Miller's March 2023 Details

Tropical Cyclone Freddy Relief

We partnered with Red Cross Malawi to help provide relief to those hit hardest by Cyclone Freddy. While we just had heavy rains and some blackouts in the Central Region, down in the South an estimated 350,000 individuals displaced, 1000 injured, 438 dead, and many still missing. Some estimates report an quarter of the country’s food has been destroyed during and after the storm. Please keep Malawi in your prayers during this time of relief and recovery.

Village Trainings

A week after the training about cholera at Mngwangwa, Thoko says the teaching “Has really made an impact, 4 people started making ORS.” Christina also had the opportunity to work with her friend Sue to bring a women’s health training to a group of 88 primary school girls at Ngala ya pa Kamwa village. Greg is continuing to work with leaders at NTCCA to develop practical trainings for pastors in the villages.

Friends Visiting

We hosted a good friend, in March, Jason Blanchard, former CEO of Malamulo Hospital in the South. It was great to catch up and hear about his new vision for building healthcare capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Trip to the Lake

Greg and I spent a complimentary weekend at the lake at our friends’ lovely Danforth Retreat. It was some of the best rest we’ve had at the lake, due in part to heavy rains which kept us under cover instead of in the sun on the first day. Although we planned too go home after two nights, flooding made the road impassable, so we stayed another night. This was the first time we’ve stayed at one place in Malawi for more than two nights. Overall, it was a nice way to welcome in Holy Week.

Christina’s “Sabbatical”

Christina has finally decorated the guest room in her backyard into a retreat area where she can read and be away from work and technology. Whether she spends 15 minutes or an hour there, it has been a great place for solitude and prayer. Christina is also planning to spend one night away from home on a prayer retreat during the first week of April. Please pray that this will be a time of rest and direction.

The Vacation We Needed

Sometimes it’s stressful getting ready for a vacation. I feel like I have to finish up all my work so that I can stay unconnected while I’m away. For some reason, this time, the emails kept coming in even at 10 pm the night before we left. It had been a full day, with meetings and then driving out to a village to do a teaching. And the morning before we left, I felt the need to stop in at ABC for a clinician conference, and then run the dogs so they didn’t have too much energy. By the time we finally left, I was already tired and definitely ready to get away.

The trip was easy, as easy as driving in Malawi usually is. Lots of potholes and an entire portion of the road diverted to some flooded wet areas, but we arrived in good time. It was lovely arriving at our friends’ lake retreat – blue skies and open lawns for lounging. We just relaxed outside the first afternoon. But I was already feeling a bit of anxiety about the next day. Would we snorkel? Would we take a boat to the island? What about kayaking or bike riding or jogging down the road or walking down the beach? Leave it to me to stress out about how we vacation.

That night, it rained heavily, and then the rain continued throughout the next day. We did walk down the beach, and I did a workout on the deck overlooking the water, and I read a bit and drank a lot of tea and ate a lot of snacks. But we didn’t do much. We planned to leave after the second night, but the roads had flooded with all the rain. Our friend invited us to stay a third night, so we got a bonus day at the beach – this time enjoying the sun sparkling on the water.

We still didn’t do much, we were fully in relaxed mode at that point, so we listened to the water and read and lounged on couches in covered areas. We stayed out of the now blazing sun, we fought to keep ants away from our treats. By the end of the third day, I was running out of my treat stash of chocolate and tea that I brought with me, but everything else was idyllic. Greg and I were finally able to talk through some things like plans for the future. I read a couple novels. We ate dinner with our friend. We enjoyed the sun and the shade and the bliss of not having to do anything. I napped. We went to bed early. And when it was time to leave, we were rested, and the roads were passable.

It wasn’t the vacation we planned, but it was definitely the vacation we needed.

Breaking Point

I broke yesterday. Just really shattered in heart and mind and spirit. It had been a long week, lots of deadlines and not much sleep. It had been a long day, 90 minutes driving into the village and on muddy roads. The teaching went well, really well I think. But lunch had been late by an hour so Thoko had asked me to keep the teaching going. We answered all the questions about the training, and then we sat and answered everyone’s health questions for an extra hour or so. I liked helping people, but there were some things which were hard – a baby who wasn’t growing well, a man who needed an inhaler and the local hospital couldn’t find one for him. We talked with Thoko afterward, and made a plan to see which people we could help. Our money was stretched thin, we were running out of cash. We had to decide together who could be helped and how.

And then we started driving home. Nixon told us to take a different road from usual because the rains had washed out our usual path. Then we got lost. As roads turned to maize fields and things looked more and more familiar, I felt like I was hanging on by a thread. It wasn’t just things in Malawi which were difficult right now. Last night, I learned that a dear friend was critically injured from an unexpected accident. She was going in for a second surgery today, and the trauma team still didn’t know how things would turn out. I unconsciously touched the ring hanging on the necklace around my neck. I wear a copy of my brother’s ring every year around this time, a reminder of the fragility of life, a reminder to focus on what is most important.

And then I get a message from my one of my missionary friend’s husbands. “She’s in the hospital. She collapsed on the road.” I text him that we are driving back from the village and I can’t get to the hospital to see her right now. I try to call her. Neither of our words get through. Then I run out of minutes to call. A motorcycle crashed into her car. She collapsed from the stress. I could relate; I was starting to lose control of my own stress reactions.

The road was difficult, jarring us every meter or so. And we still weren’t sure we were on the right road. I had forgotten my lumbar support pillow and my chronic back pain was acting up in addition to everything else. Greg finally said something, an innocent comment about how difficult driving was right now. That was my breaking point – I just started wailing. I couldn’t take the pain and uncertainty in my closest friends, friends I wanted to help but was far away from. The feeling of being lost, the feeling of being overextended, the feeling of being jarred by the road and pinched physically and emotionally and mentally. I simmered to a whimper, apologizing to Greg every few breaths.

I want Greg to feel like he is allowed to express his frustration. I know that I shouldn’t rely on his strength so much that it is all that is holding me together. I try so hard to build rest and resilience into my life. I want to be there for my friends. But I myself was breaking at that moment.

In the end, we found our way and got back home. Hours after we planned, but safely home. Interestingly, it was the call of another friend along the road that helped. She wanted to discuss another community training. We had planned to meet tomorrow. Her call gave me a chance to say that I was overextended. Could we meet another day? I wanted a chance to rest tomorrow. Things didn’t get better all at once. But little by little we got through the crisis. My other friend was discharged from the hospital. We brought her kids pizza. We called the daughter of my other friend, the surgeons weren’t saying how the procedure went, but at least she was stable. I stayed up late again, but I submitted some projects by their deadlines, and I made plans to take space away from certain work the following week.

I don’t like the hard times. I don’t like admitting that I hit my breaking point in spite of all my attempts at boundaries and margin and rest.But this isn’t an easy road we tread, and sometimes the sickness hits close to home.