By Jeff Town

Flawlessly manicured in a precise hue of blood red polish, her nails tapped my letter on her thick glass desk – a repetitive code cutting the silence of the chic office.

Six months earlier, I shook that same hand to accept a job to head a multi-million-dollar sales team of 14 at an upscale fashion store.

“I don’t understand. You’re leaving to go to Maui ??”

“No, it’s Malawi.” “Where is that?”

“Southern Africa.” “To do what ???”

“To build water filters.”

Yep, I quit my 60K-a-year job with Canada’s premier fashion and luxury goods retailer to go on a six-month internship with Samaritan’s Purse and the Canadian International Development Agency. On a minimal monthly stipend, I stepped into the warm heart of Africa – Malawi.

High fashion

In 2003, with a BA in communications tucked under my arm, I left the safety bubble of my private Christian liberal arts education at Trinity Western University to go out into the world.

In the years following I garnered work experience with: the global advertising firm TBWA; one of Canada's top fashion designers at New York Fashion Week; a London-based magazine as a freelancer writer; and several years in Calgary as a sales associate with the Henry Singer Fashion Group (selling over half a million dollars a year in designer menswear).

What’s it like to be a 25 year old at the  top of his game, wearing suits hand-made in Italy? It fits quite well . . . for a time.

Erosion of purpose

Long before the opportunity to go to Malawi presented itself, a slow erosion of purpose and passion developed in my life.

Still actively involved as a leader in church and ministry, with a wide circle of friends and family, I felt numb. I wasn’t happy or sad; simply alive.

When friends were killed in an automobile collision as they moved to Montreal to start a new life, something inside of me changed. Tragedy made me aware that not only was I not passionate about my job, but that there had to more to life. 

A growing trend in the 20-to-30-year-old North American born generation is to seek satisfaction not through financial security but in the ability to contribute and make a tangible and positive impact.

The warm heart of Africa

On the encouragement of a friend, I applied for a Samaritan’s Purse internship with CIDA – an opportunity I had known about through three friends who had participated in the project.

To my astonishment, I was accepted.

Within weeks, I found myself in a foreign land with a few instructions, small duffle bag of clothes and necessities – and an overwhelming desire to learn and serve another nation.

In a country made up of Christians, Muslims and the traditional Yao people, holiday seasons such as Christmas are not about consumerism, but celebration.

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While Western customs are creeping in through South African media and chain retailers, the core of the celebration is simple and wholehearted.

In temperatures exceeding 30°C, ‘the Warm Heart of Africa’ lives up to its nickname with a passion for celebrating life.

From the birth of a child, to weddings and funerals, all major life events in Malawi are announced with singing, shouting and a good meal. Christmas celebrations start with drums heard throughout the night as people gather at traditional dances. 

A proud people, Malawians don their best clothes as they sing songs in the national language of Chichewa. People gather in homes for parties that go well into the night, eating the best food, splurging beyond their staple diet of nseema  and chicken to buy extra meat, sweet potato biscuits and glass bottles of soda.

“I get Fanta . . . and drink many Coke,” says 10 year old Innocent, one of seven living in a two-room mud brick home. His father, a farmer earns an above-average income for a Malawian, 8,000  Kwatcha – or $53 CDN per month.

 Innocent smiles ear-to-ear as he describes the Christmas to come.

"Oh, oh, and we will dance," he says, demonstrating his dance moves. I was challenged. How little it took to bring such pleasure to him. Dancing to the radio and, sipping his Christmas gift of Coca-Cola.

If Malawians know how to celebrate, they also live with some somber realities. About 14 percent of Malawians live with AIDS, a pandemic that has redefined the whole continent of Africa. One in seven Malawian women die in childbirth.

Girls often receive little education. Children suffer from malnutrition and diarrhea, preventable diseases. Faced with these issues I constantly questioned my role. Over time I realized that the first step was to simply to be aware of issues. Choosing to care and respond must be the second step.

With just simple pleasures and yet profound needs, the Malawians had something I wanted. In this environment I realized there that I had slowly lost my heart in Canada.

My soul had become numb.

I had prayed for a year and a half . . . for an adventure . . . to see the world beyond my understanding . . . to have stories to tell my future children. God let me go through an adventure, travel across the globe to find my soul again in the warm heart of Africa. I had prayed for the opportunity to have to rely on my God. As Christians we typically choose him, but to rely on him in a day-to-day sense for survival . . . that was what I desired. 

Choice

While we don’t all need to go to a developing country to experience the depth of creation and the levels of need we are called to serve, we must be in touch with our desire and be willing to make a choice.

It was in the quiet stillness of my sojourn from Western culture that I started to hear God clearly.

While we do need our community, mentors and family speaking into our lives, sometimes God is just waiting for us to make a choice, in order to bless our journey. In leaving my job, community and country to build water filters and teach community health, I stepped out of myself, radically walking in a new level of faith; revelation I will utilize back to the ‘first world.’

Options Fall 2008