Blessed are we to be brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus

Friday, Oct. 30, 2015

By Mollie Murphy Dale

Special to the Intermountain Catholic

In September, I spent just over a week on the African continent along with three other Americans, two trip leaders and a cohort of Catholic Relief Services’ leadership and support staff during a trip to Malawi that was hosted and organized by CRS, the international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The purpose of the trip was to educate the U.S. delegation about the Catholic Church’s humanitarian mission and to learn about the many ways the Church cares for and unites us to our brothers and sisters abroad through acts of global solidarity.

We flew in to Lilongwe, the capital city that is home to 670,000 individuals, traveled through the crowded and dusty roads in central and southern Malawi, then returned home through Blantyre. Our drivers effortlessly navigated roads packed with people, animals and things. On either side of our vehicle one would find streams of people on bicycles riding in every direction while carrying passengers, firewood, straw mats, doors, goats, or whatever else might have needed to be transported. Long-horned cattle and goats alongside the road dictated our speed and course. Every day our delegation visited two or three local CRS offices to learn about projects focused on the four strategic objectives of CRS Malawi: health and nutrition, food and income security, justice and peace, and education. 

I’ve been back in Utah just over a month and am unable to adequately communicate what I saw, what I felt and what I experienced traveling through central and southern Malawi. It’s easy to talk about the animals; elephants walking single file on the river bottom with trunks held high, baboons hanging off the tree near my lodge and lizards seemingly stuck to the wall in my room in Lengwe National Park. Animal stories elicit youthful energy and a curious response from listeners. 

While animal stories are easy, people stories are not. Bricks made of mud are assembled in to one- or two-room homes for families of five to 10, but can instantly be washed away during the rainy season. My kneecaps pop as I kneel on a cement floor during Mass in Ulongwe as my eyes notice the dusty soles of the barefoot children who kneel in front of me. A young boy shows us how he washes his hands after using the latrine at Namitembe Primary School: A stand is fashioned from three sticks, while a fourth is connected to twine and the stand. When the boy steps on the fourth stick, a water-filled plastic bottle that hangs from the stand tips upside down, releasing a small stream of water from the holes poked in the bottle cap. The boy washes his hands, but there’s no soap. 

When I talk about our brothers and sisters in Malawi, friends, family and colleagues often listen in terms of “have” and “have not.” A common response from listeners is “We are so blessed.” While I agree that we have blessings so abundant in our lives, a part of me feels conflicted. 

My trip to Malawi came at a time when I needed a desperate break from a busy professional and family life. I gave up my phone – there was little to no Internet reception and no calling power, but I didn’t mind. Never once did I leap to respond to a ding, a chime, or any other sound notifying me of a phone call or text. I traveled on roads that at times were so dusty we couldn’t see where we were going, but at each destination we were greeted with warmth, hospitality, song and music. My daily life was packed in to one small suitcase; it was a relief to not be consumed by my closet at home. We ate beans and eggs for breakfast and encima, rice and chicken at dinner. We often skipped lunch, snacking on apples and crackers, so we could get to the villages faster. 

We met people who live life one day at a time; people who gather and savor every morsel of home-grown food so that they can benefit from every nutrient possible. Our lives are so different and our lives are so much the same. We asked a crowd of parents what their dreams were for their children and they were the same as ours: education and a good job. We sang, we danced, we spoke in broken Chichewa. We held hands and hugged and clapped when children recited the alphabet in English. 

We are all blessed. And through the humanitarian work that our Church performs both here and overseas, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ.