Morgan & Eli

Sunday 17th December
I spent today with Morgan and his fantastic wife Ellina. It was awesome. I work with Morgan everyday, so we’ve become good friends, but I actually met his wife even before I met morgan…. I was with her the day we waited at the airport to greet them home from Canada after their year away studying… Ellina was an extremely excited, nervous and emotional new wife… who had so far spent more of her married life with him away overseas than they had actually been married, having left 9 months after the wedding. I remember instantly liking Ellina, she has a genuine friendly, confident and warm charm about her, which matches perfectly with Morgan whom I have grown to respect immensely in my time here so far. To work with he is great fun, genuine and a man of great integrity. I was really excited to be spending the day with them, as I hope they will become even better friends over time, and I was particularly keen to see his wife again.

Morgan arrived at the gate to pick me up at 8:30, I was joining them for church at which Morgan was preaching today, we walked back to his house and were greeted by breakfast all set out on the table for us, along with a giant hug from Ellina that made me feel so welcome I wanted to cry. We were late for church, but time never matters in Malawi (love it!). Their church is called living waters community, and it is a local meeting of a massive Pentecostal church in Lilongwe. They were describing the church to me as we walked, it was a small community of around 50 people, they didn’t yet have their own building, nor did many churches in area 24, so they used a school classroom at a local high school. They explained that all sorts of different churches used the same compound, so its pretty noisy. So as we walked in there was singing coming from all sorts of little classrooms. We met this person who goes to the Baptist, that one who goes to the CCAP, this one who goes to the Anglican etc etc…I don’t even know how many in the end, but it was sooo awesome. it sounded a bit like heaven. The classrooms are filled with wooden two seater benches and desks (like in anne of green gables) there was no fancy, decorations, just a piece of chitenji draped over a desk on the side with some wood across the top for a pulpit. The worship leader stood at the front of the room in front of a wrinkly and cracked old chalkboard.

There seemed to be no room left to fit even a few chickens, yet amazingly there was plenty of room for dancing!! The singing was just spectacular, my favourite so far. It does something to your soul. Something refreshing, something uplifting. Something exciting. How does everyone know how to sing so amazingly, just voices? In such amazing harmony, in such amazing volume. It really is unforgettable.
The service went for hours and hours, but I didn’t even realize. Morgan spoke awesomely, and I was captivated, He started by saying the church as we know it today is pretty much dead, we have lost our way, and there is no life remaining. He then went on to speak about God doing a new thing. I might write up my notes, it really was awesome!


The entire time you could hear amazing voices. Maybe from the church on your left, or maybe from the church on the right. Afterward, there was mingling and chatting outside with everyone…. all the different denominations as everyone wandered in their own directions to carry on with their day.

Ellina was really excited about lunch, she had made a traditional Malawian meal, of rape & pumpkin leave salad with ground nuts, relish, beans, and nsima and bananas for dessert. It was awesome, and I promised to bring them over for an aussie meal…(?what should I do???)

Because we don’t use cutlery, washing hands becomes a big ritual before meals, but I love how it’s done. There is a bowl a towel and a jug. One person holds the jug for you, pouring the water over your hands, then hands you the towel, and then you return the favour.

Nsima is served in a paddy, you break off a little piece roll it around your palm, then mop up what’s on your plate with it, or for any chunks of food, dip a hole in the middle which food can be scooped into. You have to learn to proportion the food well with the nsima… otherwise you have a whole lot of juicy food, and nothing to eat it with.... or else you are left with plain nsima, which is bland and boring. It’s a bit like a really thick mashed potato or…clag! hehe

Part of what I loved about sharing the day with morgan and Eli was to see more of what I would expect a normal relationship to look like. There is so much inequality here, and its often so sad to see how the marriages work. The traditional Malawian woman would always be kneeling before her husband, she must never approach him to talk about anything, she may only speak if he has first addressed her, Any males in the house will sit on the chairs or at the table if there is one, the woman will sit outside on the verandah or on the kitchen floor… this is the traditional culture. The more middle class Malawians do not behave in this way, but M & E where even more normal as far as I was concerned, it was obvious they were in love. But even more importantly they are good friends, and respect each other. There is action required in loving someone, and I enjoyed witnessing that between the two of them.

We then sat in the living room where they played me their favourite music, ellina gave me malawian dancing lessons, morgan showed me photos from his Canada trip and then
they both escorted me back to my village. But I have learnt now that escort, means you walk someone half way. The time when you know your friend will be turning around is when the walking slows right down (even more than the usually slow pace) and farewells are said over and over again.

I walked away with such a warm fuzzy feeling about how much I loved my new friends and how much I loved my life, that I got completely lost and ended up somewhere far from where I was going. But nothing could spoil my day. The more time I spend visitng people the more I realize life really is about family, community and just spending time together. On arriving home a whole stack of kids were eager for some company, we had a giant water fight and once again another fabulous day was over.