June 22, 2018
Yesterday, I spent hours packing school supplies for the communities we serve in Malawi. We have been storing the supplies for months, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take them with us because the airlines only allow a certain amount of luggage per person. This year, we have seven people traveling at the same time. Woo-hoo! Perfect opportunity to bring along these supplies. As I was swimming in school supplies, I was reminded of an observation my daughter made last year when we were in Malawi. At the time, she was teaching art lessons to some younger children and had brought several boxes of crayons with her. She had enough for each kid and expected the teachers to give one box for each student. Instead, each student was just given two crayons at a time and then had to give them back after class. My daughter was curious. “Why don’t you just give everyone a box?”, she asked the teacher. “These crayons are very special,” he responded. “We need to take care of them so they can last a long time.” That was the moment my daughter realized how much she took for granted in the U.S. It was just a box of crayons, after all. Right? Maybe to us, but to those students and teachers, it was a precious resource. Traveling to Malawi always reminds me to never take anything for granted.
Pamoza in Christ,
Temwa