The Day I Thanked God I am Malawian

I did the most foolish thing you should never do: forget your health passport when going to a country that explicitly states that all travelers from Africa and Latin America should show proof of their yellow fever vaccination. May be because I don’t usually travel to such countries and so I don’t have to carry my health passport with me everywhere I go, I just plain forgot to take it with me. I can still see exactly in my mind where I left it. Anyways, there I was in Bangkok on Wednesday afternoon around 3 pm and about to retrieve my baggage and then, lo and behold, I see the health passport booth teeming with people, many of who I recognized from my Ethiopian Airways flight to be pastors attending the Global Proclamation Congress for Pastoral Trainers (www.gprocongress.org). That’s when it dawned on me. I had left the health passport behind! Now, we say in Malawi that rain water does not forget its path so I found my default setting conjuring up plans on how I was going to lie that I had lost it on the way or some sad African story. But then Pastor Felix kicked in and said that’s a sin. Then I started making plans about how I was going to call my wife Towela (very much dreading the thought) to ask her to DHL it. But would it get here in time for me to speak at the exposition session Thursday morning at 9 am? I didn’t think so. So I said, “Lord, whatever you decide for me because You knew about this moment long before I got here.” Then I saw some people going to a male nurse behind the counter seemingly to get a vaccination with some Benjamins in their hands. I thought to myself, smart people these Thais: they don’t want to lose your tourist dollars because you don’t have proof of your yellow fever vaccination so they make you pay. I resigned myself to whatever would happen to me including parting with my dear Benjamins so that when I got to the counter some 30 minutes later, I just told the nurse that I had forgotten my health passport. The nurse smiled at me and said, “No problem at all. Malawi is not on our list of countries that have yellow fever.” Hallelujah! I love you Ministry of Health officials! I love you Republic of Malawi! I love you Mr. President and the state of Malawi. I love all of you Malawians!