A Day in the Life of a Missionary

Life in Malawi is never dull for the Burns family as they go through routines of ministry, homeschooling three children and normal family activities.

This morning at 6 am I found Chet already outside trying to remove the turbo from the engine of his 4-Runner, the vehicle he had hoped to use to transport us to the various areas where we are presenting our seminars. He has been trying to get this fixed but the mechanics in this village were not coming to get it so he took it out himself. We have been using their pickup truck that has a back seat, but often won’t start until we pray and try pushing it.

When I came in to take a shower, there was a bit of excitement as I heard that Peter, one of their sons, had discovered a tick in his lower belly and was having it removed and treated by Mamma and Papa in the kitchen.

Yesterday, Pastor Kololo, our translator for the day, called on his cell phone to say he would meet us on the way to the village where Pastor Brian was going to teach, because his bicycle had broken down. We picked him up and put his bike in the back, delivering it to the local bike repair “shop”, some tools and parts under a tree, hoping it would be fixed by the time we returned. Pastor Kololo had no money to pay for bike repairs so Chet worked out the price with the repairman and paid 3,000 Kwatcha down (about $17), with a promise of another kw500 when it was fixed. He did have it ready when we returned.

Later that afternoon, after we returned from Pastor Brian’s part 2 seminar , Chet found out that a local pastor’s elderly mother who had broken a leg was being released from the hospital. He asked me to go with him to help transport her to her village. You don’t even want to know the details of that “ambulance” trip!

Middle of the night calls for emergency trips from a village over an hour away to the hospital in Ntcheu, on rough dirt roads, electricity going off in the middle of baking bread in the electric oven, poisonous snakes in the yard, vehicles breaking down just as they are needed for an important day of ministry… that’s life at the Burns’ house.

-Rich H