Over Easter weekend, I visited
Ku Chawe in Zomba, an exclusive inn which sits on top of a mountain.
Ku Chawe means “in the clouds.” Along the road to
the top of the mountain, there are people selling vegetables,
especially at the curves, because this is where you naturally
slow down. When they hear a car coming, they pick up their baskets
and bowls of potatoes, blackberries, rhubarb, tomatoes, raspberries,
and advance towards the car, hawking their wares. It was painful
to pass them and not buy anything. At the turn to the dirt road
up the hill to the inn, there was an especially large group of
women and children selling potatoes. As we slowed down to turn,
they surged towards the car, pushing their baskets through the
windows, “Madam, good price!” “Madam, 100 kwachas!”
“Madam, 70 kwachas!” Nothing would deter them from
trying harder. As we traveled up the road, some ran alongside
our car, still attempting to sell us their baskets of potatoes.
One girl ran along the car up the hill and we promised her, “Mawa”
(tomorrow). So, when we showed up the next day, she recognized
our car, and began shouting, “Mawa, Mawa!” We bought
her potatoes and tipped the basket of them onto the floor of the
car. Along the way, our car became loaded with vegetables, wooden
stick puppets made and sold by children, a carved wooden Noah’s
ark, and whatever we thought we could use. The vendors were allowed
up to the gate to Ku Chawe , but were not allowed on the property.
Peter and John did not give the beggar money. Instead they did
what Jesus did. They restored the man to wholeness. It occurred
to me that although Jesus turned the water into wine, he never
turned the stones into gold. He knew that money was not the key
to restoration. What is poverty anyway? It is lack of hope. It
is living only to struggle to survive and never expecting more
than the struggle. It is running up the hill everyday with a basket
of potatoes without ever making it through the gate called Beautiful
into the presence of God. On that day, Peter and John gave the
beggar his walking shoes so that he could make it through Beautiful
on his own. And boy, did he praise God as he walked through the
temple courts! He could have been left there, unable to walk,
with a coin in his pocket.
As Americans, I realize it is sometimes too easy for us to give
money. It is easier to walk blindly by someone in need and hand
out some money, than to look straight at the suffering and be
acquainted with it. Peter and John looked straight at the beggar.
They knew the man’s real need and they engaged with him.
What the eye does not see, the heart does not understand. Perhaps
we are afraid of what we may feel called to give if we understand
I had difficulty accepting my own blessings when I saw the suffering
of those who were without them. Yet, I realized that it was by
God’s grace that I had received these blessings, so I should
embrace them and be a good steward of them. I am in Malawi, still
struggling with what I am called to give. I ask myself this question
anew daily. I am learning that God has the plan and I am only
called to know it one day at a time.
Charlotte Gott
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