Where I Stay

Not long after I arrived in Malawi, I began to notice people using the expression “where I stay.”  When you ask someone where he or she lives, they will say: “I stay in Chirimba.”  Where I stay indicates the place in which they reside currently.  One’s home is the village or township in which one is born.  I believe when someone owns a house here your birthplace remains your “home.”Perhaps because I am 8,000 miles away from where I stay in Connecticut this has special meaning for me. Even Connecticut is where I stay compared to California, which is where I was born.  And, Malawi is certainly where I stay currently.

Maybe it’s my situation, but the global world that we have watched emerge during the past century seems to have arrived on the scene quite suddenly.   It is like I have been studying an ancient cartogram and cross checking it with a contemporary atlas only to have someone open up Google satellite maps and say, “Let me put in the address and see if I can find it.”  What was once in the distance is now close at hand.

During its programs, the BBC offers both a call in number and Twitter to gather comments from listeners from Australia to Austin, Texas to Angola about issues such as the lifting of the fuel subsidies in Nigeria.   Being on mission in Malawi, I am aware of the opportunity we have as members of the Anglican Communion to be the light of Christ in this interconnected and quickly changing world whether we are partnering with a local social service program or a church or school in another country.

The middle window is mine
and looks out to the green

I am interconnected myself with several Episcopal communities in the United States: Trinity Hartford, Trinity Wethersfield, All Saints’ Beverly Hills, Thad’s in Santa Monica, and Holy Spirit in Silver Lake, and each of them in their own way embrace and welcome the other.  These churches represent another aspect of “where I stay” because for many members their “homes” are elsewhere, and the church provides a place to belong, sort out their faith in God, and find a way to channel frustrations in ways that will bring about justice. 

Agricultural Office Martin in the green

As Anglicans, we have a lot to celebrate and to share with others about welcoming and being received by the other both locally and globally.  

And, I look with hope as we continue to engage in being the Universal Church as we wrestle with the growing pains of living in our ever more interconnected global world.   After being here in Malawi working and worshiping with fellow Anglicans, I will never again pray for the Universal Church on Sunday in the same way.