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! 

The Day the Azungus made Pala!!! :-)

Well the World Race Team (WRT) has finally arrived here in Dzuwa! J They arrived safe and sound Dec 6^th and have been such a blessing already! One of their first activities here was making pala for my Dzuwa school kids. The Wednesday after they arrived the women who were supposed to be cooking that morning didn’t show up because they were too busy working in their fields (this is something that will be a constant battle during the rainy season). So Esnart, the WRT, and I decided that we were going to try to tackle the task of making pala for the kids. What a feat! I am so amazed by the women who cook everyday because it is a ton of work! It took 15 of us to do what 2-5 village women do every morning. We carried all of the supplies to the school, started the fires, and filled the 2 HUGE cooking pots with water (making multiple trips to the water pump). Then once the water was hot enough we added the maize flour and then took turns stirring until the pala was thick enough to serve. The smoke in our cooking shelter is ridiculous! We have 4 windows and a door and yet standing in the shelter for 5 minutes is an almost impossible task with all of the smoke. It literally feels like your eyes are going to fall out they are burning so much and it is very hard to catch your breath. But we managed to complete the task thanks to everyone’s hard work. Both the kids and teachers reported that our pala was delicious! Wahoo! J We even had requests for us to be the permanent pala cooks! Ha! The WRT also helped me put on a game day for my standard 1 kids the second to last day of school. This was a BLAST! We did a bunch of different relay races and all the kids got candy when we finished. We have been practicing the concept of a relay race the entire year so it was so great to see how much progress the kids have made to actually be able to have a game day!

Holiday Break:

Friday Dec. 10^th was the last day of school for term 1. In total I tested orally one-by-one question-by-question 84 of my standard 1 students (which on the one hand is sad to me that more didn’t show up but on the other hand I don’t know if I could have handled any more kids!). I handed out my homemade report cards on the last day of school for the kids to take home to their parents. Who knows how many will actually make it home but I at least wanted the kids to be able to see their scores.  One of my fellow teachers whose son I have in class actually came up to me and gave me a HUGE thank you which was a huge surprise and gift of encouragement. I think that many of the teachers had tons of doubts about my ability to teach the kids so it was VERY cool to hear him thank me for how well his son did on his exams and how much he has learned. Yay God! Overall though I am sooooooo thankful for a break from school!!! Pray that I would get good rest these next couple weeks and that I would be able to prepare well for the start of Term 2, which starts January 3^rd.

News Flash:

As of about 9pm Malawi time on December 15th 2010 my little village of Dzuwa entered into a new era. We now have internet access!!!! OH MY!!!! Yes it is still true that we don’t have running water or electricity but we have internet! Hahaha! When running off of solar or generator power we are able to turn on our router here and have wireless internet so I am actually posting this sitting in my room in the village J Its not as fast as internet in Kasungu but it will allow us contact with the outside world during the worst months of the rainy season when we are basically trapped here in the village. Praise the Lord for providing the money to make internet possible!!!

Well I can’t think of any more super exciting things or random comments to share so I guess this is the end of my post. Thanks soooooo much again for all of your prayers and support. I am completely blown away by all of the messages I receive from people giving encouraging words and saying you are praying! Even people from other countries that I have never met!!! God’s kingdom is just sooooo amazing!

Finally I think my 2 biggest prayer requests right now are for continued protection from sickness (there have been some bugs going around here…1 JTW staffer is down with malaria and 2 WRT girls have been diagnose with dysentery)…also for prayers for Christmas and being away from home…I am excited to be able to be here to experience a Malawian Christmas but I am very sad to be away from my family…pray that I would really be able to be present here and soak up every minute of Christmas in Malawi.

P.S. A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO MY LITTLE SISTER JAMIE FOR GETTING ACCEPTED TO FURMAN UNIVERSITY!!! WHOOT WHOOT!!! If you see her give her a big hug and say congrats!!! J I am soooooo proud of you Jamie!!!!

P.P.S. Check out new pictures on my Facebook!   

Its Raining Its Pouring the Old Man is Snoring!!!

Rain: 
Yep its true...the rains have officially started in Dzuwa. For the most part they have just been small rain showers so far but we did have one HUGE storm that flooded our entire yard! It was pretty incredible! Our house has a tin roof and rain on a tin roof sounds soooo crazy...especially when it is pouring! Its so loud you can't hear the person next to you talking!!! So fun to experience (from inside though). It will be interesting to see what happens in Dzuwa once the heavy rainstorms are more consistent. From what I hear you wade through like 2 ft of water going anywhere! Oh boy! I have my rain boots ready! :-) Since the rains have started that also means that everyone has been sooooo busy in their fields cultivating and planting their crops. So busy in fact that some of the women haven't even showed up to cook for our feeding program! Grrr. I have never lived in a farming area so all of the cultivating and planting techniques are very fascinating to me. Oh and there are no big farming machines here (shocking I know! *sarcasm*) so all of the work is done by hand with one hoe! So a family will prepare acres and acres of land all by hand! The people of Dzuwa grow tobacco, corn, soybeans, peanuts, and beans. Its very exciting to see how everything is becoming so much greener and some of the plants are already growing! I can't wait for the day when there are huge corn fields for me to run through (it has always been one of my lifelong dreams to run through a corn field...yes I am weird). Also since its raining you might be wondering about our cultivation program...well we now have all 6 acres committed to us! Praise the Lord!!! One acre has been prepared for planting. Today is the deadline we gave the chiefs for all 6 acres to be cultivated and planted so they should be working as I type this. We'll see what I find when I get back.

School:
This Friday Dec 10th is the last day of school for term 1! WAHOOOOOO!!! I am so ready and excited for a break! This past week and continuing into this week we have been giving our kids final exams. Yes that is what they call them. Can you imagine final exams for kindergartners!!!  I was very surprised by this. I don't even remember taking tests in kindergarten. Does anyone remember taking tests in Kindergarten?? Anyway administering tests to all of my kids has been quite a task!! We don't have the resources to produce actual tests (I don't think the kids would understand them even if we could) so we have to administer oral tests to each student!!! So far I have tested 80 students!!! Their test consists of writing the letters we have learned so far (A-K), numbers 1-10, shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, diamond), questions in English like "what is your name?" and "how are you?", and some simple commands like jump, run, touch your head...Testing each kid individually is soooo tiring and frustrating...especially since the kids are so young you have to prompt them to do everything saying "write A" like 5 times before they actually do it. OH MY! Going into the exams I was a little nervous because in a lot of ways I feel like I have failed these kids. There are just so many of them I feel bad I can't give them the individual attention they crave so much. I can't even learn all of their names (not yet at least)! I feel awful I always have to ask the kids their names. And I can't speak their language! Gosh I just want to be able to communicate freely with them soooo bad. I was very nervous to see the results of the tests because felt like the kids may not have even learned anything and would fail in all subjects. Well the tests have turned out better than I was expecting! I knew I had a group of like 5-10 kids who were really learning but I didn't know what to expect from the rest of them. I have been surprised that many of the kids who I thought didn't pay attention in class are really learning. They could write and recognize many of our letters, numbers, and shapes!!!! I couldn't believe it! There are still a handful that got zeros though. Most of them are the younger kids who really shouldn't be in school anyway but just come for the food. So overall God has really blessed me with good scores and has encouraged me that maybe I am teaching these kids something.

Immigration Papers:
I have turned in my application for my work permit and am now just waiting to hear back from the office in Blantyre to see if it has been approved! I also finally got a return flight (I had to turn in a copy of my ticket with my application and was having great difficulty with my travel agent). I leave Malawi on August 1st and  officially return to the USA late August 2nd 2011. So for now I am living on an extended visa until my papers get approved. Please pray they get approved.

Frogger:
I now understand the concept of the frogger game. While driving home late at night from Lilongwe after turning in my immigration papers I felt like I was in a real live game of frogger...except I was in the truck! There were soooooooo many frogs out on the road!! Oh my goodness I couldn't believe it! Everywhere you looked there were frogs! I was sad though we couldn't really dodge them so I think we were responsible for quite a few frog deaths! :-(

If you don't move you will be hit!:
This is a statement I have learned is absolute truth here in Malawi. Whether you are walking, riding a bike, crossing the road, or driving if you don't move out of the way you will be hit!!! Here is the hierarchy Trucks>Cars>Bikes>People & Animals...during one trip into town I saw a truck hit a biker b/c he didn't get off to the side of the road fast enough...and my minibus today ran over a goat because it didn't get out of the middle of the road fast enough...I think the goat is still alive for now at least...so you have to be super aware of your surroundings at all times!

The Finger Snap:
Ok remember the finger snap that all the guys at Furman did all the time?? (sorry for those who didn't go to Furman) They would shake their hand in some way that their fingers would snap...ok well I was waiting outside of my classroom the other morning and one of my students started doing it!!! I was so surprised and excited and starting laughing. During my time at Furman I learned how to do the snap a little...I am no pro but I can do it...so I did it back at the girl who did it and all of my students who were watching were awestruck! They were shocked I could do it and started talking among themselves "Ahhh Ahhh Madamu Madamu" (They call me Madamu) It was soooo hilarious! Who would have guessed they know the finger snap in Malawi!!!

New Internet!:
Well I am writing this post using the new internet system here in JTW's Lighthouse Internet Cafe. December 1st they installed a fiber optic system!!! and it is so fast! It is really almost as good as internet in America! I am soooo thankful for the new system! I was even able to post more pictures in my facebook album! Here is the link:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=558627733664&set=a.558627608914.2078334.28304486#!/album.php?aid=2078334&id=28304486

Ok well I will end this post with the 4 responses to seeing an azungu I have experienced here so far and some prayer requests. Thanks for reading!! :-)

The 4 responses to seeing an Azungu (white person):
1. Complete Terror- this usually comes from little children who have never seen a white person before and burst out screaming and crying acting as if their life is in mortal danger
2. Utter Shock- mouths wide open & speechless frozen still where they stand
3. Total Indifference- could care less and won't acknowledge your presence just walking right past you with a mean look
4. Absolute Excitement- frantically waving and screaming "azungu azungu" and cheering when you wave back or greet them

Prayer Requests:
-The World Race Team: there will be a team from the Christian program the world race living here in Dzuwa for the month of December. They arrive on Monday :-) I am very excited for their arrival and for the chance to spend some time with other Americans my age!! Pray for safe travels for them and  for their time in Dzuwa that God would be preparing the way for them and work in great ways through their time here.
-For Family back home
-For me and homesickness here...especially as Christmas is approaching...It was hard to miss Thanksgiving with my family and will be even harder missing Christmas...
-Pray for health during the rainy season: protection from Malaria, Cholera, and other diseases that explode here while there is lots of standing water.

Standing Inside a Tornado!

Yep! Thats right! I have stood inside a tornado (or Kavumbu in Chichewa)!!!! Now mind you the tornadoes in Malawi are much smaller, less powerful, and less dangerous than the ones back home...but still its kind of cool to say I have stood inside a tornado! :-)

Thanks for all of your prayers these past two weeks. I finished my perspectives paper last Friday. I spent the entire day (8am-5pm) researching and writing and managed to get it finished and sent just as the internet cafe I was in was closing! Praise the Lord!!! I was sooooo exhausted after but so thankful I finished. As for the meeting with the chiefs...it happened! But we are still waiting for them to give us all of the land we need. Right now we only have 2/6 acres promised to us. Pray that we get the remaining land before it starts raining!  And my immigration papers...well I am still working on them. I "expire" on Nov 25th so I need to get them turned in before then. I need to provide them with a copy of my return ticket which I am still working on getting right now! So please be praying that I am able to get a return ticket home so I can turn my papers in!

Now for a bunch of random comments...

Airplanes: In Pittsburgh an airplane flies over my house about every 30 seconds (I timed it once when I was laying outside looking at the clouds)...In my village of Dzuwa we might see a plane fly over once a month! The other day I was sitting outside journaling and heard an airplane...I immediately jumped up and ran off the porch where I was to try to see the airplane. After I had watched it until I couldn't see it anymore I sat back down to continue journaling. I started laughing though thinking how HILARIOUS it was that I had just ran to see an airplane!!

Skirts: In the village all women wear skirts. You would never ever ever ever see a woman in pants because it is soooo against their culture. In the city pants are becoming more acceptable though. Anyway skirts...although they are great at keeping you cool in the over 100 degree weather and make using the chimbutzi (the hole in the ground bathroom) super easy...they are sooo impractical for so many other things!!! Like playing sports! All the girls love to play netball here and they are pretty rough with each other (in a loving manner of course). Girls fall in the dirt all the time...but who would have thought that the first thing you should do when falling is to hold your skirt closed instead of catching yourself!!! So sometimes these girls fall straight up flat on their faces because they are too busy worrying about flashing someone! HA!!! Also they are very impractical for riding motorbikes and bikes! I mean really who even rides a motorbike/bike in a skirt! Malawians that's who! I was riding a bike in my skirt down the main street of Kasungu the other day and a huge gust of wind came and blew my skirt up! I shrieked and tried to pull it back down without crashing. Needless to say all of the Malawians around me were laughing at me not only because of the skirt thing but because I was riding a bike too (Malawians in my experience don't think Americans are capable of anything like riding a bike, carrying things on your head, doing your own laundry, cooking...I think they think we just sit around at home with people serving us).

Growing Creativity: Yesterday in my standard 1 (kindergarten) class we had art day. I brought in crayons and glue and told the kids that they could do whatever they wanted (color on paper, on rocks, pick flowers or leaves to glue...). When asked if they all understood they said yes. I told them they could get started and they all proceeded to sit and stare at the crayon boxes!!! I had to go around and open the boxes and continue to tell them over and over to draw a picture. Eventually they got the hang of it and started coloring. But while I was having a blast coloring a rock and then gluing leaves and flowers to it they just sat and colored with one color. Most of them just drew one stick figure person. A few really had fun with it gluing and coloring rocks but that is only like 3 out of my 90 kids! I hopefully will continue to have art day occasionally hoping to encourage their creativity and teach them how to color pictures with more than one color crayon!

Mangos: Its almost mango season in Dzuwa. They are just starting to rippen on the trees!!! Very exciting! There are so many of them that you can just pick however many you want from whatever tree you want (without paying!!) as long as you don't ruin anyone's growing crops. Its funny...before coming to Malawi I didn't like mangos dried or fresh...but now I LOVE them!!! I can't get enough of them :-)  All of the kids at school know this too. This past Tuesday I climbed the mango tree at school (I love climbing trees and had sooo much fun...sooo refreshing!) to try to shake some mangos down. All of the mangos close to the ground had already been picked so I had to climb up pretty high. Despite all of my best shaking efforts (while the kids watched and laughed at me) none fell down! :-( But no worries one of the boys was nice enough to climb up a little higher than I was willing to go and picked me one! :-) The kids love to give me mangos. The super funny part though is that most of the time the mangos they give me are already half eaten and covered with dirt!!! Now who would want to eat that?! But I smile and gladly accept their gift (its very rude in Malawian culture to turn down any gift) and sometimes eat the mangos (after washing of course) and other times I regift the mango to my little sister at home :-) Haha  Mangos!!! YUM!!

Poverty: I continue to grow more and more disgusted with the poverty here in Malawi as time goes on. As I have been told the hungry months here are Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar! 6 months out of the entire year!!!!  But as I am told and as I am beginning to see Dec, Jan, & Feb are the absolute worst. Kids are continuing to come to school more regularly and my class continues to grow everyday. We are even having to use extra pots to make enough food for all of the kids. Working with the feeding program at school is VERY frustrating some of the time because the kids just don't like to listen. Especially when it comes to time to get seconds if there are leftovers after all of the grades have been served. The kids push and shove and fight to get in line first to make sure they get more pala. The even lie to me to try to get in other shorter lines (they line up by grade) to get food. It makes me soooo mad that they are so disrespectful and don't listen! But then when I take a step back and really think about it...if I was starving and trying to get enough food to survive then I would probably be doing exactly what they are doing!!! Ahhhhh!!!! Grrrrr!!! Lord why does it have to be like this?!!! I am sick of hearing about women having miscarriages because they are just too malnourished for their bodies to support a baby! They are so common here in the village! I am sick of watching the students I have grown to love continue to waste away to nothing. There is one girl here in the standard 7 class who literally is just skin and bones and it hurts soooo bad to even look at her! Please be praying that the Lord would continue to provide for our programs here so we can sustain these kids through the worst months.

Slow Internet:  Grrr I hate slow internet. I am sooo thankful for the great access we have in the US. I tried posting more pictures to facebook but the internet is just too slow here today! Sorry maybe next time.

Hope everyone reading this is doing well. Thank you so much for following me here and praying for me!!!! It is so encouraging to know I have such a solid group of people praying and routing for me at home!