Our even greater God

We got approved for Mphatso's visa today at the embassy. We pick it up tomorrow at 2:00 PM and get on the 4:00 PM bus back to Blantyre. We arrive in Blantyre about 9:30 PM, sleep, then get up and head to the airport. We'll arrive on Dec 3.

Thanks for all your prayers and support and hopefully, we'll see some of you before the end of this week!

Praise God. Mulungu ndi wabwino (God is good).

Our Great God

We received Mphatso's passport today. Thank you Lord!!!!

We have an appointment with the embassy on Monday at 8:00 about a visa to travel to the U.S. If approved, it will be issued on Tuesday.

If we get the visa, we'll be back in the US on Thurs, Dec 3.

What a rushed week.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

update

Sorry we haven't blogged in a while. This is a pic of Mphatso and her swimming pool in our front yard. She made a crown for herself and her dolly.

I (Alice) am feeling better. Finally over the malaria. That was such a strange sickness and I am glad that I am over it.

Mphatso (pronounced mPotso) has a cold and reminds me several times a day that she is sick. She constantly wants to be held but who doesn't when they are sick. I've been keeping track of funny things she says. The other days she was singing Christmas Carols and was singing “Do you hear what I hear?”. For the line that goes, "said the wise man to the shepard boy", she said, “Is a little man better than a boy?". Ray and I just looked at each other and laughed. She is a joy.

The rainy season has started. It has rained every day for the last several days. Yesterday, it rained ALL day. That's great for crops as people are either planting or just recently planted but it is really bad for wet clothes trying to dry. Looks like rain again today. You just learn to work around the rain, the power outages, the lack of running water and lack of fuel for your vehicle. There has been a huge diesel shortage lately with trucks and mini-buses in line for hours to get diesel. The shortage appears to be starting with petrol now as Ray went to three different stations yesterday to get gas and none of them had any. We were able to get petrol this morning, however.

Our Thanksgiving this year will be much different than our Thanksgiving last year. This year, we have a friend here in Malawi who has a friend coming to visit him, who is bringing items we can't find here. I am making Thanksgiving dinner for all of us. I am excited. I enjoy doing this type of thing and I can't wait.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! The Lord has blessed us with many, many things to be thankful for. May the Lord bless you all as he has blessed us!

still or again?

I went to the doctor again yesterday because I still am not feeling right. I thought maybe it was a change in my other meds that was making me still sick but it turns out I still have Malaria. I think I never got over it completely. He gave me some different medication so maybe this will work. I hope so. Malaria is not fun. It's a different kind of sick than I have ever been before.

M & M

First, let me begin by saying that I am over the malaria. Thank you Lord. And thank you all for your prayers. That was a tough sickness. I was sick and it was such a strange sickness that I had never experienced before. I was exhausted and slept all the time but worse yet, I had a headache that would not go away. It was right in the front of my head, behind my left eye. I thought at first it was sinuses but nothing would take the pain away. I tried Advil, Sudafed, Comtrex, Tylenol, panado and nothing worked. So when I went to the doctor and tested positive for malaria he gave me some malaria meds. Those meds, in combination with my diabetes meds, made me even sicker. I ended up going to the clinic at the hospital because I was not feeling better. The doctor did not test me again for malaria but told me that the malaria drugs they gave me should have taken care of the malaria virus. He said he thought my continued headaches were migranes and gave me some different pain killers and what he said were sleeping pills. He said I needed to completely relax to get rid of the migranes and I was not sleeping because my head hurt. What the “sleeping pills” ended up being were valium. I took them for 2 nights really did not want to take any more. However, I no longer have headaches and my energy level and appetite are returning. Thank you again for your prayers.

The church we have been attending has an annual worship service and picnic with another church in town in Zomba at the Zomba plateau. It was this last Sunday. The plateau is a beautiful place. The drive to the plateau was breathtaking. It really makes you appreciate how beautiful Malawi is. However, it didn’t feel like we were in Malawi. It felt like we were in Colorado driving up the mountain. Sometimes I couldn’t watch out the window we were so close to the cliff’s edge. It was a narrow road so if another car approached, one of you had to stop to let the other car pass. The only difference between a road in Colorado and this road was that we had lots of people walking with firewood on their heads or vendors trying to sell their curios, fruit or vegetables alongside the road.

The worship service was great and afterwards we had a brai. I cooked our chicken on one of the grills and had a discussion with three men from South Africa as to why Americans cook hamburger patties on the grill. To them, those are to be cooked in the kitchen. I said hamburgers on the grill are an American tradition – they are so much better on the grill than the stove and we intentionally start our grills just to make hamburgers on them. Then we started talking about “grilling” vs “barbequing” vs. “braiing”. I said we invite people over to grill out. They said someone from Australia told them that if they cook on gas, it is called barbequing. They said we make it too complicated and should just call it “brai”. Funny.

As I was making cupcakes from scratch because a cake mix over here costs about $8.00, and calico beans to take to the picnic, I was thinking it would be really nice to have some macaroni salad. Well, sure enough, the first dish I came upon at the food table was macaroni salad. I was a happy camper, as Ray says. It was great. The food reminded me of a picnic or a party at home and Mphatso was overwhelmed with all the food. She ate about every type of meat there was and picked another dish that had some type of noodles in it, along with some rice. Her three favorite foods: meat of any type (liver included), noodles and rice. I’m thinking Spaghetti Works, Famous Dave’s and a hamburger on the grill are in order.

So, what does all of this have to do with M&M’s you are thinking, right? M = malaria, M= macaroni salad. Sorry, I couldn’t resist……….but I could use some M&M’s about now!

Mphatso funny: She pointed out to me that she has a little tiny bump on her head. She said she thought she got bit by a mosquito net who said she was good chicken. I laughed and told her to go tell Bambo (Ray). She told him and he laughed and said, “Hmm, maybe”. She looked at us and said, “What’s the ploblem?” How do you not laugh? She brings such joy to us.

Good News!!

So the judge approved the adoption today and will sign the paperwork tomorrow.

We also found out that Alice has Malaria. Please pray.

try again

Our attorney went to meet the judge yesterday only to find out that he was called away to an emergency murder case in another city. She'll try to meet with him again on Monday.

A friend sent me the following encouraging word from K-Love yesterday, "God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. ~ James 1:12, NLT"

I needed to hear that. I have to surrender this adoption to the Lord again. I do this daily but apparently, I keep taking it back from him and think we can handle it. We can't.

Mphatso loves to play wedding. She took the picture we have of Andy & Jacque's wedding and made a dress for her dolly to look like Jacque's dress. She also made gloves and shoes for her dolly. It was adorable. Yes, the doll has bright green hair. The hair was washed and cut so many times that it finally all fell out so she sewed yarn on the doll's head. (So it wasn't exactly how Jacque looked at the wedding.)

Court Today?

We went to court today and waited for 2 hours to see the judge. We were in with him for about 5 minutes and said he would make his ruling tomorrow at 3pm.
So now we wait again.
Please keep praying.

What a great day the Lord has made

God is great!!

We got a call from our attorney yesterday saying that she got us a new court date for next Wednesday, October 7. Halleluia!

We also found out that we are going to be grandparents for the first time!!!! Andy & Jacque are due May 22, 2010.

What a great God we serve. He is faithful and we are so blessed. All praise to Him!

new tentative court date

We have a new TENTATIVE court date set for November 16. That's the earliest the Judge has an opening.

no news

I am so very frustrated. We did not go to court on Monday because it was declared a holiday and we still have no word on a new court date.

Happy Anniversary to us

September 17, 2009

Happy Anniversary to us -- one year. I have trouble believing it has been one year since we left our jobs and our life in America and arrived in Malawi. A lot has happened in this last year. We have had the best days of our lives within this last year and also the worst days of our lives within this last year.

Please bear with me as I reflect over some of the highlights from the last year: getting to know and love the children and staff at the orphanage; all-night parties in our neighborhood; fireworks at Christmas instead of Independence Day; no water and no power (sometimes for days at the same time); mini-buses everywhere; lizards everywhere – even in my bed (yuck); friends and family visiting us here; planting or cultivating the orphanage fields; the kids eating lunch at a restaurant for the first time in their lives after we purchased shoes for them; the looks of excitement on their faces when you buy them a cold drink; some of them eating with forks for the first time; having a hot shower when we stay somewhere besides our home; 80 degrees on Christmas Day; no Thanksgiving dinner; praying and worshipping with the kids; the relationships we have developed with other missionaries we have met here; the restaurants we have “discovered”; the daily provisions the Lord has provided for the kids; meeting Miss Malawi; our dog Lukia who guards our house at night and sleeps all day; our cats Princess Fiona and Toby who think they want to stay up all night too; helping cook and serve the kids meals; taking children to the hospital (and a doctor telling me to pretend I work there so I don’t have to stand in line for prescriptions); buying the kids things we take for granted like underwear, slips, trousers; one or the other of us being sick and Ray ending up in the hospital; “Azungu” (white people) being hollered at us dozens of times a day; purchasing “everything” needed to run a house; paying way, way too much for a vehicle that is not worth half of what we paid for it; having the kids from the orphanage come over to bless our house; the excitement all over the country after the Malawi Flames beat Congo in football (soccer); the numerous engagement parties, wedding showers and weddings; “give me my money” being said by people as we drive by; going to the market with Esther to buy food in bulk for the orphanage; hiring and firing staff; getting the honor of naming two babies; two girls being bitten by the same dog; taking the kids for either HIV testing or HIV meds; watching the kids be creative and make something out of nothing; mending the kids clothes; playing with the kids; purchasing food for the kids that they don’t have on a regular basis – like eggs; the breathtaking sunsets and rainbows; ice from our refrigerator; our bad, bad haircuts (we have since found a place that can cut our hair decently); the kids trying to figure out what puzzles were; expensive price of gas here; finding Oreos and Diet Pepsi; the rainy season where it *RAINS*; spending hours and hours typing the school exams; going to the mountain to pray; going to Liwonde game preserve with some American friends and seeing elephants, monkeys and other animals; being *cold* in July; Ganizani’s father dying; the elections in Malawi; Ray’s father dying while we were here; drafting plans for a new orphanage compound; and lastly, our most recent highlight – adopting Mphatso, our beautiful 7 year old daughter.

We have learned a lot of lessons this last year and everything I mentioned above are memories that we would not trade for anything.

Please pray that the remainder of our time that the Lord has us here is fruitful.
Thanks for letting me reminisce over the last year.

We were scheduled to go to court for our adoption next Monday, September 21 but found out yesterday that the court is closing on Monday because it is a holiday. So, our attorney is trying to get a new court date now. Very, very frustrating.

Court date & school

September 10, 2009

We have a court date for our adoption of Mphatso - Monday, September 21, 2009 at 8:30 am. Yeah!!! Please pray that it goes well.


Mphatso started school last week at St. Andrews International Primary School. We decided that we needs to get her up to US school standards because someday when we move back to the US, she will need to integrate into the US school system. There are no American schools here but there are three British internationals schools in Blantyre. While the curriculum is a bit different than the US, the basics are the same. We thought it would be better for her to struggle now while she is young than when she is older and is set in her ways regarding school. She was in Standard 2 at the orphanage school but after they assessed her, we put her in Standard 1. The teacher sends home extra work for us to work with her on to help her catch up. She is improving and is smart.

She has spelling words every night and a reading book. This is the first week of spelling words and I noticed the improvement in her concentration in just a few days. She just doesn’t know how to learn yet so the process is struggle for her at times.

She *LOVES* her new school. They have swimming lessons twice a week, art class, music class, library, PE and computer class. She started telling everyone that Lake Malawi is at her school – she meant the pool. Esther teases her and asks her if she has caught any fish yet at school. Mphatso puts her head down and laughs.

The night before her first swimming class, we put on her swimsuit. She told me it was too small because she is not used to clothes fitting as tight as a swimsuit does. She didn’t want to wear it and was embarrassed because her legs were showing. She wanted to put something else on because girls here do not show their legs. I assured her that this was ok and that wearing this in the swimming pool was fine. She would put something else on as soon as she got out. I even had to have Lyson come in and explain to her that it was ok. I thought since he is Malawian, she would accept it coming from him. She did and is fine with her swim suit now. Such cultural things we don’t even realize that she will face.

Mphatso was excited after her first computer class because they have enough computers that they do not need to share. She assured me that her computer teacher told them that they were to go home and work on their mum or dad’s computer that night. Yeah, right. She loves the computer and is very good at working the mouse to play games or watch a movie. She also loves to look at pictures of people in America so if anyone has any pictures they want to email me, I’ll download them for her.

I don’t have any pictures of her in her school uniform on the camera we have with us so here are some other pictures of her. She made nsima one day by herself and shared it with her Abambo (dad). Ray was watching her make it then they ate together. We also met another family here who adopted a girl from Malawi. They came over to our house and the girls played together. They are playing bubbles in the back yard with Lukia. We also found a restaurant outside of town that had a tree house. Mphatso and Ray are braver than me. I preferred to stand on the ground and hold the camera.

There is also a picture of a galimoto (car) one of the orphanage boys made out of scrap wires, etc. The kids make items out of clay also so they were taking a picture of us with their camera while we took a picture of them with our camera. Peace fell asleep in church one Sunday so I snapped her picture with Lyson.

May God bless you.

Ray, Alice & Mphatso.

PS – Jamie, this blog’s for you because you complained that I don’t blog enough. Oh yeah, D1a is the best!

5 days

Sept 2, 2009

The water came back on yesterday afternoon. 5 days without water is a challenge. We conserved water as much as possible, saving bath water to flush toilets and wash hands. It was tough especially when you have a 7 year old who can put on clean clothes, walk out of her bedroom and be dirty. I am not sure how she does it.

The blessing is that on Day 3 and 4, the water came on during the middle of the night for a short time. At 3:00 AM, the water would come on for about an hour so either I would wake up and call Lyson or he would wake up and call me. He and Ben would fill the tubs outside the house and I would fill the tubs inside the house as well as the bathtub. This way, life could go on as normal so we could wash clothes, cook and bathe.

Apparently, everyone in the neighborhood knew the water was on in the middle of the night because I would hear people talking as they walked to fetch water. Most people in our area don’t have running water in their homes so they have to fetch it from a nearby public water source.

I will never take electricity and water for granted in the U.S. again. Although we had no electricity when we left home this morning, I thank the Lord that we have running water today.

animals everywhere

We took a break and went to Liwonde National Park last weekend (about 2 hours north of us) with another American family who is also adopting a child from Malawi. We had a great time.

The weather was perfect and we saw LOTS of animals. We saw elephants, monkey monkey (as Mphatso says), water buck, warthogs, impalas and hippos. The park does have lions and crocodiles but we did not see either of those animals. The animals are only enclosed by the fence or the river so they are free to roam as they choose. You are not allowed out of your car unless you have an armed escort. You can be fined K2,000 per person if they find you out of your vehicle or the safari vehicles.

We took a boat ride in an all wooden boat (would not meet US safety standards) and saw lots and lots of hippos. We actually got closer than I was comfortable with but the guides apparently knew what they were doing.

We also did a night safari in open truck. It has seating in the back of the truck so it was easy to see the animals. We were VERY close to elephants and hippos at night. It was a great time and the kids loved it.

When we returned from the night safari, there were 2 elephants about 15 feet in front of our car parked in the lot. There was probably 40 feet between us and the elephants. An armed guard came out to assist us into the lodge. While we were sleeping (or attempting to sleep) elephants were outside our window tearing up trees and they don’t chew with their mouths closed. They were so close you could hear them breathe. I kept looking out the window to see if I could see something but I never did. But we could sure hear them. One of them trumpted and it scared me. Mphatso was asleep when we got back to the room so she missed the elephants in the parking lot and the elephants outside our room.

The baobob trees in Malawi are huge. The elephants either eat the bark or tear it off so many of the baobob trees have no bark about ½ way down. Yes, Ray is standing in front of the tree and yes, we could have been fined K2,000 each for being out of the car. We had our friends watch for wild animals while we took the pic.

One of the best things about this trip was that even though the lodge had no electricity, they did have hot water and we were thrilled to take a hot shower. This was Mphatso’s second shower she has ever taken (the other one was a cold shower at our house). She had to do the “hot water shower dance” in the shower. It was cute.

We hope to be able to do this again and the next time someone comes to visit us, plan on making a trip to Liwonde.

Adoption update: We found out on Friday that the court in Blantyre had decided to take a recess the rest of August and all of September so now we don’t know when our court date will be - probably October.

July 31, 2009

The kids at the orphanage are doing great. The weather is still cold but I think is starting to change. We are not as cold and sleeping is much nicer.

Hope, our baby at the orphanage is gone. She is the one who was abandoned and no one knew anything about her. The government called and said they had someone who wanted to adopt her so she has left. We are all very sad. Hope was our baby.

The government also dropped off a 12 year old street child with us named Mercy. Mercy was with us for a couple of days and appeared to be integrating well into the orphanage setting. However, on Monday she put on the new clothes we bought her and said she was going to wash her clothes. She never came back. Life on the street was all she knew and what she grew up with. This was the third orphanage that the government had placed her at. She is now back on the streets. We are praying for her.

The government also dropped off a new boy with us this week. He is about 2 years old and no one knows anything about him. He showed up wearing nothing but a sweatshirt – no diaper, no pants, no shoes. (Don’t worry, he didn’t wear dresses for long – we bought him some sweatpants.) The kids named him Happiness but he is not living up to his name. He appears to be sickly and not very happy. The government is trying to find out something about him so they can place him back with his family or his village.

We have some friends from America that we met through our pastor friend here, who is also from America. These friends are also adopting a child so it’s great to be able to go through the process with them. They are adopting a girl who is about 9 years old. They live in the US but are here in Malawi for an extended period of time. Mphatso had become friends with their daughter and she wants to go visit them whenever she can. Like I said, it is wonderful to be able to share stories and go through the process with someone.

Since we are now legally foster parents for Mphatso, our attorney is now drafting up adoption papers to start the adoption process. He hopes to have the papers ready in a week or two. Please pray for a smooth and speedy process.
We also have another new addition to our family – another cat. This cat’s name is Toby. So now we have a dog, 2 cats and a child. Our house is full - full of activity. Toby is very tiny – just a few weeks old but momma died and so we now have another orphan cat.

I have taken up an old hobby – crocheting. We found a store that sells yarn – cheap quality as it is and I’ve been purchasing quite a bit of it for the girls at the orphanage. We also found some crochet hooks so if they use the inside of ball point pens as crochet hooks, that’s their choice now. There are a lot of crochet hooks floating around the orphanage. I have made several stocking caps for the kids. I’ve also made a couple of scarves and a poncho for Mphatso. Oh yeah and all the doll clothes that I have made. Every day, I get, “Amayi, skirt – dolly, hat dolly, dress dolly” so I have to make something for Mphatso’s dolly. I am now working on a small lap afghan. Crocheting large objects also keeps you warm as you are working on them. The girls at the orphanage are making purses, hats, and one is making a poncho. It is great to see them and work with them on this activity.

Anyone have any solutions for bedwetting that they want to share? We’ve limited her fluid intake from late afternoon on, get her up before we go to bed and try to get her up in the middle of the night (if we wake up). We’ve rewarded with stickers, food and now money. The money reward has lasted the longest but I think she is sleeping so soundly that she doesn’t even realize what is happening until after the fact. Any suggestions anyone has would be great. You can send me a separate email if you want so you don’t have to post a response for everyone to see. Thanks in advance!!

Blessings (madalitso) to you!

Pics: Mphatso (and Lyson) with her new poncho, Toby, Ray helping make bunk beds

Exciting news!

July 23, 2009

I am sorry that we have not posted this information earlier but we wanted to wait until we were a bit further in the process to make this announcement.

We have another addition to our family………a 6 or 7 year old named Mphatso. (Pronounced mpotso - emphasis on PO, which sounds like a PA.) In our October 25, 2008 blog, I mentioned a small girl who was at the orphanage because she lost both of her parents and was begging in the market. (I said in that post that she was 7 at that time but later found out she was younger than that.) We have not verified her age completely so we questions whether she really is 7. We think she’s 6 but are still working on verifying her age. However, we do know her date of birth – January 30. That’s the same day as Jamie’s birthday. So now we’ll have two daughters with the same birth day. How exciting and fun for them.

Anyway, over the period of time that we have been here, we fell in love with this child and want to adopt her. We have done a lot of praying about this and whether this is something that the Lord wants us to do. He has confirmed to us that we are to adopt her. So, when we got back to Malawi, we spoke to Esther and Bishop Stephano about it and Esther said she had been praying for this. Mphatso moved into our house two days later and has been a huge joy (and challenge sometimes) to us. She understands English much better than we understand Chichewa but we are getting better at understanding her and she is getting better with English. We no longer call in one of our staff to help interpret for us.

We went to the village where her relatives, (her granny and two aunties) live to discuss us adopting her with them. The relatives got together to discuss it. Their 5 minute discussion seemed longer and I was a bit worried but I prayed the whole time they were discussing the matter. Granny finally said that it was ok, there was no problem with us adopting her. Later, the gal who was interpreting for us told us that they were excited that Mphatso would be able to go to school and she would be taken care of. They asked that we allow her to remain in contact with them. We said absolutely – we do not want her to forget her family and where she came from. We will make sure that she keeps in contact with them. Granny gave us some sweet potatoes, which was a huge gift as these are people in the village who have literally nothing. We gave granny some money for food and I gave her a wrap I had with me. (A wrap is a piece of fabric used to wrap over your skirt to keep it out of the fire, to hold babies on your back, to haul items, to use as a blanket, etc. There are numerous other uses for a wrap but those are the basic ones. The only reason I explained what a wrap is is because I could see someone wondering why I had a wrap (food) with me in Africa and wasn’t it nice that I shared my lunch with granny. ) lol ;-}

We have met with our attorney several times and he had the aunties and the group village headman sign papers allowing us to adopt her. When you visit the village headman, you bring a gift to him. They felt a live chicken was appropriate.
Since then, we have filed paperwork with the Social Welfare Department and today, we signed the paperwork along with Bishop Stephano and were granted permission to be her foster parents. Malawi still has the law on the books that you have to live in the country for 18 months to adopt. However, Madonna’s cases have changed that and they are now looking at what is best for the child. So, it won’t be 18 months before we can adopt her. We have met with the social welfare department several times and they have verified again with the relatives that they understand what this process entails and that she will be our daughter after the process is completed.
So, now we need to have a home assessment done in Malawi and according to the Social Welfare Director, we can start the adoption process now. Still much more to do there with the process but this was a huge step today!

She is bonding very well with us and calls us “Abambo” (dad) and Amayi (mom) instead of Lay and Alicey. She is very independent and loves to wash her own clothes (by hand), wash the dishes, cook and help with anything you are doing. It didn’t take her long to discover how to sit in the bathtub and now had graduated to laying in the bathtub and “swimming”. (The kids at the orphanage stand and splash water on themselves from water in a bucket as their bath.)

Sometimes I wonder what we are doing. We are 50+ years old and adopting a child. What ARE we thinking? But after we look at her and watch her for a while, we realize why we fell in love with her. She is precious to us, even when she pouts (we’re working on that and she’s getting better). She told us the other day that she wants chemicals for her hair so she can dye her hair either green, pink or purple so she can be like Jamie. (This is really scary because no one ever told her that Jamie had all those different hair colors at different times.) We purchased a hoodie for her and when she put it on, she said she was now like Jamie. We bought her a doll, which of course, she named Jamie.

Our lives have changed here: our focus at the orphanage has changed and we are now designing the new orphanage, we have a child and a cat to go along with our dog. By the end of the week, we will probably have another cat.

We are very blessed to be here and thank the Lord daily for the changes he has made in us, for the changes he has made in our lives and in the lives of those close to us. We thank Him and praise the name of Jesus for allowing us, nobodies that we are, to be servants in His kingdom. Thank you Jesus!
Please pray for enough food for the orphanage, warm clothes and enough blankets for all the kids.

Ray, Alice, Mphatso, Lukia (dog) and Princess Fiona (cat)

PS – these are pictures of Mphatso. One she has the doily from the couch on her head, one she is carrying Jamie her baby and one she is carrying Hope (the baby at the orphanage).

Independence Day

Happy Independence Day USA and Malawi. While we celebrate this day in the U.S. on July 4, Malawi celebrates its independence on July 6. This is 45 years as an independent nation. This is a national holiday—everything is closed.
The crowds are gathering at the stadium for a day of festivities and there were thousands of people already in line early this morning. What a great day.

We have met several other missionaries here in Malawi who are from the U.S. We had a couple of them over for dinner on Saturday night. That was great fun to talk with other Americans. This group of people have been here about as long as we have but we went back to the U.S. in March and they did not. I had Jamie send me a package of flour tortillas back with Bishop Stephano when he returned to Malawi last week and we got them in time to make enchiladas for dinner on Saturday. Our friends absolutely loved it. They said the one thing they had been craving was Mexican food. We figured that because we know that’s the one thing we cannot find over there and that is what we *really* craved when we landed in the U.S. So, we used our one package of tortillas and made enchiladas. I also made a homemade chocolate cake because finding good cake over here is absolutely impossible. It was a great time.

Today, we are going to the airport to help another American missionary pick up her team that is arriving from the U.S. So, more contact with people from the U.S.

The kids at the orphanage are doing well. We’ve replaced the fence around the orphanage as grass fences don’t last forever. This time, we used bamboo mats as fencing and it is much stronger. The carpenter is also building some bunk beds for the kids so soon, they may not have to sleep on the hard, cold concrete floor. Thank you Lord!!!

The two new young girls have integrated well into the orphanage. Hope and Eliza come to the car to greet us with the other children now and Hope always thinks I have something in my purse for her. (Well, I usually do. I carry fruit snacks with me and all the kids know it.)
Thanks for your prayers and your support. We love our time here and are very grateful that the Lord placed us here. I can’t imagine being anywhere else right now……………..even if it is cold.

Hope you all had a great independence day. We’ll celebrate independence day here in Malawi!!

Cold in Africa??

We keep saying that this is not what we imagined. The word “cold” and “Africa” never seemed to go together before – until now. Now we know what winter is like in Malawi. It was 51 degrees when we woke up this morning and raining. Yesterday, it made it up to 56 degrees. We are cold and the kids are even colder, sleeping on a cement floor. Most of the kids have some type of long sleeve, if only a long sleeve dress shirt, that they can put on but very few of them have adequate clothing for this time of year. We have adequate clothing (now that I found a place to purchase a pair of sweat pants!) and we are cold. There are no furnaces here so it’s not like we can just turn the heat on. And cold showers this time of year sting your body. Ray took the temperature of the water coming out of the shower at our house this morning and it was in the upper 40’s.

All of the babies and most of the younger children at the orphanage are sick. Colds, flu and congestion and headaches are the illnesses recently. We also have it in our house. We have taken several of the kids to the hospital this last week to be treated for malaria or this cold stuff that is going around. Several of the kids are on antibiotics to try and get rid of it. No wonder everyone is sick – cold weather, winds and wet. Makes a great combination for sickness.

I wrote about Hope, our youngest orphan in a previous post. We now have another baby, a bit older than Hope. We think Eliza is about 2 and Hope is about 1 ½ . Eliza is the sister of two of the other girls at the orphanage. She is Chisomo and Chifundo’s sister. I wrote about Chisomo and Chifundo last October or November when the village chief dropped them off with a note. Hope has been the center of attention both at the orphanage and around the country for the last couple of weeks, with the news media getting involved in her story. She was dropped off on the side of the road with her sack of clothes and a woman spotted her and took her home. The woman cared for her for a couple of weeks then when she was no longer able to support her, she dropped her off at the police station. The radio and newspaper have been involved in trying to find out some information on her such as her name, where she comes from, etc. but no one is coming forward to claim knowledge of her. It is so sad. She is such a good baby and so cute. She is adjusting well.

Since Hope has been the center of attention at the orphanage, Peace (our previous youngest) is jealous of all the attention Hope is getting. Well, now since Eliza arrived, Hope is jealous. Any time either Ray or I pick up Eliza, Hope is right there on your leg with arms lifted wanting you to pick her up too. Carrying two babies is tough but it can be done.

We purchased some nutritional peanut butter that has lots of vitamins and protein in it. It is targeted for sickly people and malnourished children. Hope has decided that she cannot get enough of it and if we try to give some to any of the other children, like Eliza or Peace, she has a fit. She does not want to share that peanut butter. Ray was holding Hope the other day and feeding it to her and he mentioned that this was the first time he has fed a baby. He did really well. Eliza is malnourished as most of the children are when they arrive at the orphanage so we are anxious to see how well she responds with this new peanut butter supplement also.

Life here in Malawi is good. God has blessed us in placing us here and we are grateful for all your prayers and support. The only downside to being here is that we are getting really tired of the blackouts. On Monday night, we had a blackout for almost two hours. The power came back on and then about 30 minutes later, it went back off again for another 30 minutes. Power was on when we went to bed but was off in the morning when we woke up. It seems to be an everyday occurrence recently that we lose power in the evening and again in the morning. Being as cold as it is, we have to heat water in the morning for coffee or tea so we use the charcoal burner outside – bbrrr. We’ve been drinking a lot of tea, coffee and hot chocolate recently. I’ve also been making soup quite a bit for dinner.

We are continuing the take the children three or four at a time to purchase shoes & socks and to take them to lunch. I think we’ve taken about 1/3 of the kids out since we returned the end of April. The last group we took consisted of three of the oldest girls. They got to get out of school, which they were thrilled about. We purchased school shoes, a pair of shoes to run around the orphanage in and a very small purse for each of them. We were walking around Limbe and decided that they each needed a new skirt. They were thrilled. They laughed and giggled for a long time and kept saying, “God bless you, God bless you.” He has.

One of my former bosses sent some fabric back with me and I took it to the tailor to have skirts and blouses made for some of the smaller girls who do not have anything very nice. They loved them. The tailor loved the fabric because it is so much better quality fabric than anything they can purchase here. When I stopped by to see how he was doing, he kept saying, “I have never seen fabric like this before. It is so nice.” Thanks Eva!! That was a wonderful gift for them.

The pictures are Eliza and Ray feeding Hope.

If you feel God placing it on your heart to help the orphans, please send a check to Hope International Services at P.O. Box 540825, Omaha, NE 68154. Please place a post-it-note on the check that the money is for warm clothes, blankets, food, shoes, school supplies, whatever you desire, for the orphanage. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and may God bless you as He has blessed us with these children.

Hope – another new addition

June 15, 2009

Today John the social worker for the orphanage called and asked Esther if we could take an abandoned child they found. She said she wanted to see the child and that she could stay with us at the orphanage until either her parents were found or they were able to place her in a home somewhere.

Esther had some running around to do so Ray and I headed back to the orphanage to wait for John. He showed up a few minutes after we arrived with two police officers from a nearby village, where she was found. She was very dirty and all of her clothes were either soaking wet or filthy. One of the cooks went to wash her clothes while the rest of us fed her. She was hungry and very thirsty. After she ate, one of the older girls gave her a bath and we borrowed clothes from one of the small girls so she had something dry to wear.

John thought she was 1 ½ years old but looking at her, she appears to be younger. She walks ok but she’s a bit unsteady on her feet still. She doesn’t have all her teeth but that doesn’t stop her from eating.

She seems happy and didn’t have any problems being handed from person to person and didn’t have any problems with us holding her either. Some children scream when they see us as if we are some sort of alien to them…….oh, maybe we are strange to them.
I asked John what her name is and he said they did not know but he was calling her Chisomo (Grace in English). I said I thought her name should be Hope so the kids started calling her Hope. Mphatso said we should name her Mphatso.

After a few minutes, she was sitting and playing with the other kids. She kept following one of the older boys around and other kids started teasing him – telling him that he must resemble her father and that’s why she’s following him around.

I think she’ll be fine until they decide what to do with her. She’s a cutie. Oh, what a smile. We hope you enjoy the pictures of her.

(That night, Mphatso decided that the baby needed some clothes (which she does!!) so she went through her clothes and picked out some underwear, socks and a dress for the baby. The black and white dress is one she gave to the baby. I think I’ll go to the store and look for some nappies (cloth diapers) for her as she has none. Mphatso thinks we need to go into town and buy the baby some shoes since we are buying shoes for all the rest of the kids. I think she is right.)

BRAN

To our BRAN friends,

Have a great time next week. We will miss you all and we will miss not being here.
However, we will be there with you in thought and spirit.

BRAN really helped prepare us for life in Africa. We sleep under a mosquito net every night and it kinda feels like you are sleeping in a tent. Strange food...well, we got that too. Relieving yourself outside.........well, that's a fact of life here, you see it all the time. When you don't have a hot shower, think of us. We don't have hot water at our house either.

Hopefully, you will have tailwinds, dry and cool days and no flats.

No, this picture is NOT Africa. I copied this pic of our SAG last year from the BRAN website (www.bran-inc.org). Thanks Fred!

Ray & Alice

PS – For those who are not “BRANimals”, BRAN stands for Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska. We rode the ride for 18 years then served as crews (stationary SAG support) for four years. BRAN is special to us – as we met on BRAN and several years later, married on the ride.

death

What a gruesome topic but one that is inevitable.

The father of one of the older boys at the orphanage died on Sunday. Esther was informed of this after church. She said that his mother was at the hospital waiting for transport to take the body home – back to Mulanje – about 2 hours away. She asked if I would take her to the hospital to visit with the mother and discuss what to do.

I took Esther, the son (Ganizani) and a couple of the other women to the mortuary at the hospital. The mortuary is out back, behind the hospital. There were a few groups of women gathered in this area, all waiting for transport. Ganizani’s mother and a very young child, were sitting with another woman when we arrived. When Ganizani and the women got out of the car, the mother started wailing. Esther asked me to wait for them so they could discuss with her what to do.

After a while, she came back to the car and said that the mother was waiting for free transportation to take the body home. She had no money and was not able to hire an ambulance or any other type of vehicle to get the body home. She said that the doctor told them to wait for an ambulance that may, or may not, be coming from Mulanje. When an ambulance arrives from an area to drop the sick off at the hospital, they take the dead back to the area with them.

Now, this was about 2:00 on Sunday afternoon. All the offices were closed and the mortuary closes at 5:00. The mortuary staff told Esther if there was no ambulance by 5:00, then they should come back the next day and wait again. If an ambulance arrives and there are multiple people waiting, they take people back in the order they arrive. Esther later told me that people have been known to wait days to transport their loved ones home for the burial.

Esther and I decided that they were probably waiting in vain so we would decided to take her back to the orphanage with us and discuss what to do. I dropped Esther, the mother, Ganizani and the women off at the orphanage. Esther fed the mother and the small child.

Ray & I talked about it and asked Esther to see what she could do about transport for them back to Mulanje. She contacted the MP (member of Parliament) for the area but he was out of town and not going to return until the next day. (If the member of Parliament is available, they have been known to makes these types of trips with their cars, charging just the fuel needed to make the trip.) She contacted someone near the orphanage who has a small truck and they said they would take the people and the body back to Mulanje for K15,000 ($100.). We felt terrible for the mother and especially the son, since we know him very well, so we gave them the money to transport the family and the body back to Mulanje for the burial. They were grieving enough – they didn’t need to worry about how or when they would be able to get the body home too.

Esther escorted them back to Mulanje on Sunday and turned around and came back home with the truck that took them there. She told us the next day that these people are very poor and they did not even have a blanket for the body so she gave them the son’s blanket to wrap the body in. She said the belly was so swollen by the time they arrived in Mulanje that they did not know if they body would even fit into the coffin.

She also indicated that the mother has 9 children, of which Ganizani is the oldest. The youngest child, who was with the mother, was very malnourished. When the mother arrived at the orphanage, she was very grateful for the food. She indicated that this was the first food she and her child had eaten in two days.

We are so blessed and thankful that the Lord is providing for us so we are able to help people like this who truly need the help. Thank you Father! We take so much for granted and these people struggle with every aspect of their lives.

Lord, we thank you for your grace, which we do not deserve and thank you for your graciousness to us that we can be servants to others in need. Lord, wrap your loving arms around Ganizani’s family and any family who has recently lost a loved one – ours included (Ray’s father passed away two weeks ago). Let them know that you care and that their loved ones are safe in the arms of Jesus.

May 28, 2009

May 28, 2009

We are sorry – we know we haven’t blogged in a while. We have been very busy -- Ray’s father died, Bishop Stephano left for America the other day and we were helping him get ready, we’ve been purchasing food and other supplies on a daily basis for the orphanage, we’ve been taking kids to lunch and then buying them shoes, we’re working on a proposed layout of the new orphanage property, the elections had us working with extra security… The list of reasons why we haven’t blogged lately goes on and on.

But know that we are ok, the elections are over and everything was peaceful.

We’ve been busy since we hit the ground again. We’ve taking kids to the hospital, run errands and helped feed the kids. We’ve been out to the new orphanage site several times to take measurements and take pictures. Ray is in the proposal stage of designing the new place and is taking it quite seriously. He will soon start working with contractors to get quotes on building a wall around the property and building a small house for a watchman. If we don’t have a person on site at all times, supplies with disappear.

We have taken several of the kids to lunch and to purchase shoes since we returned. The other day, we took four of the older boys to purchase shoes and socks and to lunch. One of them told me he had been dreaming about this day for quite some time. One of the other boys said that this was a great day for them. The kids at the orphanage need so many things. Two of the boys who were with us, told us that they do not have pants (they were both wearing shorts). One of them told us he does not have any shirts (he is borrowing clothes from friends). We told them that we were only purchasing shoes today. We still have most of the kids who need shoes, pants, decent clothes, underwear, blankets, etc.

It is the beginning of the cold weather and this morning it was 65 degrees when we woke up. Brrr, it was chilly. I was cold in my house, in my bed under my warm blanket and under the mosquito net. I can’t imagine how cold the kids at the orphanage are. Some of them share a blanket because they do not have enough for each child to have one. We purchased a blanket for each child before we returned to the US in March but more children have come to the orphanage while we were gone so we bought more blankets so we can ensure all the kids are warm at night.
Life is good here in Malawi. As a matter of fact, life is very good here……more later.

Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Blessings to you!

PS – We purchased ½ slips for the girls and belts for the boys. This picture is of Ray distributing belts to the boys. Were they ever a hit!!

The other picture if of some of the girls "goofing around". Mphatso, Miracle (the Director's daughter), Sarah and Chifundo.

addition

May 11,

Alice has asked me to write this blog as she thinks I have more to talk about right now.

Well we are back in Malawi. It is good to be back home again. We have been here for almost two weeks now and things are back to normal. We get up, we go over to the orphanage, and we go into town to take someone to hospital or to go shopping or go to the internet.

The reason that Alice wanted me to write this blog is that after 6 months without a cat we now have a kitten living with us. I am one of those persons who needs a cat around to feel like he is in a home instead of just a house. The kitten is still trying to let me know what her name is, but she is pretty young so she does not talk very well yet. She is one of the litter that was at Esther and Stephano’s house. When they were tiny kittens they would not have anything to do with me. But when we got back from the USA they were less fearful. This one was pretty scrawny so I started feeding it some nsima scraps. Then I decided to find some cat food that I could carry around in the car so I could feed it when I went over to the orphanage. Yesterday Esther finally took pity on me and asked me if I would take the cat off of her hands because she does not like cats. So she came home with us last night, and scared the heck out of our guard dog. Lukia was frightened of her all last night, but seems to be less afraid of her today. She has been busy exploring the house and sleeping and eating. I will post a picture if I can.

It feels like we have more direction now. Land has been bought to build a new orphanage on. It is about one acre and about 7 kilometers outside of town. We will first need to build a small house for a watchman to live in then we can start on the wall that will surround the property. Once the wall is up we can start having the buildings put up. I am working now to design the buildings so that when we are ready to build we will know what to build. Of course all of this depends on there being money in the coffers to build with. But our God is an awesome God, and I know that the money to build His orphanage will be there in His time. I will post some pictures of the land when I can.

That is about all that I have for today, so I will sign off until sometime later.

Ray

(As a postscript, the kitten confessed that her name is Princess Fiona).

Also, I'll have to post the picture later. It is too large so we have to change the size of it on the other laptop at home. Sorry. She's a cutie!

we're back

We're back in Malawi and things are going very well. We were very warmly greeted upon our return and have spent quite a bit of time with the kids and running around doing errands.

We took 3 children to the hospital today and the doctor said there was nothing wrong with two of them -- that's a first. We thought they both had malaria. The other child has a toothache. It is so bad that her cheek and eye are swollen. They said they can not remove the tooth with the infection in it so they gave her an antibiotic to take for a week. They'll remove her tooth next week. Poor thing. She was so scared and cried huge tears.

We purchased backpacks for the orphanage kids with money the Promiseland (Sunday School) kids at our church raised. They never expected anything like that and oh, were they excited.

We are very glad to be back here and doing God's work!

Last blog entry from Africa until May

Last blog entry from Africa until May
Well, we are leaving in a few days to come back to the US for a while so this may be our last blog until we return.

We are anxious to see everyone but will miss the children here. One of the older girls asked e to take her with me because she wants to see Jamie. I said, “But Betty, you don’t have a passport.” To which she replied, “I’ll use my health passport”. Very clever, I thought. I told her that there is no picture on her health passport and she said, “No problem, I’ll take a picture of myself and glue it to my health passport.” Oh, I wish it were just that easy and that cheap. (The health passport she was referring to is a book that follows them around for life. Instead of the doctor office keeping your charts, the doctor writes in this book and you bring it with you each time you visit a doctor, hospital, health clinic, etc. The doctor writes prescription information, sicknesses, whatever, in this book so you always have a complete health history with you – if you don’t lose the book.)

I asked Mphatso, one of the five year olds if she had her passport and if she was ready to go with us. Her eyes lit up, she shook her head and said, “Yes”. Oh, I would love to bring her home, no front teeth and all.

It will be nice to sleep in a house that is in a relatively quiet neighborhood – at least quieter than it is here. It will be nice to not hear the same some six songs repeated over and over and over. It will be GREAT to eat Mexican food and we both really want a salad. I’ve tried making salads over here a couple of times but each time, I’ve had stomach issues for days so we don’t even try any more. It will be nice to stay up later than 8:30 each night. Last night we went to bed at 7:00 because we had been without water for 2 days already and power since early afternoon. Our laptop batteries were drained and we had no power for lights to read by so we went to bed.

We went to the field to harvest the maize with the kids on Saturday. It was great fun, especially for me, the “city girl” who has never been in a corn field. But it was hot and we were itchy so as soon as we returned to the orphanage, we went home to take a shower. Then we discovered that we still had no water. Oh great, what fun and we had no water in our reserve drum either. We bathed in about a pitcher full of water each and called it good.

We are currently on Day 4 with no water. When we left for church on Sunday, stinky and all, there were lots of people in our neighborhood out searching for water. Our reserve ran out on Saturday so we rented the big truck this morning and had water brought over from the orphanage. However, when we came home from church, God showed his faithfulness again. It was raining. I mean it was really raining. All the way to our house, we noticed people had buckets, tubs, whatever they could find to catch water out. It rained and rained and rained. When the rains finally stopped, we had all our tubs and buckets filled and were able to function as normal. We even filtered the rain water to drink. God knew that his people needed water and he was faithful in providing water for our area of the city. Thank you Lord!!

Like I said, we will miss the children and Peace (3) just started playing and teasing with us. But………we’ll be back in late April. Surely, they won’t have forgotten us by then.


Note: This is picture of Peace sitting in the maize field as we were harvesting on Saturday.

Eggs and preaching

When was the last time you had an egg? If you are like us, it was just a couple of days ago. Well, Ray & I thought it would be nice to buy the kids eggs one day so I sent Evance to the market up the street to purchase eggs. One of the little stands sells eggs and he was delighted to sell that many at one time. I wanted to make sure we had enough for the 80 kids plus one of the each of the staff and teachers so I hard boiled 110 eggs. What a hot job. Anyway, we took them to the orphanage the next day, intending them to be for breakfast but Esther wanted to keep them for lunch. Ok, no problem. So at lunch the kids had nsima (their favorite), soup (tomatoes & onions cooked down with some spices added) and an egg. They loved it. The excitement on their faces was priceless. Of course, we didn’t have the camera that day. The one day we leave it at home. I asked Esther when the last time the kids had an egg was and she said they had two last year. One during the crusades in August and the other was when she bought them one other time. Wow – two eggs in a year. Then one of the teachers came up and said he wanted to thank us because he had not had an egg in over two years. When we got home, I discussed this with Evance. Eggs cost about 35 kwacha. He said that if you have 35 kwacha (equivalent to about a quarter), you could buy more items and feed more people with that amount of money. You could buy a tomato, an onion and some vegetables and feed probably 4 people with those vegetables as opposed to one egg. That makes sense, especially when you live in a country where 35 kwacha is very hard to come by. I’ll remember that the next time I eat an egg.

Since most people don’t have televisions in our neighborhood and quite a few don’t even have electricity, if you want to get information out, you either post signs (which costs money), use word of mouth, or have a loudspeaker attached to the top of a pickup truck and drive around spreading whatever type of information you have. The elections in Malawi are coming up very soon so it is not uncommon to hear someone driving around making some type of political announcement. So this morning, it was 4:30 AM and we were sound asleep when in the distance, I hear some type of announcement. I thought at first that it must be some type of emergency information that they were trying to inform everyone of because of the time, then I realized it wasn’t that. Then I thought it was some type of political information. When the sound got closer, I realized it wasn’t political either. By this time, Ray was awake too and we were trying to figure out what was going on. It sounded like it stopped right outside our house. Actually, it had stopped at the Catholic church behind our house. It was someone preaching. He was outside that church preaching for about 20 minutes, then sang a song and prayed. Now, I am all for preaching. Don’t get me wrong but if I were not a Christian and I had someone invade my neighborhood with a loudspeaker at 4:30 AM, I would probably think that I don’t want any part of that Christianity stuff if I have to wake up my friends at 4:30 to tell them about Jesus. If you want to hear about Jesus, we’ll be more than happy to talk with you, but not at 4:30 AM!

I can’t wait for next week because by then we will have taken a hot shower, slept in a bed without a mosquito net, watched tv, turned the water and light switches on and off at will, and surfed the web with speeds faster than a crawl!

(This is a picture of the water coming out of our bathroom sink one day. It is not always this dirty -- this was unusually bad this day.)

Rainbows

Saturday’s rainbow has to have been the most beautiful rainbow ever in the entire world. It was a double rainbow. One of them was very intense in brightness and you could see the entire rainbow, end to end. Driving home, at one point it looked like it ended on top of our house but upon further investigation, it appears to have ended a few blocks from our home. People were stopped on the road, in fields, anywhere they happened to be, watching in amazement at it. This was the most spectacular rainbow we have ever seen.

Ray walked around our neighborhood taking pictures and this picture is the end of the rainbow. The mountain in the back is the mountain we climbed to pray. Ok, so we didn’t climb all the way up the mountain because we live about ½ way up but we climbed from there. We take this rainbow as a sign of God’s glory and his promise to us. We read in His word about the rainbow, “And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Gen 9:12-16 (NIV). We’ve had some clouds in the recent past but we believe this rainbow was a sign to us of His faithfulness.


See you in about a week. We leave here next Wednesday, March 11 and arrive in the US on March 12. We'll be there until April 27. We hope to see you then!

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!)