Holding Down the Fort...

(**Let me preface this post with an apology for the long silence...internet in the village is down b/c our router broke so I am back to having to travel 3hrs to the nearest internet cafe...bummer)

Well there are some big events coming up here in the Khembo family (the family I am living with)...this upcoming Wednesday May 18th we are all (Elliot, Gloria, Chico, and I) travelling to Lilongwe to drop Elliot off at the airport where he will be flying to...drum roll please...AMERICA!! :-) He will be attending the big Joy to the World board meeting in Richmond, VA and then heading off to visit friends and churches in CA, OR, and Vancouver Canada!!! He is SOOOO excited! He will be in the US for about a month coming back mid-June. At the same time Elliot is flying out Gloria will be travelling with Chico down to Blantyre to stay with her mom until Baby #2 (aka. Baby Khembo) arrives! So pretty soon there will be a new member of the family :-) Her, Chico, and the new baby will be returning at the end of June. While they are gone I will be holding down the fort in Dzuwa continuing to teach and run the feeding program. Although I will be in the house by myself Gift & Esnart (another JTW staff family...who I actually lived with my first time in Malawi in Matapila when they worked for Ministry of Hope) live right next door so I will not be alone (Don't worry mom I will be safe :-) hehe) Please continue to pray for all of us during this time...pray for Elliot's safe travels to the US...Gloria and Chico's safe travel to Blantyre as well as a great delivery and a healthy baby...and for me back in Dzuwa that this time would be a good time of reflection about what is happening and what has happened throughout this year before I return home so soon!

Readjusting to the village:
As you can imagine arriving back in the village after my holiday in South Africa was a bit challenging. I am back in the swing of things though and can't believe I am embarking on my last 2 months! Apparently the kids missed me while I was gone b/c my first day back as we were heading to church in the big truck when the kids first spotted me they all came running and climbing in the truck practically trampling me trying to be the first person to sit next to me!!! A sweet thing to realize that they actually missed me but awful being trampled! So far term 3 at school is going well. Teaching is still super challenging...but what else would you expect from having to teach 120 kindergartners?? We have officially finished the entire alphabet which is sooooo amazing! I am very proud to say my kids know there letters better than the standard 2 and even some of the standard 3 kids! And they can even sing the alphabet song :-)  Now we are continuing on with numbers 15-20 and I have just introduced colors. Yes it so weird but they don't know there colors yet! Two days ago we had an art day again with crayons so the kids could practice identifying colors as they were drawing. Every time I have an art day I am always dumbfounded at how uncreative the kids are!!! The big thing that really struck me about this particular day though was their inability to share. I had given them the assignment of coloring a picture that included all of the colors we have learned so far...red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. I gave each of them a crayon and explained that they were share with one another...when they were done coloring with their crayon trade with their friends for another color. First of all most of them couldn't figure out how to color a picture with more than one color...but the few that did would bring their crayon up to me when they were done and ask for a new color...I would say go look for another color and trade with your friend...they would just give me a blank stare...so I would walk them up to another student and take that students crayon and exchange it with the one the kid had given me...as I was doing this they were looking at me like I was doing something so totally crazy! Although it was at first very funny to me they couldn't figure this out...it got very old very fast repeating myself trying to explain how to exchange a crayon for a new color and share!!!

Satanism & Witchcraft at Night:
More stories about how God has totally protected me during my time here...As I was driving back to the village with Elliot one night we got talking about witchcraft and satanism again...as we were driving two men had stopped us and asked us for a ride...unfortunately we were not going the same way so we had to say no and apologize. As Elliot had been talking to the men one of them made a gesture like someone was cutting off his head. When we pulled away I asked him why. He explained that they were scared that someone was going to kill them as they were traveling! I was confused. Elliot said that in the past and still today it is dangerous to travel at night because that is when people who practice witchcraft and satanism come out. In particular satanist like to kill travelling people and chop up their body and sell their various body parts...especially the private parts!!! Yikes! Also they like to organize minibus accidents. They will try to chase down buses to capture the people...and if they cause an accident during the pursuit then even better b/c then everyone is dead making their job easier! There was just a broadcast on the radio recently about a really bad minibus accident in a village south of where I live where 10 people were killed when the minibus collided head on with an 18-wheeler. Part of me wondered while I was hearing this whether it was an organized accident! They whole conversation totally freaked me out...BUT it made me realize how God truly has been looking out for me in every little area of my life...even when I really wasn't even noticing! That night lying in bed I lay praying thanking God for how he has protected me from so much evil here. A few days later that conversation was still in my mind and honestly it made me scared to be travelling on public transport...I mean how often had I smushed into a minibus with 23 other people (when the bus only fits 15) and have sat in the trunk of a car with my feet dangling out on my way to Kasungu or to town??!...but then as I was reading through some Psalms I read Psalm 121 and I felt God reassurance that He really will "keep me from all harm"!

Psalm 121 NIV

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
   where does my help come from? 
² My help comes from the LORD,
   the Maker of heaven and earth.

 ³ He will not let your foot slip—
   he who watches over you will not slumber; 
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.

 ⁵ The LORD watches over you—
   the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
   nor the moon by night.

 ⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
   he will watch over your life; 
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
   both now and forevermore.

Marathon Running:
I can't remember if I have mentioned before about my running habits...Everyday I have to travel to 1 of the 14 villages to remind the women that they cook tomorrow. Instead of driving or biking I like to run to each of the villages :-) These runs last between 30-60 min round trip depending on how far away the village is. Everyone thinks I am crazy and I quite frequently get stopped and asked "but isn't your heart beating so fast?? Aren't you tired?" and then I explain to them "yes but I love to run and it helps make your heart strong...Its not bad for you!" (as they think all exercise is!) Anyway when I am running I often times feel like a marathon runner or someone famous because when I pass through villages all of the kids come out and line the street and chant "Stephanie Stephanie Stephanie!!" (at first it was Azungu Azungu Azungu so its exciting that it has now changed to my actual name!) and sometimes a group of them will even run with me for a bit...they don't typically last longer than a minute though as they really have no physical endurance and tire very easily! The whole thing is very funny to me to see all the kids running out chanting my name...but on days when I am struggling and am not sure I am going to make it back home I am sooooo thankful for their encouragement!

Departure Date Change!
I NOW HAVE ONLY 2 MONTHS LEFT HERE
Originally I was supposed to be flying out of Malawi on the 1st of August...arriving home on the 2nd and just barely missing the New Wilmington Mission Conference occurring the 23-30th of July (the conference that originally sent me to Malawi in 2008 and began this whole process of me coming to Malawi in my life!) As it worked out though I was able to get my flight changed with NO COST (which is a miracle because I really think it was supposed to cost quite a lot of money) to make it home in time to represent Joy to the World Ministries at the conference and to be a High School Girls Counselor. I am now leaving Malawi on July 18th arriving home late on the 20th giving me a two day buffer before I have to be at the conference as a staff person. Praise the Lord!! I am sooooo excited to have the chance to attend conference and to be able to discuss JTW and my experiences here there with my girls and the rest of conference. I am a little nervous though about how I am going to transition back into life in the states so please begin praying against "culture shock" and for a smooth transition. Also please be praying for me and for the group of girls I will be leading that God would really have his hand all over our time together and that He would work in some BIG ways! :-)

Ok wrapping it up! :-)  Please note that I am officially taking my address off my blog site. Mail takes FOREVER to get here so anything that is sent now will probably not make it to me before I leave. I actually JUST received some letters and a package that were sent at the beginning of FEBRUARY!!! A HUGE HUGE thanks to all of you who have written or sent things to me! They have been such a huge encouragement (even if they never actually arrived..sorry about that...grr unreliable Malawian mail!)! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!

LOVE TO ALL!
Hopefully I will be able to post again soon! (Pray for our router to be fixed!!)

Holiday in Cape Town :-)

Well I am back in Malawi now...I am sitting writing this at African Bible College where I will be staying tonight...tomorrow I take a bus back to the village and start preparing for the last term of school to start on Tuesday...please be praying for my readjustment back to the village!

Cape Town was amazing! Even though I was there for 11 full days there is still so much I feel like I didn't see! There is just so much to do! But I had a blast! I am not going to write much but rather share some pictures with you of my adventures...I will say though the best part of the entire trip was continuing to see how God provided for me in so many little ways...a warm welcoming home visit with Felicity and Peter Murray, people to talk to about Cape Town to help guide me, protection as I navigated around the city alone (there was specifically one woman who helped me navigate the train station warning me that my stop was one of the more dangerous areas of town...I had had no idea!), delicious fresh food and a little refrigerator near my room so I could store some and save money, and the opportunity to visit a new part of the world and see, experience, and soak up the beauty of His creation!!! :-)

On top of a mountain overlooking the winelands area...the big smoke cloud is from a huge fire that attacked some vineyards

The beach at Bloubergstrand

The most photographed view of Table Mountain from Bloubergstrand...picture courtesy of Felicity Murray (the mother and grandmother to a family I know from my home church in Pgh who welcomed me so graciously into her home for a few days while in Cape Town!!!)  :-)

St. George's Cathedral decorated for Palm Sunday and Easter...during apartheid this was one of the few churches to publically proclaim that all people were welcome no matter their color 

Whale Bones at the South African Museum

At the Castle of Good Hope

Tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel...they actually had cubed sugar!

All the delicious goodies set out for high tea :-)

Zebra Skin a man was selling on the side of the rode!

Me and the woman I sat next to on the airplane to Cape Town...we talked the entire 2hrs on the plane!...She went through my guide book with me giving me all kinds of suggestions of places to go and things to see...later on during my time there she offered to take me around to see things that I hadn't managed to get to on my own yet! So sweet!!!

From the top of Table Mountain...1067 meters up!

Touching the top of Lions Head

On top of Table Mountain

The timing worked out perfectly so we got to watch the sunset from the top of Table Mountain!!! SO BEAUTIFUL!

Zevewacht in Stellenbosch...the first vineyard our tour visited in the Winelands

My first wine tasting :-)

A beautiful little church in Stellenbosch

Seidelberg in Paarl...the second vineyard we visited

Seidelberg

Seidelberg

Some grapes (almost raisins) on the vine at Seidelberg

Hout Bay...on the boat heading out to see the seals

So many!!

I am amazed this one came out so clearly b/c the wind was blowing so hard and the waves were HUGE...all I could think about was the movie "The Perfect Storm" and pray that God wouldn't let the boat tip over!! haha

Overlooking Hout Bay on Chapmans Drive

About to climb to the top of Cape Point!

Near the top overlooking the Cape of Good Hope

Ostrich!!! Oh my!

The Penguins at Simons Town...check out the cute twin baby penguins :-)

Simons Town

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

The Old Biscuit Mill...a must see for anyone thinking of visiting Cape Town...its a hidden treasure!

(See my Facebook for even more pictures)

Malaria & a trip to a Malawian Hospital

Yep its true…I had Malaria…Gastric Malaria to be exact. It all started on a Thursday. My stomach had not been feeling well and I was in and out of the bathroom all day. Then in the middle of the night that night I woke up with a fever, aches and chills. I didn’t think much of it, took some advil, and went back to sleep. I stayed home from school Friday morning. I wasn’t feeling too bad, but I decided I probably shouldn’t push it. Good thing I didn’t go because as the morning progressed I got worse and worse. I continued to rush in and out of the bathroom with all imaginable things that go along with the word gastric (haha) and my fever returned even higher than the night before (it topped out at 102). All I could do was lay on the couch all day, wrapped up in my sweatshirts, going in and out of naps. Blahhh…as you all know being sick is not fun…but being sick in the village with no toilet and only a tiny hole makes everything a hundred times more challenging.  Yuck! By Friday night Gloria decided I should probably go to the hospital the next morning. Now the hospital sounds so extreme but you have to understand that there are no doctors offices around here. Go figure. So if you are sick at all…from a little cough to an extreme case of Malaria you go to the hospital. So Saturday morning we set out for the nearest relatively good hospital…not the most basic village hospital but not the best big hospital in Lilongwe (the capital city) either. We decided that we would try this hospital first and if I still wasn’t better in a few days then I would make the big trip to the city hospital. So we drove about 1.5 hrs to Kapiri to the Catholic “medium-sized” village hospital. When we walked in the waiting room was jam-packed! (after all it was Saturday) I had to go to the bathroom soooo bad when we arrived so we found a staff woman to ask her for some help. While I was in the bathroom Gloria I guess talked to the woman about me being sick and asked her if there was anyway she could help us get through the waiting room faster. I am pretty sure that the only reason she agreed to help get me through faster was because I was an Azungu (white person). The whole arrangement was very frustrating to me (once I realized what was happening) because on the one hand the last thing I wanted to do was jump ahead of everyone in line and just walk right in to see the doctor…continuing to confirm local beliefs that white people are something super special and are more important and better than Malawians…on the other hand though I REALLY REALLY wasn’t feeling well and had we waited in the line we probably would have waited all day until the hospital closed and still would not have made it to see the doctors (there were only two that day). As it ended up the lady just led me right into the doctors office and I didn’t have the energy to argue. L Once I got in there all the doctor did was ask me my symptoms! No checking of height, weight, blood pressure…all the usual American doctor office things…he just listened to my symptoms (high fever, body aches, a really bad headache, chills, diarrhea, nausea) and said “well you have malaria go to the lab and get tested”! Crazy! So then I walked down the hallway to the lab room. When I walked in there was another person in the room just finishing up their test. The whole situation made me a bit nervous. What the lab guy did was rub my finger with a little alcohol swab, then pricked it with a lancet, then rub the blood on a microscope slide, and then just laid the slide down in front of him. This is the same thing he does for every person. He wasn’t wearing any gloves or wearing special clothing, and he didn’t seem too concerned about everyone’s blood! All I could think about was what if one of the patients had AIDS? It just didn’t seem like a very safe situation. Oh well. So then I sat outside the room and waited for my results along with about 15 other people. There was one mother there with a very small child (maybe 1 years old) who at one point jumped up screaming her baby’s name, as he wasn’t responding, and ran down to the doctors. After awhile she came back and the baby seemed ok

One of the biggest things I learned through this whole experience was on Friday while I was watching Braveheart (thankfully my Ipod was fully charged so I could watch the whole thing!). Sorry if you have never seen it but I am going to talk about the end of the movie so if you don’t want to spoil it don’t read any further…at the end of the movie England captures William Wallace and is torturing him trying to get him to confess his allegiance to the King and betray his country of Scotland. Wallace never does and continues to be brutally tortured and basically ripped apart piece by piece. Well as I was watching that scene it reminded me of the scene from the passion of the Christ (if you haven’t seen it watch it) when Jesus is being flogged before his crucifixion. All I could think about was here I am lying on the couch feeling awful but this is NOTHING compared to what Christ endured for me!!! All of the trips to the bathroom and all the pain I was feeling was nothing compared to the sacrifice Christ made for me by being beaten, shamed, and then hung on a cross, so that I can live forever with Him in heaven!

Witchcraft in Dzuwa!!

Last week while I was teaching one of the teachers knocked on my “door” and asked to speak to me. After about two seconds I realized that he was TOTALLY drunk! I have a hard enough time trying to understand this teacher when he is speaking to me normally (his English isn’t very good). Add in the fact that he was drunk and mixing English and Chichewa…phew! I had such a hard time figuring out what he was trying to tell me! Eventually I was able to decipher what he was saying and was totally shocked by the news! He told me that his son (one of my students and one of the biggest trouble makers) was found out to be doing witchcraft!!!! I felt sooo sick to my stomach, sad, and had no idea how to respond. One of my own students!!! He said there was a man that had been coming in the middle of the night to the teachers houses and taking some of their kids off to do witchcraft without them knowing. He claims that my student could perform some kind of whistle that is a signature sign of witchcraft. Also he said that they had been traveling all over the world in one night (apparently they claim to be able to “fly” in an “airplane” anywhere in the world in seconds…don’t really understand how that is possible and its very hard for me to believe but who knows). He asked me to look out for his son, to treat him normally, and that this might be an explanation for why he misbehaves so much in class. I assured him that I would do that and that I would pray for him as well! He then took his son and rushed off to join a meeting with the school committee. The following day there were no classes and we held a big PTA meeting at the school. All the chiefs from the surrounding villages, all the teachers, the school committee, and a ton (not all) of parents were there to take part in the meeting. It was even harder that usual to sit there during a meeting all in Chichewa wondering what was being said, discussed, and decided! After I was briefed by another teacher on what happened…the village parents, committee, and chiefs discussed that either the “witch” (the man to took the kids) or the teachers would have to leave. Finally they decided that the witch would be the one to leave and gave him until 6am the next morning to pack up. I also learned that this was the same man that had already been kicked out of one of the villages for doing witchcraft and sent to live in isolation in an area behind the school. So now he was finally being kicked all the way out of the Dzuwa area and was told to never come back. At first that made me very sad because all I could think about was I wonder if anyone had ever reached out to him and his family to talk about Jesus with them. Later on that night I got to talk to Elliot and Gloria about the whole thing and they said that yes people had reached out to him and his family but that they wanted to have nothing to do with God. That made me feel a little better but I was still a little sad for the man. Please be praying for my student and his family…especially his father who I discovered through this process is an alcoholic (he is drunk quite often he has just never come to school drunk before). Two of the daughters in their family I have a special fondness of for too. Although the mom and dad don’t go to church, they almost every Sunday come (even though they are only 6 and 2 maybe)! They love to sit with the choir and go to all their practices! They are adorable! So be praying for them as well!

Flying Bugs & Bees

Ok now for some bug stories…first…after it rains there are these bugs that come out EVERYWHERE!! They come in some of the biggest swarms I have ever seen and love to just fly right into you! (gross!) Well although I think they are disgusting everyone here loves them…and especially likes to EAT them!!! (again gross!) So after big rainstorms it is very common to see all the kids outside (adults too…but not to the same extent) jumping and swatting at these bugs trying to get their wings to fall off so they can eat the bodies. It is actually a super funny and cute scene to watch (minus them eating the bugs). It reminds me of the kid game (not sure what its called) where there is this elephant that blows butterflies out of its trunk and kids are supposed to try to catch the butterflies with nets. Not sure what that is the image that comes to mind but it is! ...ok next story…for everyone who doesn’t know I am SUPER scared of bees! I had a bad experience as a child (I kicked a ball into a yellow jackets nest in the ground and they all swarmed at me and stung me!) so now anytime a bee comes around I run away…laugh if you want but I really don’t like them! Well recently I was walking home from school with two of my students (Ethero & Gilisaria). We saw this boy running towards us and I was thinking to myself “I wonder what he is doing?”. Well as he got closer I saw he was running from a HUGE cloud sized mob of killer bees!!!! (ok so I don’t really know if they were actually the real killer bee species but that is what I am calling them)  I immediately turned around and started running (with my huge school bag on my shoulder and my umbrella in hand!) and screaming!!!! I ran for about 50 yards and then the bees just flew right over my head!!! I was soooo scared!!! The girls I was walking with ran too and after we all started laughing! It must have been a pretty hilarious scene to watch an azungu with all her stuff running and screaming through the village! Speaking of hilarious scenes…one more funny story…doesn’t have to do with bugs but but you can pretend like it does so it fits with the heading J …ok so I ran to one of the women’s houses to remind her that it was her village’s turn to cook. This is a woman (magaedina) I am very close to and as I was leaving she decided to give me a chicken! So her daughter and her friend (Ethero & Gilisaria again) and another girl (Judy) (all of which are some of my favorite younger kids and ones I spend time with the most) decided to walk me home and carry the chicken for me. So we are walking and Ethero says to me “wait didn’t you run here? Aren’t you going to run home?”. I said no I don’t really want to run back (I had finished my workout and was enjoying just walking with them)”…but then I decided it would be pretty funny to show them how to fast walk! (Kelsey Gheesling!!!) So I said “lets just walk really fast!”…so we all started fast walking!! Gilisaria with the chicken in hand!! We walked super fast (look up fast walking if you have never seen it before...not sure if that is the exact term but try it) the entire way home! Through the peanut fields and corn fields...and past another village where everyone was busy sorting tobacco leaves and dropped everything they were doing to stand, stare, and laugh at us!!! Eventually Gilisaria started chasing Ethero with the chicken trying to get it to bite her! It was soooooooo funny!!! I really wish I had that one on video-tape!

OK wrapping it up…sorry this became a super long post!

The rains here are starting to become less and less frequent (YAY!!!) and all the huge puddles have for the most part dried up. It is still super hot but it is supposed to be starting to get cold soon (end of May I think…hopefully…I am soooooo excited for “cold” weather!) We are finishing up our 2^nd term at school on april 8^th so I will be testing my kids these next two weeks. On april 10^th I fly to Cape Town South Africa (a city I am dreamed of going to since middle school) for 12 days for my Easter Holiday! I am soooo excited! I am in desperate need of a break from the village and teaching. Please be praying that this break would be restful, a good time to reflect on my time so far, fun, and re-energizing to prepare me for my last 3 months!

Thanks for reading to the end J

Can Cows Jump Rope??

Well maybe??...I’m sure no one has ever let them try before!...you never know! ;-) Haha…What I do know though is that the cows in Dzuwa love to watch me jump rope! On days in the village where it is too rainy and wet to run I take my jump rope and exercise bands over to the clinic where they have a huge covered porch (for all the incoming patients to wait on) that is the perfect place to workout. It is very spacious with a high roof so you don’t have to worry about hitting anything and it protects you from both sun and rain! The other day it was raining so I grabbed my gear and headed over to the clinic for my workout. I was surprised though to find all of the cow herding boys and their cows there when I arrived! The boys were sitting under the porch sheltering themselves from the rain and were taking turns going out into the field in the pouring rain to round up the cows. Some days I really hate when I find kids hanging out at the clinic b/c I just want to workout by myself and not have 20 kids staring and laughing at me the whole time. Today though I didn’t really have a much of a choice because I really really wanted to workout so I changed out of my rainboots and into my running shoes and started my jump rope/strength-training circuit/ladder routine (shout out to FUVB). The boys thought I was hilarious as usual and were laughing and trying to imitate me. Then before I knew it they had herded all their cows over in front of the clinic so they didn’t have to keep going out to get them. So there I was working out with 5 cow-herding boys and close to 25 cows staring at me while I worked out!!! A pretty hilarious scene!!! I wish I had a picture!  What is so funny though is that the cows were perfectly content to stand there and watch me jump rope!!! Only in Malawi!

Mixed Emotions About Tobacco

In America today from a very young age kids are taught about the dangers of tobacco and smoking. We always hear about all of the new research that is coming out on how awful it is for your body and all the different cancers it causes. This is all so great and so important. I often wonder why the government doesn’t just get rid of tobacco and cigarettes all together! (money that’s why! So dumb!) Here in Malawi though I am getting a whole new and different perspective on tobacco, which is leaving me with very mixed emotions. Almost everyone it seems in Dzuwa’s fifteen surrounding villages harvests tobacco. Everywhere you look you see the big long tobacco shelters filled to the brim with hanging tobacco right now. Majority of the time I visit the feeding program women in the villages I find them sitting stringing tobacco leaves together to be hung too dry. What I understand from what the people in my village tell me is that Malawi is one of the WORLD’s leading tobacco exporters! (haven’t done my research just reporting what I have heard so correct me if I am wrong) It’s not just the villages around me growing tobacco it’s the entire country! And apparently big businessmen from all over the world come to auction houses here in Malawi to buy our tobacco. Harvesting tobacco if you are really good at it can make you a lot of money too! So it is what is really sustaining life and providing for the people here. Can you see my dilemma?? Tobacco and cigarettes are some of the leading causes of some of the top killing diseases in the world today…BUT…at least in Malawi…it is also helping people survive! As much as I want to walk up to every person I see smoking and chewing tobacco and say to them “What the heck are you doing?! Do you know how dumb it is to smoke/chew and what the risks are associated with it?! Do you know that there are over 100 known carcinogens in one cigarette? You are basically just saying I want to die its ok bring on the cancer! And you are putting all of us at risk too from second hand smoke! Ya gerk!” now I also want to in some ways say “thank you for buying tobacco that is helping to provide money to families in Malawi so their children don’t starve!” Yikes!…thoughts anyone??

Insights into the Government and Teaching

Something that is also very interesting to me being here in Malawi is that I get to hear first hand what the Malawian people actually think about their government! I don’t just have to rely on research books and articles to provide me with information! It just about floored me to hear their thoughts on their presidents. A couple research papers I wrote in college required me to research extensively about the history of Malawi and about their government. Malawi’s first president was Dr. Hastings Banda. From all of my research I came away with the picture that Banda was a very corrupt leader (after all he did try to declare himself president for life) and decided that I didn’t like him. But here in Malawi the people love him!!! I just can’t believe it! They believe he really did a lot for the country here even though he was a corrupt leader! They even consider him a martyr! The president right now everyone likes as well. I think he is pretty all right too as he is really doing a lot to make great changes and develop the country. It is hilarious to me though (and really awful) that when the evening news comes on majority of the program focuses on him!!! Typically on the nightly news we only get 3 or 4 stories and the program only lasts 15 minutes at the most!!! (so different than American news!) Well the other night I timed the radio segments…7/15 minutes was devoted to talking about the president and his new book…6/15 minutes was devoted to talking about the president’s wife and a fake bridal shower fundraiser she was doing…and ONLY 2/15 minutes was spent on mentioning with no real concern at all the situation in Libya!!!! I couldn’t believe it!! No offense but who really cares about the president’s book and a fundraiser when there are riots and governments being overthrown in Libya and Egypt…and other MAJOR stories about other African countries as well (can’t mention anything else specifically b/c I have no idea what exactly is going on b/c I don’t get any news!!! Haha I really have no idea what is going on in the world right now!!). The government is just sooo focused on everything that the president does they can’t even present us with unbiased news.

            Ok now to move on to talking about school, teachers, and education here. It is also so interesting to hear from the teachers what they think of the government and about how they handle education. Just recently the government switched they way they pay their teachers from giving them straight cash to direct depositing into bank accounts. Although I think this could be a good move in the long run it caused soooo many problems!! The government had to wait for all teachers to get registered before they could pay the teachers and a whole other host of problems came up…but what it all resulted in was the teachers from my Dzuwa school were not paid for 2 months straight. From Dec 23 to Feb 27thish they were not paid! But yet they were still expected to go to school and teach and survive on NO MONEY! Many of the teachers only meals each day was the phala from school just like the kids! And even when they got paid they were only paid a 1 month reduced salary!!! No wonder the teachers aren’t very motivated to be good teachers as they never know if they will reliably be paid! In many other areas there were teacher riots b/c of this situation. Also there were and still are (no one has stopped them as far as I know) corrupt government education officials that were/are going into the system and creating fake rural schools and fake teachers and putting them on payroll, and then taking all of that money for themselves! How awful and totally unbelievable!!! Please be praying for the education systems in Malawi- that the corrupt officials would be removed and that God would place His servants in the office!

Ok now to wrap this thing up with a cool story…

Lena all wrapped up

Me & 1 day old baby Lena  

I NAMED A BABY!!!

So crazy I know! Here is the whole story! (oh an mind you all of this talking was done in Chichewa!! J with no translator! J but with a lot of grace and repeating themselves from the women haha)...I was walking to school one morning and one of the older girls, Misozi, who I am closer to at the school caught up with me. I asked her why she wasn’t in school the day before and she answered because her mom was sick. I then asked her what was wrong and she said her mom had had a baby!! I was sooo excited! She then said I could come visit it after school if I wanted to…of course I said yes!!! So later on that afternoon I walked to Misozi’s village to visit her, her mom, and the new baby. I didn’t really know what to expect when I arrived but I found the mom and a bunch of other women sitting in their house shelling beans. Misozi was holding the little one-day-old baby! So only a day after giving birth the mom was already up walking around doing household chores again! Amazing! So I sat and talked with them for a long while and got to hold the baby! The women even commented on how much the baby looked like me the azungu with its light colored skin! haha At one point I asked what the little girl’s name was…the mom replied “oh she doesn’t have one yet…why don’t you name her!!!”…I was so taken aback! Naming someone else’s kid is not a common thing in America (I found out later that it is very common in Malawi especially in the village). Mothers and Fathers spend hours and hours thinking up the perfect name for their kids and it’s a very special process...so I was shocked that the mother wanted me to name her baby! I mean really…mothers have 40 whole weeks to think up names and this mother was asking me to name her baby in a span of like 20minutes!!! Talk about pressure!! So I sat there holding the baby trying to think up a good name. I wanted to give the little girl a meaningful name as her older sister Misozi’s name means “tears”…very sad…so I sat and thought and thought…and decided I didn’t know any really easy meaningful names in English…and my Chichewa vocabulary isn’t good enough to give a very good meaningful name either…so I just tried to think of a name I liked that I thought would fit well into the Malawian culture…the name that kept popping into my head was Lena…so I said “what about Lena” and they all said yes! So I hope they really like it! So the little girl will be called Lena and her mother will now be called Magalena (as women don’t go by their names but by Mother of ___  Maga____ *insert child’s name*). I looked up the name on babynames.com later and found out that Lena means woman of Magdala. It’s a Hebrew name. So that’s pretty cool I guess. What an experience! So surreal. When I was leaving too the family gave me 4 pieces of corn and a bunch of tomatoes and vegetables!!! I was soooo taken aback!! They need to be eating that food not me! I am still blown away by the generosity of Malawians!! I bought some super cute baby clothes today so I am excited to take them back to the village and give them to baby Lena J

Love to all!!!

Steph

Prayer Requests:

-       For Family back at home

-       For guidance from God about where He might be calling me when I return home

-       For continued provision for the Feeding Program at School

-       For my health- my allergies are going crazy right now and I don’t have any allergy medicine and continued protection against malaria and waterborne diseases in the rainy season

Celebrating the Super Bowl Malawian Style!

Well I shouldn’t exactly say “Malawian Style” as I celebrated/watched the super bowl with the teachers and staff (mostly all Americans) at the African Bible College (ABC) which is basically a miniature America…there were still some Malawian features to the whole experience though…here are all the details!

Friday Feb 4^th I left the village…first Elliot drove me an hour to Santhe- thankfully the river hasn’t flooded over our road out yet so we were able to drive the entire way instead of having to take little wooden boats (I like to call them “African Gondolas”). Once we made it to Santhe then I caught a minibus (African public transport where you smush 20+ people and belongings in a van that is supposed to only carry maybe 12 people). Rode that minibus to another trading post Chinkhoma where then switched to a different minibus that would take me all the way into town (the capital city Lilongwe). I left my house at 7am and finally arrived in town a little after 12pm…so in total the trip takes around 5 hours. However if you have your own car (not riding public transport) and drive Dzuwa to Lilongwe it should take only around 2 hours at the most (I think). Friday night and Saturday night I stayed at a super cool hostel the World Race Team introduced me to called Mabuya Camp. I enjoyed just relaxing and being by myself…getting some good personal time to just be with God without village distractions and time to reflect on some things. Watched a couple movies and got to skype with family. Sunday morning I met up with Michelle, a friend who works at ABC who I met in September when she came with a group from her church (the High Desert Church…remember me talking about them?) to Dzuwa for a couple days…anyway met up with Michelle and Whitney (Michelle’s roommate) on Sunday morning for church!!! She took me to this super cool church in town called Flood church. It was amazing! This was my first non-village church service since I arrived! It reminded me of church at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Greenville! Flood has a super cool mix of people, both Malawians and missionary families from lots of other countries like American and the UK. All members are involved in intentional community groups too! I felt so at home there and really wish I lived closer so I could join one of the community groups! Oh well at least I will be able to visit when I am in town. After church Michelle, Whitney, and I did a little shopping and then headed back to ABC. Had a delicious lunch of bowtie pasta with broccoli, fruit salad, and garlic bread!!! YUM!!! Spent the rest of the day catching up on emails and just relaxing. I also got to visit Whitney’s classroom at the academy on campus (she teaches 1^st grade). Topped the night off watching some episodes of “Boy Meets World” that we projected up on the wall at her house! Oh and let me just say Michelle & Whitney’s house is incredible! I felt just like I was back home in America! Seriously! First of all electricity and running water…what more can you ask for! Hmmm…well maybe a kitchen with a stove, blender, and a REFRIGERATOR! Can you tell I have been in the village for too long?? I felt soooo spoiled! Now for Super bowl Monday in Malawi (haha) we were scheduled to start watching a recording of the game at 5:30 so I made sure to stay off facebook all day so I wouldn’t spoil the surprise! Hung out at the house most of the day. Wrote some letters and watched another movie J Then got treated to a 30 min back massage (one of the students mom’s at the academy has a local spa)!!! After that got to go to a grocery store I hadn’t been to yet where I found Whole Grain Cherrios for an amazing price!!! One box here is normally K1200-1300 ($ 8ish) So crazy right! Well at this store they were on sale for K600 ($ 4)! Yay! After that we headed back for the party!!! J There were probably 40+ people at the party. Everyone brought a side dish and their own meat for the grill! It was a typical America cookout! J Everyone there was rooting for the Packers except for 3 of us (GO STEELERS!) which made watching the game very interesting J haha I had such a blast! Although we lost it was still such a fun game to watch. I have really missed watching football! Oh the only downside to the whole thing though was that since it was being broadcast in Africa they showed African commercials not the American ones!! So that was a major bummer. Did I miss any spectacularly good ones?? Tuesday the 8^th I headed out bright and early from ABC. Did some shopping around town and made it to the bus station by 1pm to start my journey home. I had to wait though for 3 hours for a bus!!! Then once the bus was full and we headed out the bus had to go all over town looking for diesel as there was a diesel shortage in town!!!! Starting out late from town is a very bad thing b/c that means then I am late getting to Chinkhoma which means no minibuses going to Santhe! So after leaving town at 4:30, I arrived in Chinkhoma to find just as I expected no minibuses! So I waited in the dark for almost an hour before a random truck came by and picked all of us waiting up. So I rode in the back of a random truck to Santhe where Elliot picked me up. By the time we got home to Dzuwa it was around 8:45pm!!! An aweful journey home to the village but TOTALLY worth it for an amazing long weekend in town!!! Thanks Michelle and Whitney for being amazing hosts!!! And thanks to the ABC crowd for letting me join in on the party! J

Disrespect and lack of Discipline at School:

Now for a complete change of subject J Something that I have been noticing during my time here and that is increasingly becoming more and more frustrating to me is the village children’s complete lack of respect for their teachers, parents, and elders! I am totally dumbfounded by this!!! I am especially aware of this problem at school as I am a teacher and am having to deal with all of this disrespect and lack of discipline! At school there is no set structure for discipline. All of the teachers just teach because of the money so they are not very invested or concerned with really doing their job well. In my class I have pretty set strict rules…ones you wouldn’t really see as strict in America just the normal class rules…no talking during class, no hitting, kicking, or pinching other kids, no eating during class, respect each other…the usuals…it seems strict though compared to the other teachers who do not keep any rules at all! The problem is though my discipline in my class can only go so far…I can only put a kid in the corner so many times before it is not effective any more. In America here is when you might send a kid to the principals office where a call might go home to their parents about their behavior. Here though the headmaster could care less if the kids are misbehaving…and even worse is that the parents too would probably be more than happy to have their kids home with them to help work in the fields so they are not encouraging their kids to behave in school or even go to school. I am doing the best I can to teach these kids what it looks like to respect their elders…not to talk while their teacher or other students are talking…to do things the first time when asked by their teachers or elders (here the teachers have to chase the kids around beating them with sticks while the kids laugh to get them to do what they are asking!)…to stand in line nicely without shoving, kicking, or hitting other students (I have kids crying ALL the time because someone else has hit them or kicked them!)…the whole situation is just so crazy to me! Bahh!! So you can really be praying for my kids at school and all the other classes as well…pray that God would really capture their hearts and that they would begin to behave and respect one another and their teachers/elders!

Ok Random Comment time J

February 10^th = My half way point!!!

I can’t believe I am half way through my time here! There were so many times when I thought that I would never make is this far. Thanks to God’s grace, guidance, support, and love as well as all of your prayers I have!!! J

How long does a tube of toothpaste last??

Weird question right…but I was very curious as to how long a tube of toothpaste would last me here…so I charted it! Haha you have to find some way to amuse yourself here in the village so why not keep track of your toothpaste levels??! Anyway a 5.8oz (164g) tube of Colgate Total toothpaste (not the gel the paste J) brushing 2 times a day using a pea-sized amount lasted me 117 days!!! Cool right?! I think that is kind of amazing!

Christmas Cards:

Thank you to everyone who sent me Christmas cards!!! I finally just now received them! Hahaha Oh Malawian mail! I loved reading all of the Christmas updates and being reminded of the sacrifice Christ made for us in coming to live among us, and dying for us.

Laundry:

There is nothing like a nice rain to re-rinse all of your clothes that have just been washed and are trying to dry in the cloudy sun-less weather…doing laundry in the rainy season stinks!!

Thanks for all of your love and support!!!

Steph

Prayers Request

-Family at home

-Health: both for my health and for the health of the kids here…in the rainy season sicknesses are so much more prevalent (there are TONS of mosquitos out right now = lots of malaria)! Kids have been throwing up left and right at school this past week…its especially sad because as the kids don’t have lots of food in their homes so throwing up consists of lots of dry heaving & spitting up thick mucus not actually throwing anything of substance up…very different than sick kids in America

-Perseverance in finishing up the remaining half of my time here- that God would continue to use me even if I am not seeing results and that He would continue to teach me and mold me to be more and more like Him!

Sorry Can't Think of A Cool Title Today

Well I am too tired and frustrated with the internet to try to sit here and think of a fun and exciting title that would make you all want to read my blog. :-( So hopefully you are reading it anyway!

Internet: Although we have internet now in the village it is VERY inconsistent! Since our generator broke (we are working on fixing it) and we are in the middle of the rainy season, sun and solar power is a hard thing to come by...the best time to get on is first thing in the morning when I am at school. By the time I get home the power is very low if on at all. So for all of you who are sending me emails and messages thinking that "oh great she has internet and can respond quickly now" I am very sorry. Please give me grace and time to respond. Also even if I did have unlimited internet access I don't think I would be on all the time anyway b/c I still want to be very present here in Dzuwa and with the work I am doing. So please DON'T stop sending me emails and messages as I love reading them and getting caught up on all of your lives...just remember it is still going to take me a little while to get back to you. :-) Please pray for patience for me as the whole internet thing is very frustrating to me! I think it might be more frustrating knowing that you have the internet capabilities and that its just not working than not having it at all!

School: Well we are heading into our 4th week back at school and things are going relatively well. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the teacher who has taught standard 1 for the past 10 years and who was supposed to be helping me the first term is actually coming to my class and helping me this term! Praise the Lord!!!!! As my translator is now gone I was unsure of how teaching by myself was going to work out. Thankfully the Lord provided me some help! I would say as of right now its a mix 50/50 of the time I teach by myself and with Mr.Wanyemba's help. Surprisingly the kids are more well behaved when I am teaching by myself most of the time (as I set up some pretty strict rules first term) than when Mr.Wanyemba is with me (he just lets them do whatever they want and doesn't enforce any rules). Please pray for calm children! There has been a great increase in students this term as we are in the hungriest months now. Every day in standard 1 we have between 100-140 students!!! (Compare this to last term when we had between 70-100 every day) The same increase in kids is also being seen in the other classes too so I think we are currently feeding between 600-700 kids a day in the feeding program! Wow! I am so thankful this program is in place to help feed these kids but our resources are being stretched even more now than first term. So far the Lord has provided what we need for the first 3 weeks but PLEASE PLEASE continue to pray for continued provision as we are short on sugar and money again.

Witchcraft: The other night Gloria, Elliot, and I were eating dinner and listening to the news on the radio as is our typical nightly routine when a crazy and disturbing story came on. (side note: The radio is actually a wonderful piece of technology that I think we overlook in America as we have the TV, computers, and the internet...when you live in the bush and have no other access to the outside world the radio is such an amazing resource and gift! Its especially fun when randomly amazing english worship music or the new top songs in America come on) Anyway the story was about a woman in another nearby village who had given birth to...get this...2 plastic bags!!!! filled with some rocks (not small stones), a centipede, mango seeds, and other random things!!!!!!!!!! I was dumbfounded and was asking Gloria and Elliot how that even happens! They looked at me plain as day and said with a straight face "witchcraft of course" just like it was matter-of-fact regular occurrence! At first I though they were joking but they weren't! Witchcraft is just sooooo out of the realm of my everyday experiences that I guess its just really hard for me to believe. I mean when you are growing up as a little kid (at least in my experience) you are always told that witches and magic and all of that crazy stuff is not real and doesn't exist. But here in Africa it IS REAL and IT DOES EXIST! This is something that is going to take me some time to get used to...to work on changing my mindset....when I hear a story about witchcraft instead of totally doubting whoever is telling me the story and thinking that they are crazy and are just making things up or are believing in something that is so obviously not real it makes me want to laugh out loud I need to take them seriously because what they are telling me is REAL...I know that Satan is alive and is fighting against Christ, His people, and all of the great work they are doing in the world because I've seen it!...in America though it shows up in very different ways...in Malawi though Satan is alive and fighting through witchcraft!!!! Please pray for the country of Malawi and for countries all over the world who struggle with witchcraft! Pray that God would reign supreme and that His name would be known  not Satan's!

Books: Now to finish up with a super sweet cool story about God providing for me! :-) When I was packing for Malawi there were a bunch of books that I had to leave behind because I just didn't have the room for them. I was super bummed! But what is super cool is that God has provided every single book I left behind for me here in Malawi! Gloria and Elliot have a big bookshelf of books that they have collected from people throughout the years and every book that I left they had!!! The last set of books that just recently appeared when a friend returned some books she borrowed last year is the Chronicles of Narnia!!!! These books were the ones I was most upset to have to leave behind. I reasoned with myself that since I had already read them that I should bring books that I haven't read yet...so I left them behind. I was SOOO excited to pull the set out of the bag and Gloria was very taken aback by my huge reaction! haha  What is even cooler though is that I opened the front cover and found a note. The book was given to Fletcher (the head of the ministry) from the 2002 Summer Service Team from the New Wilmington Mission Conference!!!!! This conference was the conference that sent me to Malawi for the first time on the Summer Service Team of 2008! My leader of my trip was actually on the 2002 team! So its soooo crazy cool to me that God would provide the books that I most wanted and missed through the conference's summer service team!!! :-)

Thats it for now! Thanks for your prayers and encouragement!!! For all of you back home with cold weather and snow enjoy it for me! I am really missing it! Go sledding, make snow angels, have snowball fights, build snow forts, and then come inside and bundle up in sweatpants and a sweatshirt under a quilt with a nice warm cup of hot chocolate/tea in front of the fire! Maybe even take some pictures and send them to me too! :-)

Love to All!
Steph

Picture of Chico (Gloria & Elliot's Daughter and my little sister here- she turns 3 in Feb) and Me at Fletcher and Angela's Wedding in Lilongwe on January 8th

Tried to put up a picture of Fletcher and Angela but the internet wouldn't let me :-(  

At least I got one up though!

MERRY (late) CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Well I am sitting here on the internet in my little village. Sooo crazy! I still can’t believe it! Its officially 2011 both here in Malawi and back at home! I actually got the chance to watch the ball drop in NYC with my sister Darcy via skype! How Amazing! It was so great as I was a little disappointed last night that instead of getting ready to watch the ball drop or bang pots and pans to celebrate the New Year I was sitting in my bed working on a report that I had to finish. What a great surprise to wake up to!

December feels like a blur to me. It went by soooo fast! How is it that I am already starting into my 5^th month here?!!! The major highlight of the month was the presence of the World Race Team (WRT). God seriously poured out His blessings on me through them this month!!! It almost leaves me speechless. He answered so many of my prayers through them and I am sooooo grateful. Going into the beginning of December I was really struggling being here. Really missing home and family, and just feeling like there was no possible way I was going to make it. When they arrived they took me in as one of their own teammates basically, loving on me and encouraging me, which was exactly what I needed. It was so great getting to know each person on the team and getting to hear all about their experiences in the other countries and how God has been working. Hearing their stories really helped to continue to grow my faith and teach me more about God’s power. Its really easy for me sometimes to fall into the trap of totally limiting what God can do in my mind and not praying with total confidence knowing that God is totally capable of anything. They helped to show me what praying with complete trust and faith looks like on a whole new level. Everyday we had devotions together too. It was so amazing to be back in Christian community with people of my same age group, culture, and language! Although we are a community here within JTW it is very difficult to connect deeply with people whose culture is just sooooo vastly different from mine and who speak another language. It was also so great to just “be” with them. To be able to walk over to their house and just hang. To read by myself if I wanted to, to play cards with them (learned a super cool new card game called 13), to listen to someone playing the guitar, to talk with them, or to just sit quietly and enjoy being in the presence of others. They were just sooo welcoming and caring. I even got to make two trips into the city with them to first, run some errands to the embassies in preparation for their next month and second, this past Wednesday, to see them off as they were leaving. It was so great to be able to escape with them on a mini-retreat to a super cool hostel in the city and to be able to again just “be” with them exploring the city and fun restaurants. Some special treats during the two trips include: a chocolate milkshake and grilled chicken, tomato, & cheese sandwich for dinner one night, yogurt and granola and fruit salad for breakfast, movie night with the girls (we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding), getting to witness one of the hostel staff members come to Christ as a result of the World Race Team loving (they had also stayed at this hostel as an entire squad 65+ people before coming to Dzuwa and other teams going out to other places so they were continuing to build on relationships during our 2 stays there), and homemade secret recipe Italian ice cream at an Italian restaurant run by a man who moved to Malawi from Rome. Well I could go on forever about how great the team was and how much I learned from then but overall God just totally used the WRT to minister to my heart! Thank you sooooo much team A-mor3!

Christmas in Malawi:

As much as I missed my family, all of our Christmas traditions, Christmas decorations, cold weather and snow, and just the holiday spirit that permeates the air this year, it was super cool to be able to experience Christmas in such a pure way. No commercialism to pollute the true reason for celebrating Christmas- the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! J The whole advent season was really sweet as I was able to go through an advent reader I had in my bible. It was sooooo amazing to be able to go back and read through many of the different prophecies made about Jesus and then to be able to see how they were fulfilled in His birth! I learned a lot! Christmas Eve night there is no church service here in Malawi so while I was cooking dinner that night out on our front porch I sat and sang all of the Christmas carols I knew and had my own little church service. After dinner I went over to hang with the WRT and we sang more Christmas carols and watched ELF. Christmas day is very simple in Malawi. You go to church in the morning and then come home and if you have the money make a Christmas meal. So that is what we did (or tried to do) here in Dzuwa. The Christmas church service bell rang around 9am but church doesn’t usually start until 10am so all of us (JTW & WRT) didn’t start off for church until around 9:45am. When we arrived we made it just in time for the closing prayer and for announcements. Whoops! We missed the entire service! Oh Malawi time…you never know when things are going to happen! So we headed back to the house.  We had our own little devotion when we got back and then hung out until we started cooking dinner around 3pm. Well dinner took longer to prepare (as is always the case) so we didn’t end up eating until around 8:45pm but everything was delicious!!! We had rice, nsima, tomato “soup” for the rice, 3kgs of goat, 6 chickens, and vegetables. On Christmas Eve Rachel and Christal from the WRT and I decided we were going to make some Christmas dessert surprises. J So for dessert we had plain and strawberry rice krispie treats (they don’t just sell plain marshmallows here in malawi), peanut butter fudge, chocolate and peanut butter no bake cookies (compliments of Alexandra), and vanilla cake with caramel sauce topping (which we baked on a little grill!!! similar to a webber but a much cheaper version). Everything was soooo delicious! We were very excited since we did everything from scratch without measuring cups or spoons or a real oven! Ha! It was also very hilarious to watch the Malawians try to secretly pass off their desserts to one another since they didn’t like them!!!!! I guess its because they just haven’t grown up with sweet tastes like what we made! Hahaha very funny! Anyway Christmas was overall very nice and fun and just a great time of fellowship celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Our New Sets of Wheels!!!

JTW Malawi is now the proud new owner of 2 motorcycles and an SUV!!! It is crazy to see how God is providing for our ministry. Transportation has been a struggle here with lots of money being poured into public transportation and lots of time being wasted travel on that public transport. Thanks to an amazing donor we were given the money to buy our new wheels to help alleviate this problem! I got to take our new SUV for a ride yesterday (just a 2 min drive down to the school and back haha) and am super exited! It was really weird though driving on the right hand side of the car while having to shift with my left hand instead of right! Oh boy! Something new to get used to! The SUV will be especially helpful in ensuring that I have clean water to drink as we can now take it to town and load it up with water. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get clean water here in Dzuwa since my water pump died so this is a huge answer to prayer!!!

Prayer Requests:

-Safe travels for the World Race Team: Praise the Lord they arrived safely in Johannesburg after a 36 hr bus ride, one team still has to make the drive to Swaziland so be praying for protection for that drive, and pray for renewed strength and energy heading into their 7 month

-School starting back up here in Dzuwa: Sadly I am really really really really not looking forward to going back to teach, I am so excited to see the kids but teaching is sooooooo hard and exhausting and I just feel soooo inadequate! I also just found out that the guy that has been helping me teach and translating for me (my co-head of the Feeding program) got accepted to college in Uganda and is leaving mid-January! So I am really not sure what is going to happen and how I am going to teach by myself. Pray Pray Pray

-My Health: I am just getting over being sick. I got sick this past Monday while in Lilongwe. I think it was dysentery (whatever that is I am not really sure). One of the girls on the WRT had it and my symptoms were very similar to hers so that is what I am guessing. I started on a course of Cipro and seem to being doing fine now. Pray for continued healing and that I wouldn’t get sick again. Praise the Lord I got sick in town where there were toilets!!!

Okie Dokie…that’s all for now J Thanks for hanging in and caring enough to read to the end!