Across the Ocean

Posted by: Shawn Buxton - Wednesday, October 26, 2011

It has been over a year since our return from Malawi back to the Queen City. A year! A year since I have seen the dozens of Malawian faces that I had come to admire, love on, laugh with, cry for and miss now. During my time in Malawi, the third poorest country in the world, I found myself in the unexpected role as the Interim Director for the Hope for AIDS project, which meant that I was to take care of all the financials for the orphan daycare centers and secondary school scholarships along with the AIDS peer prevention groups and AIDS home-based care groups.  Each of these areas worked out in the villages where medical, financial, and educational resources are non-existant. After a few months in, I realized the 360 degrees I had taken from sitting in Watershed’s transit service to sitting in a small, hot office in Malawi…that I literally was watching Watershed’s resources go through my hands to help feed the poor, give vitamins to the malnourished, give hope through paid school fees for students and give children, whose parents were HIV victims, an education that they probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.

My first trip out of the city where we lived was to the small village of Phingo where we had an orphan daycare center that Watershed supports. Phingo was amazing! Not only did I realize how extremely necessary it was to have a little Chichewa under my belt, but I also didn't realize how my heart would overflow with immense feelings of pure LIFE.  In a way it was a surprising feeling.  It seemed to me that poverty and death, being so blatant and unmistakable as it was, would bring feelings of hopelessness and despair.  However, what I found in Phingo was completely opposite -- the children, with their tattered shirts and dresses, facial sores, and ringworm on scalps and arms, crowded around me singing worship songs at the top of their lungs, jumping up and down and clapping their hands to the beat.  I stood there laughing with them and tried to join them in their singing.  I could feel my heart start to take over; it was like my soul just burst open with these new feelings of love, compassion, mercy, and happiness to see their smiling faces and hear their voices worshiping to God.  I could only think of the time that Jesus called the children to come to Him, and as they did He reminded the disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to those who were like the children—fearless in their faith and love!

I also accompanied the coordinator to pay the secondary school fees for the 25 students that Watershed supports in that area.  Literally it took an hour one-way off the main road, up the mountain and alongside the river to reach one school, and there was four different secondary schools to pay fees for in this region. The eternal perspective of these situations is not difficult to see and understand.  These children and students are FOREVER transformed because of Watershed's investment into their lives. It was truly humbling for me to be able to witness these things first-hand. I was able to be on both sides of these stories— one in the US where the Watershed community is giving resources weekly and another in Malawi where Watershed’s monthly support literally went through my hands to feed these children and pay for their school fees. Justice, mercy and God’s love is bringing LIFE to hundreds in Malawi because of the resources given by our Watershed community.  Thanks, Watershed! 

Written by Jamie McCollum, who along with husband Daniel, and Jonathan and Kayla George (all from our Watershed community) lived for a year in Malawi, Africa from 2009-2010.