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I left my heart in...Malawi
Davidson College student Allie Ivanowicz finds heartbreak and hope in the "Warm Heart of Africa."
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 In Malawi, something
was always breaking. The power went out at least three nights of the week, our
mini bus broke down twice, and the refrigerator in our kitchen hadn’t worked in
over three months. So I wasn’t at all surprised when I discovered that my heart,
too, was breaking for Malawi. Even as I type these words, the tears stream down
my face. Tears of joy for the lives I saw changed, tears of sadness for the
suffering I witnessed, and tears of hope for a country that truly lives up to
its name as “the warm heart of Africa.”
On the final plane
ride from Nairobi, Kenya to Lilongwe, Malawi, I struck up a conversation with a
missionary at the back of the plane. After telling her that I was headed to
Malawi to volunteer for three months and this was really my first time in
Africa, she warned me, “Just make sure to take your heart with you when you
leave.” I chuckled at her advice, but after only a few hours in Malawi, I
realized just how difficult it was going to be to bring my heart home.
From the airport, our
group of seven volunteers—two doctors, an occupational therapist, three
medical students, and myself—headed straight to the Ministry of Hope’s
Crisis Care Nursery. We each held one of the 18 babies, fed them phala (porridge), and instantly forgot about
our jet lag. I had come to Malawi as the summer Health Care Volunteer
Coordinator, helping to run and organize the Mobile Medical Clinic,
coordinating groups arriving from the US who wanted to participate in our
health care programs, and monitoring the nutrition and development of the
babies at the nursery.
The babies are all
under eighteen months and come to the nursery for a variety of reasons. For
most of them, their mother has died in childbirth and the father is either
unable to care for them or has been nonexistent in their life. But there are
the rare few, and I wish there were fewer, who are abandoned, wrapped in a
black plastic bag and found by hungry dogs in the middle of a maize field,
dumped in a garbage heap on the side of a dirt road, or worse, blamed for their
mother’s death and sentenced to be buried with her. By God’s miraculous grace,
these babies find their way to the Crisis Nursery and are given a home, a bed,
food, love, and above all, hope. For most of them, the care they receive at the
nursery is the difference between life and death.
We held six Mobile Medical
Clinics in some of the poorest and most remote villages. In only five hours, we
saw nearly two hundred patients and treated malaria, tuberculosis,
schistostomaisis, muscle pain, colds, diarrhea, and myriad other diseases. With
minimal medical training, Deb, an occupational therapist, and I ran the
registration table. With our broken Chichewa—the national
language—we measured each patient’s height and weight, took blood
pressure, pulse and temperature, and then ushered them to the waiting line,
outlined with white medical tape on the swept cement floor. In the chaos of
registering hundreds of patients, I continually had to take a moment to check
my attitude, ask God for patience, and remember that each sweaty armpit I stuck
a thermometer under, was a sweaty armpit of one of God’s beloved children.
I was privileged
to work alongside two amazing people: Dr. Ken Root and Mwawi Nyirongo. Dr. Root
was a neurologist from Arizona and the one in charge of organizing our trip.
Mwawi was a four-foot-ten Malawian nurse and the medical director for the
Ministry of Hope and director of the Crisis Nursery. During clinic days, Dr.
Root and Mwawi would begin seeing patients at 10:00 am and continue until
almost 5:00 in the evening. We always said we would only see a hundred
patients, but when those two saw the line of sick people winding out the door,
they could not turn them away. One hundred patients quickly turned into two
hundred patients. It didn’t matter that we were out of medical charts and malaria
medication, Dr. Root and Mwawi were determined to see and treat as many people
as they could. I learned such compassion watching them work relentlessly. God
spoke directly to me through Dr. Root and Mwawi saying, “Allie, I love these
people. Be my healing hands today. Love them and serve them well.”
During the month
of May, I was blessed to live with Mwawi in her home and see her live out her
faith in every moment of her day. Above all, she taught me to give all that you
are able. I frequently felt convicted about my attachment to my possessions, my
money, my space and my time. I could hear God saying, “Let it go. I have
greater things in store for you.” Mwawi gave all that she had. She gave her
nights of sleep to care for the sick babies at the nursery. She gave her home
to any visitor that needed a place to sleep. She gave her money to help the
Mobile Medical Clinic when we were a few kwacha short.
And most importantly, she gave her love, not only to her two adopted children, but to every child and person that walked into the nursery.
Watching Mwawi, I desperately wanted to give all that I had and began to look
for ways to give in my own life.
It was
uncomfortable at first to even think about giving away my things, but the more
time I spent with the people in Malawi, I realized just how much more I had and
how much more I should be giving. It seemed easy to give out of my excess, a
few dollars at church on Sunday, or a pack of cookies to a starving woodcarver,
but I knew that God called me to give much more. He calls us to give not out of
our excess, but to give out of faith in him. I am still desperately learning
how to do this.
My time in Malawi
has not only changed my heart, but revealed to me just how big God really is. I
attended many different Malawian church services during my two and a half month
stay, but often felt disconnected because I couldn’t understand Chichewa. When
I was in Lilongwe, I regularly attended Flood Church and loved the community I
found there. It was an English service led by a Malawian pastor, but each
Sunday we would sing at least one worship song in
Chichewa. At first I fumbled through the words and felt no connection to the
foreign sounds. But as I continued to worship in Chichewa at Flood Church, in
the village churches and every morning with the nannies at the nursery, it
began to slowly dawn on me that we were all singing to the same God. The
language we used didn’t matter. God heard our praises, our thanksgiving, and
our supplications all the same. My God that I worship in Davidson, North
Carolina is the exact same God that the Malawians worship on the other side of
the world.
It has not been
easy feeling my heart break for Malawi. Every baby I
see reminds me of the orphaned infants I left behind. Especially
9-month-old Rachel Phiri. After a week of holding her in my arms while she fought a bought of
diarrhea, I knew that she would forever hold my heart in her hands. For these
babies, their love for us and us for them is unconditional, just like that of
our Father. I was blessed to see Him working so clearly in my heart, in the
Ministry of Hope, and in Malawi. He has already blessed me with opportunities
to share my experiences back in the US. I have been amazed by the generosity
and compassion of so many people who have helped me to raise money to send back
to Malawi. I hope that someday God will call me back to the “warm heart of
Africa” because my work there is not finished, and His work in me is only
beginning. |
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