Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Bishop Stephano arrived back from 16 days in Jerusalem last night. Several of the pastors in the area called Esther while he was gone and asked if he would be able to help put on the conference since has done this kind of thing before and they had not. She agreed that he would help. As it turned out, she did most of the work, meeting with the pastors, arranging food for the conference, places to stay for the pastors and their families, telling them how to set up the room, arranging music, etc. Bishop Stephano arrived home and there were pastors at his house waiting to meet with him as the conference started today.

As it turned out, they were without water at their house for the second day in a row. Last night, Esther rented the big truck and sent the kids over to our house to fill their water drums. She sent them again this morning and again this evening to fill the water drums. They have several pastors and their wives staying at their house so with these extra people and the orphanage kids, they really need water. The pastors brought food with them to give to Esther as a gift. They brought chickens, goats, beans, rice and vegetables – enough to feed the pastors and their families during their stay for the conference.

A couple of weeks ago, when we lost water for 3 days, Esther loaned us one of her big plastic drums for water at our house. We have been in contact with a manufacturer of petroleum jelly and lotions to sell us a plastic drum. We have been to their factory 3 times already and the drum has not been empty. Well, today was another example of God working in Malawi. The first time we went to the factory, they told us they did not have drum………well, as we were talking they found one but it was not empty so they told us to come back the following Thursday. We did and they had been without power so the factory was shut down so the drum was not empty yet………..come back on Monday, they said. On Monday, we could not get there but we went there today. They didn’t have a drum…………..until Ray & Esther accidentally met the man who owns the company, a Muslim. Ray & Esther explained that the drum was being used for an orphanage and about the other trips we had made there. He said he was going to take this over from here and gave Esther two metal drums for free and is giving us the plastic drum for free on Thursday. Praise God!! Now we can all have water on reserve and Esther is ending up with 3 more drums for the orphanage which are desperately needed.

Before the pastor’s conference, some of the girls were walking down to the river to bathe since there was no water at the orphanage. One of the girls, Tamanda, age 13, got bit by a dog on the way to the river. She talked with the owners and found out that the dog had not been vaccinated. So, Ray & I took Tamanda to the veterinarian’s office so they could give us a letter recommending that she receive rabies shots. We met with the vet then went to the government hospital. We were at the hospital probably 2 ½ hours. We sat in the waiting room waiting for someone Esther had called to meet us. This lady never showed so we went to the children’s emergency room and waited there for a short time. Then we were escorted into a room to see a physician. He read the letter from the vet and told us to go to another room to pick up a cooler. They have us a cooler and told us to go to the pharmacy, which is in another building in the hospital to pick up the vaccine then bring it back to them for the injection. Well, this was like no pharmacy I had ever experienced. Tamanda and I stood in line with probably 75 – 100 other people who were all trying to get to the front of the line. Some cut right in front of us, some didn’t even bother to cut in front of the white person, they just went immediately to the front of the line and cut in front of everyone. It was hot and I was getting frustrated by that point. (There is no such thing as personal space in Malawi. If you are not standing immediately behind the person in front of you, someone comes in and takes that space.)

Anyway, Tamanda and I got the medicine, put it in the cooler they gave us and headed back to the children’s emergency room where they administered the injection. We then took her to lunch and had ice cream. She has to have 4 more injections so I know we’ll have to continue this process 4 more times. However, next time, I’ll know what to expect.