me with a tubby gut, jowls, pipe, paper and slippers rise unbidden before my eyes. I try to chase them away, but they return each time. I must be getting old.

Not that I don't work. It's not about working or not working. I've just finished a full afternoon's lessons, with a morning's business before that. And it's not like I'm financially complacent...I'm not making enough money to continue living this way for long. It's something else. Something about being in a crowd, about moving where other people move, about not having to fight for each fierce breath I draw, each achievement I achieve. It's about making a stand, or failing to. It's about the difficulty of being 'set apart' inside when I'm physically surrounded.

I serve a God who is set-apart, not physically, but in His being. He tells me he lives in me, and his Spirit does something odd called 'sanctification' inside me, which makes me different. 'Really?' my sceptic soul asks. 'Really-really,' my faith replies.

Ok, says my sceptic soul, I'm going to hold you to that. I'll be watching this space...

Matt walks into the the cafe. 'Let's go guys...' and we pile into the battered old Land Cruiser (memories of a former life for me) and head out to Hillview School for an evening's bladder-chasing and sweatiness. It's good to strive. It's good to sweat sometimes. It reminds us that we're alive.

Not-Malawi

The weather is cold. And wet. I sit at my own laptop, enjoying broadband access, and preparing to head off to a recording studio where we will use £700 microphones and the latest in music-recording software to capture two songs. Out of the window in front of me is a neat little backyard plot, bordered by two other neat little backyard plots. Into the distance stretch more neat little backyard plots and terraced Georgian houses. This is not-Malawi.

Being here has actually come quite easily. No reverse culture-shock, no surge of conflicting emotions at seeing old friends and enemies. I've been able to get straight down to work, preparing for and recording, along with the musicians of STORM '07, a 7-track CD here in Cardiff.

But I'm not fooled. This is not-Malawi, and my time is a brief interval before I get back out there. A brief interval in which so much can and must be done: buying a new laptop to replace the one Malawi took, hunting around and applying for luthiery apprenticeships, researching good poetry publications to which I can subscribe, and eventually, maybe, contribute...all the rush feels a little unnatural. Life should be day-to-day. I should have time (and warmth) in the morning to get up and check in with God. The possibility of any course of action should be directly proportional to my desire to engage in it and inversely proportional to some known opponent's desire to keep me from it, rather than governed by a set of disembodied laws.

I've enjoyed being back, particularly seeing old friends and recording this album, but I am looking forward to Malawi again...

Muyenda bwino, 2007

The watering cans of heaven are at work in Malawi, and green is very much this seasons' fashion. The bedraggled vendors in Blantyre market hover protectively over their treasure trove of fruit and veg - aubergines in stark purple, pineapples and bananas in yellow, mangoes in every shade from green to red, coconuts, bird's-eyes...even the fly-covered meat in the butchery somehow feels a little fresher in this weather. But Francis and I aren't here to shop - we bee-line for our favourite little restaurant - rice and beef stew for a modest K100. We've just come from a music session at CPC, preparing for tomorrow's celebration. Fairly typical of such sessions, except that three of the musicians present were students of mine, very much fresh-faced and wanting instruction, so I was trying to hold three conversations at once while meeting the new bass-guitarist and trying to keep up a conversation with God...that's what we're pruporting to be doing in these sessions, and I like to keep up appearances ;p
So it's with a certain amount of satisfaction that we sit down on our favourite rickety wooden bench, order the only meal the venue provides, and look out over the marketplace. Saturday. Busy, despite the rain. But it's my last day in Malawi this year, and I have nothing at all to do. Like the song, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go. Christmas cards drawn up and mostly distributed... presents given...ticket bought and safe at home...lift to the airport arranged. And one afternoon to kill. It's a rare and pleasant feeling.
Let me tell you about Francis. He's odder than I am. Born in Malawi to well-to-do parents, a doctor and a manager of a secretarial business, he grew up with a hunger for knowledge, in any sphere. Sunday morning mass may have sparked his curiosity, but school was more interesting. In seceondary school he was sent to a well-respected secondary school in Zimbabwe. There three things happened. His thirst for knowledge was cultivated into a good education. His cursory interest in church developed into a full-blown love for God through a personal encounter with a famous man who died on a cross 2000 years ago. And he fell in love with Zimbabwe. But school days end, and he came back to Malawi and home. His aspirations to join the RAF didn't come to fruition, so instead he went to University in Russia. After a year, the culture shock still hadn't worn off, so he tried Kenya instead, studying business. But during that time, he received the terible news that his mother had died, early and, I think, unexpectedly. He came home for the funeral, but then retreated to Kenya, University and a world of late-night parties, drunken friendship and numbness. It was easier then trying to get on with Dad at home. And then funds ran out. By this time he was having to acknowledge that the plain-sailing he had experienced in childhood was not the norm for humanity. Things fall apart. He came back to Malawi, swallowed some pride, and began to live with his Dad again. And that's when I met him. His love for God had not abated through the ups and downs of life, and he came along to City Pentecostal Church one day, to be greeted by many there - he'd been at the church longer than I had, but had been away on his last term in Kenya. He became a guitar student of mine, and then a friend. Over rice and beef, today and in the past two weeks, his story came out.
So anyway, we were chatting. Francis is passionate about travelling, so we talked about India. The afternoon wore on. He had an engagement party (a cousin) to go to, I was planning to meet my jazz crew. But it was raining, so why get wet?
There's this not-ended feeling in me. It's like a dull pain. It's like a rainy day. It's like...it's not really like anything.
Tomorrow I will say goodbye to Rory and Charlotte, and all the staff at Fisherman's Rest. I will drive the old Land Cruiser from Fisherman's Rest to Matt and Becc Armstrong's house, where I will leave my stuff to await my return on February 7th. Then I will drive to church. There I will say goodbye to various people, friends, not-quite-friends, strangers who know me as the worship leader...I will then drive with Matthew Maramba to Chileka airport, where I will deposit the Cruiser with Horace Masaule for repairs. I will say goodbye to Matthew. I will pick up my bag, my guitar, and my faith, and board a plane bound for Nairobi. By 1030 on Monday I will be in Woodhouse Eaves...home. Home? Where the family are, anyway. This excites me. This makes me happy. Most days.
But there's this not-ended feeling in me. Should I be saying this? Wouldn't it be easier to end on the word 'happy? and skip this paragraph? No, because it wouldn't be straight, and crooked happiness isn't worth the adrenaline it uses up. This is my last blog episode 2007. Roll on 2008.