Reminders of the future

Posted by Cam

I was having a look through some of our old photos from our 2007 trip to Malawi/Africa – this was the trip where we decided we shouldn’t go to Africa – and found my favourites, which reminded me of things that we will be doing in the future. 

The not so distant future.  Its only 9 months really.  Women can make a baby in that time – not that we are, we already have a really good new one.

Anyway, here are the photos….

The first was of a little boy who was in a village watching us walk by as the World Vision staff showed us community projects when we were visiting our sponsor child.  This little fella seemed so chilled and happy.  He reminds me though that for all the happiness and good picutre-ness his future isn’t very assured.  He has a high chance of getting a serious disease and, while we tell our kids they can be anything they want, this isn’t really the case for him.  If he survives past 5 and gets an education and secures an economic future he is doing really well.  Maybe we can be involved in helping some little kids have a slightly better future, that would be cool.  Aside from the serious gloomy stuff, I like this photo and I know Jack, Tills and Syd will make good friends with kids like this and we will have heaps of fun all hanging out.

The next is from a day I spent with Jonno riding out to the villages and spending the day meeting people and looking at the gardens.  We spent time with the one guy below, who I now know as the “potato guy”.  We walked past his plot on the way to meet him.  The guy showing us around explained that there was something wrong with his potatoes and then when we met him, here he was planting some more.  Looking at his previous crop, it seemed that they were suffering common late blight, and probably needed a different variety or new seed potatoes, but here he was faithfully planting a new crop with the hope of a better crop.  Little did he know that he was probably planting the same problem in the same seed potatoes that he used for the last crop.  It would be cool to help with this sort of thing.  In what way, and through what means I have no clue but the opportunity exists.

The last one is from the same day in the bush.  This photo reminds me that most of the gig is about being with people and enjoying the friendships.  Relationships earn the possibility to share Good News and that’s why we’re going.