Sunday was a very good, very tough, very eye-opening day for me. We went to the refugee camp in Dowa which is about a 45 minute drive from where we are staying in Lilongwe. This is the second time we had been there, but the first time was just for an afternoon visit and we didn’t really see much of the camp in depth. That day was spent visiting the villages around the camp that the refugees were helping by building churches for them or providing goats and/or pigs to provide a source of food and economic aid. This time we went to the camp for church and then went around and visited the homes of a few of the refugees as well as the place where the feeding program was based out of.
The church service was a very new, but great experience. People were incredibly warm in greeting us, and were incredibly joyful in their worship. A flat tire on the way caused us to be about a half-hour late, but unlike most of the American church services that I’m used to back home, that half hour was only a small piece of the service. There were several different groups of people that came up to sing and dance. Our team performed by far the 2 shortest songs of the service and then Chris was invited to come and preach. The sermon, on Isaiah 6, was a great encouragement to the people there as the pastor told afterward. I think he did a great job of not just focusing on Isaiah’s call in verse 8, but the verses that follow that focus on how difficult his call will be. The service didn’t seem like it lasted 3 and a half hours, probably because of the incredibly joy that everyone had in worshipping the Lord.
After the worship service, we went to several different places on our “tour” of the village. It was fascinating to see many of the homes of the refugees, but what I enjoyed the most was seeing the feeding program. The feeding program was started by two men named De’lor & Freddy, two refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was originally just for kids in the camp with special needs, but expanded to helping widows, orphans, and those battling HIV/Aids in the camp. Each morning as many as 42 kids with varying degrees of intellectual disabilities come to this building to be cared for by volunteers (other refugees) and receive two meals. Not only that, but Freddy routinely advocates for these children by going into the homes of the children and helping them see that there is no shame in having a child with special needs. You see often when the group that oversees the camp would go in and take a census of the camp, many parents of children with special needs would say they have 4 children when they actually have 5. They would hide these children and wouldn’t care for them in the ways that they need. Freddy not only helps these children see themselves the way that God sees them, but also helps their families see them the way that God sees them.
Visiting this place really touched me and convicted me, especially seeing what Freddy and De’lor do. Here are two men who were forced from their homelands, not “allowed” to work (camp regulations), given little food rations each month (I don’t know how they survive on 7 kilograms of maze, 1 kilo of beans, and 50 mL of oil), yet in spite of all of this, they work tirelessly to care for people who otherwise wouldn’t be cared for. That is the gospel. As James 1:27 tells us that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” That is what Freddy & De’lor are doing, and what am I doing? That is what hit me the hardest. They have several ways that we can help advocate for them including buying some greeting cards that they produce there to help with some of the expenses they have. Still, the biggest take away I have is how much I live for myself as opposed to living for others the way that Paul commands us to in Philippians. I hope to better emulate Christ when I return the way that Freddy, De’lor and so many of the rest of these refugees do.
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