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This has been a crazy week! I think we live in the Bongo (our little vanette) sometimes. We've been going pretty much non-stop, and it doesn’t look like things will be slowing down anytime soon. Our week started out with a visit to one of our members in Area 25, Jeremiah Kampazangula Phiri and family. Jeremiah’s house sits nestled in the midst of a cornfield; thankfully Jeremiah met us on the main road so he could help direct us to his home. Upon arrival we got to meet his son (who wants to be a neurosurgeon), daughter (Memory, who wants to be a journalist), and wife (Alpha).
Jeremiah is a special education teacher; his specialty is in braille; which he can read and write. It’s obvious that he loves the work that he does. If you read my blog, you may remember that I wrote about students demonstrating as teachers were on strike. They were/are on strike because they haven’t been paid since the beginning of January due to some issues in transfer of responsibilities in government. As Jeremiah said, it’s making things difficult.
While visiting there Jeremiah and his daughter took us to the fields and we picked pumpkin greens. Back at his home he showed us how to prepare the greens and his wife showed us how to make nsima (a staple made from maize meal). The food was delicious, and it was a delight to get to know Jeremiah and Alpha.
It seems we had a brief reprieve with our power the last couple of weeks, with outages coming further apart, and for much shorter time periods. ESCOM has made up for that in the last week with outages taking place each day for an hour up to five or six hours. We had planned to make pizza for dinner on Monday, I even made the crust, but the power went out shortly before we wanted to start cooking… it remained out for the following five hours (it could have been more, but five hours later is when I finally went to bed).
You may notice that this blog is titled Week 10a; that’s because we’ve had a big travel week, and I wanted to make sure I gave proper time and consideration for each leg of this journey. The first travel took place on Thursday; and was a four (ish) hour journey to Nkhotakota (a town about 110 kilometers north of Salima); when we first arrived in town we stopped and had a delicious lunch with Haiton (a deacon here in Malawi) and his son, Lucky.
Several weeks ago a young man contacted Juliana Kachali (a member in Lilongwe) regarding attending services with us. He actually wanted to talk about a whole group attending with us; and requested that we send money so that they could make the trip to Lilongwe. Lewis wanted to sit down with them and try to understand where they were coming from and how to proceed forward. It was a long, hot drive to Nkhotakota. We arrived exactly on time. We anticipated that we would have to wait; nothing seems to start on time here, but after 45 minutes I was getting antsy. The young man, Alex Banda, arrived about an hour after our initial plan to meet. Only one other person from his group showed up. They are meeting together each Sabbath to meet, and they had questions about how to use offerings, and also regarding baptism. Lewis explained the difference between tithes and offerings, and also about the need for baptism, but also counseling so as to ensure they understand WHY they are being baptized. We sat for nearly two hours and we left the two men with several of the Fundamental Beliefs booklets and took our leave. I think it was profitable; and we received a call from Alex asking if he could translate our booklet into Chichewa for his little group. We said he could, but we would like to have one of our deacons read through the translation before he shared it with anyone. We have found that there are subtle nuances in Chichewa that can make translating from English difficult, the meaning might not be exactly right, so we want to make sure that they receive the proper information.
From Nkhotakota we had a long drive back to Lilongwe. We decided to drive through the Nkhota Kota Game Reserve as it didn’t add much time to our trip (20 minutes) and we might get the opportunity to see some wildlife. We were sorely disappointed on all accounts. We managed to see four guinea fowl and a single gecko that hitched ride on our windshield wiper. We know that other animals exist in the park, we saw the unmistakable dung of an elephant, but that was it. What we didn’t realize as we set out was that we were going to be directed to drive over an hour (one way) out of our way to get fuel upon exiting the park. We were all exhausted and cranky by the time we got home after 10pm that night. And we had another long day in the Bongo ahead of us; which is why I have divided this week into two. See part b for our adventures in Blantyre.
Jeremiah is a special education teacher; his specialty is in braille; which he can read and write. It’s obvious that he loves the work that he does. If you read my blog, you may remember that I wrote about students demonstrating as teachers were on strike. They were/are on strike because they haven’t been paid since the beginning of January due to some issues in transfer of responsibilities in government. As Jeremiah said, it’s making things difficult.
While visiting there Jeremiah and his daughter took us to the fields and we picked pumpkin greens. Back at his home he showed us how to prepare the greens and his wife showed us how to make nsima (a staple made from maize meal). The food was delicious, and it was a delight to get to know Jeremiah and Alpha.
It seems we had a brief reprieve with our power the last couple of weeks, with outages coming further apart, and for much shorter time periods. ESCOM has made up for that in the last week with outages taking place each day for an hour up to five or six hours. We had planned to make pizza for dinner on Monday, I even made the crust, but the power went out shortly before we wanted to start cooking… it remained out for the following five hours (it could have been more, but five hours later is when I finally went to bed).
You may notice that this blog is titled Week 10a; that’s because we’ve had a big travel week, and I wanted to make sure I gave proper time and consideration for each leg of this journey. The first travel took place on Thursday; and was a four (ish) hour journey to Nkhotakota (a town about 110 kilometers north of Salima); when we first arrived in town we stopped and had a delicious lunch with Haiton (a deacon here in Malawi) and his son, Lucky.
Several weeks ago a young man contacted Juliana Kachali (a member in Lilongwe) regarding attending services with us. He actually wanted to talk about a whole group attending with us; and requested that we send money so that they could make the trip to Lilongwe. Lewis wanted to sit down with them and try to understand where they were coming from and how to proceed forward. It was a long, hot drive to Nkhotakota. We arrived exactly on time. We anticipated that we would have to wait; nothing seems to start on time here, but after 45 minutes I was getting antsy. The young man, Alex Banda, arrived about an hour after our initial plan to meet. Only one other person from his group showed up. They are meeting together each Sabbath to meet, and they had questions about how to use offerings, and also regarding baptism. Lewis explained the difference between tithes and offerings, and also about the need for baptism, but also counseling so as to ensure they understand WHY they are being baptized. We sat for nearly two hours and we left the two men with several of the Fundamental Beliefs booklets and took our leave. I think it was profitable; and we received a call from Alex asking if he could translate our booklet into Chichewa for his little group. We said he could, but we would like to have one of our deacons read through the translation before he shared it with anyone. We have found that there are subtle nuances in Chichewa that can make translating from English difficult, the meaning might not be exactly right, so we want to make sure that they receive the proper information.
From Nkhotakota we had a long drive back to Lilongwe. We decided to drive through the Nkhota Kota Game Reserve as it didn’t add much time to our trip (20 minutes) and we might get the opportunity to see some wildlife. We were sorely disappointed on all accounts. We managed to see four guinea fowl and a single gecko that hitched ride on our windshield wiper. We know that other animals exist in the park, we saw the unmistakable dung of an elephant, but that was it. What we didn’t realize as we set out was that we were going to be directed to drive over an hour (one way) out of our way to get fuel upon exiting the park. We were all exhausted and cranky by the time we got home after 10pm that night. And we had another long day in the Bongo ahead of us; which is why I have divided this week into two. See part b for our adventures in Blantyre.
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Sandy Abrell So wonderful what the two, of you are doing. I am praying , for you. I can't even begin, to have the energy you have. Thank you, for sharing. We get to see through your eyes. It makes me more thankful, for all my blessings. hugs sandy