Church of the Wide Road

June 14

When we drove from Malawi to Mozambique yesterday, we caught our first glimpse of how beautiful the countryside of Malawi is. Rolling verdant mountains, fertile valleys, and big rivers. We also experienced just how rough the roads for when we neared the border. Suffice it to say that they are the roughest roads I have ever driven any distance on. Nedson and Sebber have the equivalent of Toyota 4-Runners, and we all just jostled around like rag dolls. Because of the recent civil war in Mozambique, the infrastructure, even on the Malawi side, is in very rough shape.
Today we ventured out from Mutarara into the rural villages of Tete Province. What I would have pictured when I heard "rural" is not what I actually experienced. To me, rural meant "far from town," which is true, but it also meant long stretches of open space between where people live, which is not true. This is a very rural setting, but the land is crawling with people. On these sometimes barely passable roads or trails, there is one hut and tiny patch of tilled ground, then another, then another. Rarely is there unoccupied space, at least along the way.
We bumped along until we came to a tiny village (read: slightly more condensed collection of huts) called Njanjanja. This was the site of a new church development of about 20-25 people, some of whom moved from another village to help begin this congregation. They met us enthusiastically as we drove up, singing and dancing. The trail we had been driving on became significantly wider as we approached. We soon learned why: the church had widened the road in anticipation of our visit, chopping plants and roots with an adze and sweeping the area with a twig-broom.
The church structure was a thatch roof supported by several upright logs. The dirt floor had been wetted down so it wouldn't be dusty; already goat hoofprints imprinted the soft clay ground like decorative stamping. What a beautiful welcome!