Off to Church

Chirimba, Limbe, Malawi

This morning we are off to the Presbyterian Church for Sunday morning service. The Malawians are always very gracious when they have guests from America. I sat up in the front area with the pastor, other clergy, and the lay leaders of the church. The service was in English, so it was like attending church in San Francisco. The singing was wonderful and they sang hymns with which I was familiar. A trio of young men sang a couple of selections with taped music, and they were great. After the service we toured the property on which the church is building a new fellowship hall, and they have plans toconstruct a building for the children. This was a prosperous church by Malawi standards, but there is a constant need for resources, mainly money to complete buildings and grounds projects.

The rest of the day was restful, and we planned for the upcoming week. On Wednesday we will go out and try to collect a few more interviews with traditional healers in the rural areas.

I decided in the last week that it would be interesting to collect advertisements from the local news papers placed by traditional healers or people selling herbal products to treat medical conditions, including HIV/AIDS. The process is interesting, and this could be a separate study in itself. So we will see what this activity yields.