There's a new Sharif in town...

Wow, so much has happened in the last few days I can tell you it has been one of the most memorable experiences in  my life and I think it's safe to say I'm not alone.
We spent Sunday at one of the local church's and enjoyed a fantastic message from Hebrews and an hours worth of tremendous praise and worship. I'm not sure what I expected from church here but whatever it was this exceeded my expectations. I was told prior to this trip from people who have been here before that you will be changed more than you will make change...I think I understand what they mean now.
Monday was simply incredible. I haven't felt so much raw emotion and deep compassion in a long time, if ever. We started the day in the slums of Lilongwe. It sounds so harsh to say "slums" but that's in fact what they are. There are thousands of people packed, actually crammed into a small geographic area bordered on one side by train tracks and the other a few of the only factories in the area. I was told by the staff from Somebody Cares that these people had moved here hoping to find work in one of these factories and when they couldn't find work they just settled in the area. The Home Based Care workers do a wonderful job in working with and caring for the orphans, widows and most vulnerable people in that area, and that's where my experience and our day started.
We were greeted again by a group of orphaned children, singing, dancing, reciting school lessons but most of all jockeying for position to be touched by one of the people from our team. This greeting has become the norm, not the exception, and so far I haven't tired of it and I don't think you ever could.
As we left the feeding center where the orphans and teachers were and made our way deeper into the actual slum we broke into 3 groups paired with a Home Based Care worker. Mendy and JP were one team, Jake and Bruce another and finally Mallorie, Dave and Myself. One of the first things I noticed was close everything was. I don't know if was the actual physical space or just the number of people, but it was tight and even more so as we got deeper. As we would breakout of what would be equivalent to an alley onto a wider road we would pick more random children following us from street to street apparently with nothing else to do its easy to follow the Azunga pipers of Lilongwe, at least that's how it felt to me. Our guide Cathrine led us safely through the market and Dave was a big it, literally as he pretended to hit his 6 foot 10 inch head on shop roofs as he passed by; everyone thought that was hilarious and it quickly lighted any heaviness in the air.
Our team visited 4 different homes and had a chance to sit and talk with those patients Home Based Care is working with. We hauled water from a near by well and I was shocked when I looked down the well and saw the condition of the water, fortunately it's only a quick 20 minute walk to get fresh clean drinking water and they only use that water for cooking or bathing. We asked a lot of questions and really got an insight into what some of the day to day life for these people in the slums is like.
At our 2nd stop I fell in love and lost all control of my emotions. We visited a grandmother who was caring fro 7 children, 5 from the same family whose parents had died from HIV. The youngest child was 5 month old Sharif. Oh, what a sweet boy Sharif is. He was fussy and crying when we arrived and so Mallorie held him for awhile and he calmed down and enjoyed her index finger as a pacifier. I couldn't handle it anymore and just had to hold him so she reluctantly relinquished. My former baby father instincts kicked in and before I realized it I was singing "You are my sunshine" softly into his ear as both of our eyes started to get heavy. I just stared at him as he slept and I couldn't help thinking about my own kids back home and remembering these same feelings i had when holding them; Only instead of thinking about the great opportunities that lay ahead for my children I thought of the incredible struggle and challenges that lay ahead for little Sharif.
I know I see everything as we all do from a very Western perspective and it's impossible for me to fully understand what these people go through or how they feel about their life but I can only imagine it's much more difficult then my day to day even on my hardest days. Not to say we don't struggle, but we have been given so much. Somehow for some reason God chose to put us in Gilbert, AZ and essentially chose us to win the geographic lottery, all of us that have reasonable transportation, access to basic necessities, let alone luxuries like soap are so rich in comparison. Only for the grace of God go I, I'm no better then these people and in most cases could learn so much about attitude and joy but I'm so much better off, I had no idea.
I could have stayed there all day just singing and holding that little guy but we had other things to do and so it was my turn to reluctantly relinquish him to one of his sisters. As we left the dark house and stepped back into the sunlight it must have started to rain...I'm sure that's why my cheeks were so wet.
Later that same day we visited the Child Crisis Center just down the road from Somebody Cares. The Child Crisis Center is for babies up to 22 months old that have been orphaned or abandoned by their parents. Again I was anticipating the worst when I heard about it, but this time I was pleasantly surprised! It was great, the children are no less desperate as a matter of fact some may eventually be worse off but for the time being the are well cared cared for and most importantly loved by the amazing people there. We were able to hold the babies and take the older ones out to a play area where we could lay around on the big carpet area and just play with the babies, feed them and just love on them for awhile. it was so awesome to watch everyone with the kids, big Dave with a little baby in his arms, tough guy JP talking baby talk to little Rachel trying to get her to laugh, Mendy with 3 babies on her at the same time and Jake was the first to reach into a crib and love on one. it was just cool to see how much genuine love was being poured out and what a great vision of how our Father in Heaven has poured His love out on us.
It was another one of those days on this trip that I'm sure none of us will ever forget. We should have the playground finished in the next couple days and moving on to the painting project by Thursday!

Blessings,

Spencer