Hope Amidst Change

It was last weekend, the 27th February, 2016 that Echoes of Grace Malawi had an event in Blantyre hoping to perform at its main market and to have a jumble sale aimed at raising some funds for the group. How did it go?

Well, it didn’t turn out as we had planned. We didn’t perform due to some other reasons. We left the place a bit discouraged and Ruth MacBean, our Artistic Director took notice of that. She took us to her place where we had a lot of chat, and tried out on the instruments. We also had a time of prayer for the group. Ruth was also kind enough to prepare us some fresh pizza by herself! It was relieving and we all felt a strong sense of belonging. When we left, we thought it was all done for the day just to realise there was another mission ahead of us.

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On our way back, since we were a cluster of us, one of the members had told us she was visiting her brother who was admitted at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, which is about 200 metres from the MacBeans. We felt it was good to escort her, a few of us. We couldn’t believe what happened at the hospital upon our arrival!

“Would you sing me one of your songs?” the patient asked us. We couldn’t navigate how, our artistic Directors were not there to facilitate. It could have been a bit easy at the market in Ruth’s company. We also couldn’t say no to this yearning young man. Albeit, we saw ourselves bold enough. “We surely can sing,” one of us affirmed. It was until we started singing that we could not figure out what exactly the Lord wanted us to do.

We sang one of our self-composed songs, ‘Mau Ake (His Word)’ Here are some parts of the song translated in English:

‘Have you ever heard of the gospel,which was, is , and will be? …
Blessed are they that hear the Word of God and do it.
If one loves me, will keep my Word…
(Refrain)
His Word is sweeter than honey…”

We had such unimaginable strength to sing. We noticed such a rare silence as the whole ward was listening to the song. These were some of the comments we got after;
“Your song is singable! Rich with the Word! Come again to sing! I can’t resist the message in the song!…”

in the corridor at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital

We were encouraged being with them. The Lord had taught us a lesson, that even in the midst of change or chaos, there’s hope in Him. We could feel the unfathomable love of Christ spread across the entire ward, we could see it on their smiles and on the faces of the guardians. There’s hope in the middle of changes in life.