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.
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