Our Journey

This week’s Response in A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God,

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will – all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. This is enough for me.

This will be my Lenten prayer.
Amen.

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Hello!

I must admit that I am tired. It’s not that we have come to Malawi just to visit or even participate in a VIM team, but we are experiencing a brand new culture, learning about the Malawi UMC and imagining how we might participate in their work and ministry, processing the logistics of moving here and trying to see Malawi through the eyes of our children – all at the same time. It is too much for me to process. My brain is tired.

But each new experience continues to be amazing. Yesterday we did visit two villages – meeting the village chief(s), meeting the lay leaders and women’s leaders, singing, and giving some small gifts. The maturity and eloquence of the UM leaders here is astounding, the women are so strong and the children are beautiful. The woman chief at Kwidsi village has offered us space for a house in her village. ;-) It would surely fall within our price range. Seriously, Jeff and I hope to spend some overnights in the village so that we can move past the formal introductions and have time to just hang out with the people and get to know them and their daily routines.

This morning we left for Blantyre again. We drove over to Lake Malawi and then down through a Catholic mission and hospital called Mua. There is a wonderful museum there that tells the history of the church in Malawi and some beautiful carvings from the local people. At the mission we met a family from Canada who are here serving with the Presbyterian church. They also live in Blantyre and their children attend St. Andrew’s, one of the schools we are looking at, but in the secondary school. They actually encouraged us to send Claire Marin to Phoenix, the other school. They said St. Andrews is quite rigorous academically and they think primary school should be more fun. They have several friends with children at Phoenix who love it. So… we’ll visit the head mistress at Phoenix, share all of this information with Claire Marin and go from there.

Tonight we have treated ourselves to a bed and breakfast type lodge run by a couple from the UK and South Africa. We had a lovely dinner of beef stroganoff, vegetables and apple pineapple pie for dessert. And now we’re on wireless internet. ahhhh….

We met a couple at our hotel in Lilongwe from Laguna Beach, CA, who are backpacking around southern Africa for a month or so. They were looking for a way to Blantyre so they rode down with us today. They are very interesting and have traveled most of the world so it’s been fun to get to know them and hear of their adventures.

Tomorrow we will visit Phoenix again, may look at a couple houses and we have found out this evening that we may be visiting a couple more villages and/or churches. Then in the evening we have a meeting with Rev. Mhone to discuss ideas for where to start when we arrive in July.

I’m only hitting the highlights, but we will blog more when we return, go through our journals and notes and begin to process all that we are experiencing. Pictures will help to tell much of the story.

We miss everyone at home!

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