Why am I here?

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Jeremiah 29:7This is not an existential question, quite the opposite. Jacqueline and I were very grateful for the ways in which God steered us in our decision to come to Malawi. 

Doing ‘something overseas’ had been on our minds since before we were married. The enthusiasm of those early days of marriage dulled a little with the arrival of a mortgage, jobs and ultimately children. We were perhaps at a stage of writing the notion off until the kids were older and we were ‘free’ again.

Then I learned about this role in Malawi with the Church of Scotland. We were curious, prayerful, inspired, excited and terrified over the coming weeks as we pursued it. Genuinely thinking it wouldn’t work out, but that it was right to ‘push the door’.

Even when the offer was given it took a while for us to find peace in the decision. The story of Jonah came up independently in each of the books we were reading and in a sermon in church. We felt God’s direction and sense of humour, in this and so many other small things.

Now here I am. I’ve been in Malawi for about a month to settle into the role and make preparations for the family. I’m now starting to understand what my role might look like. A little.

I’m working with the Church and Society Programme of the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia. A department of the local church in Malawi that champions human rights, seeks to provide access to justice for all, promotes good governance and fair democracy, and that mitigates for the impacts of climate change. The remit is huge and includes numerous projects that address first-hand issues such as corruption, human trafficking, gender based violence and child marriage.

Before I travelled I was being quite vague about what my role would be. I’d describe my role as helping CSP to do more of this work, so that more people might benefit – and that’s true.

In reality, we’re a small team and job titles are set aside to get things done by making the most of the skills available. Officially, I am the Resource Mobilisation and Communications Manager. I will spend a significant amount of my time trying to get the support of international funders and in part this will mean helping CSP to effectively communicate what it has already achieved and what it is doing right now.

I’ll be visiting projects, writing reports and applications, networking with others who are working in similar areas or who might be interested in funding our work. I’ll certainly be learning huge amounts as we go.

These aren’t abstract concepts though. These are real situations in the lives of people here. A couple of weeks ago I got chatting with a paralegal who helps run our one stop clinic providing legal support to victims of gender based violence. The clinic is run in a hospital and every day that its open they have another 6 or 7 people come for help. That day a woman arrived with a serious head wound and had to be treated in the hospital first. So desperate was she to escape the violence that she’d forego treatment to get legal help first. This is violence that women and girls face in their own homes. On other days, they’ve helped girls not much older than Eilidh.

In the few weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve been reminded that these projects are not simply about meeting global goals but about bringing God’s peace. And it’s needed urgently.

Photo Credit: Chris Hoskins Photography