pictures - whoo hoo

I found a way to post pictures with our blogs so I added a few pictures to older entries. Sorry that it took so long but I must be a slow learner.

Enjoy the pics and I'll try to post a pic with entries from now on!

Here's a picture of the kitchen area that the kids cook in. We are presently working with a contractor to "remodel" the kitchen, bringing it up to government standards. I'll post the after picture when it is finished.

(Left -- kitchen "before". Right -- kitchen "after". Looks nice, huh?)

our first pic

I am trying to add a picture to our blog and it appears I may be able to do it from Ray's laptop, not mine nor the internet cafe.

Here's a pic of Lukia guarding our house (and tearing up our fence!)

Celebrity, stars, weight, miracle

Feb 26, 2009

I forgot to mention that about a week ago, we went to Krazy Foods to eat lunch and the place was packed. Esther and Stephano found two tables in the back that had 2 chairs available at each so we sat in those until the occupants of our table left and we pushed the two tables together. Esther & Stephano had been sitting with and visiting with two very attractive young ladies. All four of them were very engrossed in the conversation. They introduced us to them and they exchanged phone numbers with one of the young ladies. When these two young women left, Stephano asked us if we knew who the one sitting across from him was. Ray said she looked familiar but we did not know from where. He said that she is Miss Malawi. She lives in Lilongwe but was in Blantyre for business. So, we can say (ok, not really), that we had lunch with Miss Malawi.

The stars at night here are absolutely brilliant. We live part way up a mountain and because of that the clouds are lower too and fog is really dense at times. Because of where we live, we also feel like we are closer to heaven. There are a grouping of stars at night that appear to be the milky way but we’re not sure. I’ll have to ask my brother Ron to get us some charts of the southern hemisphere. Anyway, one night during a blackout when we were outside, we decided that we would tell people that we live ½ way up Mount Chilobwe, under the Milky Way. It is beautiful and one of the good things about blackouts at night is that we get to admire the stars and really be in awe of God’s creation.

During the past few weeks, we have registered all 80 children presently at the orphanage and yesterday we weighed and measured the height on all of them. What fun. They laughed at what they weighed and teased each other about either being too tall or too fat. The look on their faces when they were on the scale and some of them weighed a lot more than they should because Ray had his foot on the back of the scale. They’d laugh and we’d laugh.

Also, we mentioned in an earlier blog that we have a pastor friend from the U.S. who has lived here about 13 years. She has a pregnant young lady staying with her and we got a call the other evening to take her to the hospital. She lives about 30 minutes from us and of course we had to drive through downtown Blantyre in rush hour (such as it is) to get to her house to pick up this young lady. I commented to Ray that this was the first time he got to drive a woman in labor to the hospital. He was not nervous but I was. I really didn’t want to deliver a baby in our galimoto (car). Well, as it turned out, we made it to the hospital and she had the baby about 3 hours later. The pastor told us that they have women come to the hospital at the first signs of labor because it is very difficult for most of them to get to the hospital so they don’t make women wait like they do in the U.S. Babies are delivered by midwives unless there is an issue. They also do not give pain medication and you are not allowed to cry. If you cry, they think something is wrong and they call the doctor in. When they call the doctor, it costs money and most people don’t have it. So we dropped her off at the hospital on Tuesday night and got call on Wednesday morning that she was ready to leave. It was that quick – have the baby and leave. So we got to take her and her new baby girl back home. The baby does not have a name yet. They usually wait a few days before naming babies. But what a beautiful baby girl – a miracle from the Lord! We are honored that we had a small part in bringing another beautiful life into this world.

Mon, Feb 23, 2009

Happy Birthday Ray!

On Saturday, we were registering 9 new kids from Chicwawa who were brought by the pastor when two other gentlemen arrived. One was an American from the Seattle area, the other a Malawian. The Malawian is a pastor who runs a program for street children. He works with them, teaches them Sunday school and gives them a snack before they leave. He is trying to find a place to stay for several of the more vulnerable street children and presently has 4 boys he would like the orphanage to take. None of the children at Hope Children’s Centre were city kids from the streets. The children at HCC are all from surrounding villages. Street children and village children have different issues and different outlooks on life. Therefore, it may not be wise to mix the two immediately. So, we are looking for a house to rent nearby the orphanage and staff that will supervise these boys until they can be transitioned into the orphanage with the other children. So now, Hope Children’s Center will have a transition house. The children will go to school with the other children at Hope and will come to the orphanage to eat with them but will sleep in their own house until they feel they can safely transition in with the other 80 children presently at HCC.

While talking to the guy from the US, we mentioned that it is nice to meet other Americans here. They have been here the same length of time we have. We said that we’ve met a few other Americans and the best place to meet them is either the internet café or Shoprite (grocery store). He said that he and his wife have met some at Hostaria, an Italian restaurant. Well, that intrigued us. We had never heard of Hostaria and did not know there was an Italian restaurant in town. He told us where it was and since it was lunch time, we went there. What a place! I thought I was in the Old Market! The food was absolutely wonderful. The prices were high for Malawi but very reasonable for US restaurant prices. We laughed and said that we are sure that all the weight we both lost will be put back on in the next few days before we leave here.

Blackouts have been terrible lately because of the rainy season. They even announced on the radio (we don’t have a radio but our staff do) that they are shutting down power in most parts of the city for several hours at a time during the next few weeks so they can clean the trash out of the machines. A couple of days recently, we’ve only had power for about 8 of the 24 hours. That happened several days in a row.

I should not have spoken of blackout because the power just went off. Gotta go……….must save my battery power on the laptop.

God bless you!

Feb 15, 2009

I have started this blog three times now and every time we have had a blackout so I stopped.

Yes, we are ok. I’ll bet you have been wondering what we have been up to. Well………..Dr. Kathy & David have been here for the last couple of weeks to help with some issues and we were busy with them. So busy that both my mother and my kids called to make sure we were alright since they had not heard from us in a while. We were just really busy while they were here. God is good. He showed his faithfulness again and allowed us to work through some of the major hurdles while Dr. Kathy & David were here.

When we went to the airport to pick up Dr. Kathy and David, there was a mid to late twenties guy at the airport with a Nebraska shirt on. We spoke with him and found out he is from Grand Island and had been working in Blantyre at the hospital for the past several months. He was leaving to return home. It was nice to connect with someone from our home state here in Malawi, even if he was leaving.

We also have become friends with a pastor from Michigan who has been living here for thirteen years. She has helped us through some tough times and it is great to have an American Christian friend on the ground that we can talk to who understands this culture better than we do. She has shed light on some things for us.

We have registered more new kids at the orphanage. Sixteen new kids arrived on or about Feb 1 and we are now up to 71 kids. A pastor arrived today with a request to take back some of the children who went home on “holiday” so there will be some more children arriving within the next couple of days. This pastor has about 14 additional children that he wants to bring here, that would be new to the orphanage. We’ll have to see how many are accepted.

We found a restaurant that serves Diet Pepsi!! We purchased four cans and brought them home with us. When you find something you like, you need to purchase a quantity of them because they probably won’t be t here the next time you look for them. This is the first time we have seen it and the owner said he did not know where they got it. His brother-in-law purchased it somewhere. The can is really cool. It is written in Arabic and has a pull tab. It tastes like Diet Pepsi, although I had to adjust my mouth to it again since I haven’t even seen one since we arrived in September. So, I am happy – sitting here writing this blog and drinking a Diet Pepsi. I am really glad that I broke my Diet Pepsi addiction before we arrived here because it would have been a long six months without one if I hadn’t. ;-)

It is still the rainy season and everything here is green. Even the brick fence in front of our house is green – green from moss growing on it. Your skin does not get dry this time of year. It is very humid and hot. The evenings are cool though so it is great to sleep. However, we still have to sleep with a fan on us because it is much warmer inside the mosquito net and with all the rain, the mosquitoes are thick!!
The Lord has hugely blessed us by allowing us to serve in this country. But, we have scheduled our first trip back to the U.S. We are leaving Malawi on March 11 and will be back in Omaha from March 12 to April 27. At that time, we will return to Malawi and hope to continue where we left off – working with the orphans.

We hope to see everyone during our trip back!