It is Christmas Eve. That time of waiting and hoping. As I look back over the months since last Christmas, my mind alights on a little girl named Precious. In July the small mission group I traveled with to Malawi arrived very late to a preaching point in her village. The van and pastor picked us up hours after the appointed time and the roads were crowded, dusty and narrow. She sat unseen by me amidst thirty or so people on low split-log benches underneath a canopy of branches. Our group of North Americans was motioned toward chairs up front. They wished to honor us and while I smiled and accepted their special treatment with gratitude, I found their sitting on rough benches while I sat front and center on one of the few kitchen chairs uncomfortable. The vestiges of colonialism remain, separating people on the basis of race and nationality and economic privilege. To see this scene through the overlay of the nativity story, it was as if we were the wise ones having traveled from afar looking for someone special only to find ourselves misplaced in the center of the great star’s light.
This shift of attention away from an emerging local leader to foreign seeker coming with gifts happens all too often in mission endeavors. Given time, God rightly and faithfully reorients the view.
The village elders described their need for a village well—the women have to travel a couple of miles and walk down a steep ravine to a river to find water and then it is muddy and increasingly polluted by the growing population n the area, and a school—their children must walk eight miles to school, some staying away all week, and that means the girls who help with the toting of water can’t attend much. Oh, yes, and they need access to a medical clinic. Health care is only available in Mzuzu. . And, while we were at it, they’d love to have a satellite tailoring school for their girls so they can begin to make and sell clothing to enhance their incomes. Then they showed off their scholars —young, shy, students told us of their aspirations. Then one woman stepped forward. She wanted us to come see her house. We crossed the road and headed up the hill passing by homes where people yelled, “hello” as they tended the chickens or spread out ground maize to dry on brightly colored cloth. Precious, the woman’s youngest child shyly offered her hand to show me the way.
When we arrived at the one room house, the woman described how she had made the bricks by hand—scooping up the rich red mud, mixing it with water she hauled from the river—shaping them into uniform shapes and leaving them in the sun until they were baked rock-hard. The local pastor added that the church had raised $35 dollars to send a mason with mortar to help mother and children raise the walls on the one-room house.
Precious was still holding my hand as we looked inside the well-swept and kept home. Assorted relatives squatted in the courtyard tending the fire and animals. Then, over the hill, came Precious’ father. His eyes were red and bleary.. He swayed as he sauntered over saying over and over, “My house, My family, my wife, my children.” His wife glowered as he tried to claim credit for building the house. Precious cowered behind me until he reached for her arm and hauled her toward him.
He looked at me, “You want her? Take her with you. I have plenty more.” I stood there horrified. Take the child? “She’s yours. She’s so beautiful. She belongs here.” He insisted and Precious broke free and came over to me. I didn’t know if the expression I saw was fear, pleading, confusion or compliance on her face.
The pastor stepped forward to turn the situation and us around. I hugged Precious, handed her to her mother and we all turned back to the path that had brought us to this corner of beautiful Malawi that overlooked green hills and red roads. “Bye, Precious.” We walked a while and I turned back to find her following us at a distance. I waved and walked on but have carried her in my memory.
It’s been six months since I saw that little girl but she stands in the center of my Christmas prayer. May
unexpected hope again find its way into a rudimentary structure with animals all around to bring peace and hope (and clean water, and education and health care) to a small Malawian village and smaller girl-child, named Precious, in the days to come. And may it become clear what gift I have to offer her. She’s given a precious one to me: the gift of a hand to show the way.
