Packing it in Before We Fly Out!
We have internet at home again! Wahoo! Our router died in mid-December, so we’ve been limping along since then, pleading with our internet provider to replace the router – which they did last week!
We’re headed back to the States for furlough in just 13 days, so there’s no way we can catch you up on everything in the last few months. But we’re taking videos and lots of pictures to upload once we get to California! In the meantime, here’s a glimpse of what we’re up to these days…
Setting up Baby Flo’s room. She doesn’t have a name yet, but from the color of her wardrobe, it’s no secret that she’s a GIRL! We can’t wait to meet her sometime around August 21st, and it’s kind of surreal that we’re leaving here as 2 of us, and returning in September as 3 of us!
Learning to spell our names. It’s harvest season here in Malawi, and our friends out in the village invited us out to see what was happening on their farm. And showed us the sticky seeds that they use to teach their kids how to spell their names. If you’re wondering what the camera strap in this picture means… yes, we’re bringing back some great pictures of harvest time and village life. Stay tuned!
Hanging out with friends. Janique is part of the youth group that we meet with every Wednesday evening, and she’s quickly becoming a good friend. Knowing we’ll be gone for 3 1/2 months makes us treasure every chance we get to spend time with the wonderful people of International Bible Fellowship.
Taking pictures of all the important people in our lives. Leaving for a short time is a great excuse to take pictures of the people who have become a big part of our lives. Kondwani and Matt work side-by-side in the church office, and he and his family have helped us understand so many things about living in Malawi. Ministry happens in the context of people, so we’re bringing lots of pictures back to the States to give you an idea of what (and who) Malawi looks like to us.
In a few days, we’ll start packing for the States and closing up our home for it sit nice and quietly until we return in September. We’ll start thinking about things like Target, dozens of radio station options (in English!), freeways, friends and family, mail delivered right to your front door… all in an attempt to avoid the worst of “reverse culture shock.” We’ll go to church that last Sunday and hug everyone, and Rachel will probably cry and blame it on being pregnant. And then on Tuesday the 25th, we’ll get on a plane to Nairobi… to London… to LA! California here we come!
A Day in the Life Of
A couple weeks ago, we decided to record what had happened in one day of our lives here in Malawi. Before you read this, you should know that none of these things are uncommon, but they don’t always happen all on one day. This day started a couple weeks that all blurred together in a happy, busy chaos, but now, 2 weeks later, we finally have a break (and electricity, and internet) to get this posted. =) Welcome to our lives…
Thursday March 4th – A Day in the Life of Matt and Rachel
2am – Rachel wakes up – pregnancy insomnia. She drinks chocolate milk, checks her email and writes back to her Mom and sister.
3:15 – Rachel back to bed, asleep by 3:45am.
7am – Rise and shine! Feels like it’s going to be a busy day, so deserves a little something extra – breakfast: eggs, toast, and OJ.
8:30 – Showered, laundry started, both ready to go to the church office for the morning
9am – Been to the office, back home to pick up the things we forgot – Rachel’s computer and counseling forms
9:20 – Matt drops Rachel off at the office, again, and heads to the bank to make a deposit, which almost doesn’t happen because the teller doesn’t understand the word deposit. Deposit made, Matt back to the office by 10am.
10:35 – Rachel spends an hour counseling a girl from our church; Matt works on his sermon for this coming Sunday
11:35 – Counseling forms for Rachel, while Matt tries to get in touch with our mechanic to see if they’ve finished working on our car, which they’ve had since January 21st. Mechanic says the car is finally fixed, and he’ll call right back to let us know what it costs and when we can pick it up
11:45 – Rachel gets a call saying that the bed we had loaned out to a family is on its way back to our house now. The workers have it loaded in a truck and will wait for us at the main gate to African Bible College.
11:55 – Waiting at the main gate, no truck… Matt goes off to find a Malawian friend and check our mail.
12:00 – Truck shows up, Matt stays at ABC to talk with the friend, and Rachel leads the way to the house.
12:01 – Truck runs out of gas less than 1/4 a kilometer from ABC.
12:03 – Rachel takes one of the workers to the house so that once they get gas he can come back and find the house. But our house is hard for even Rachel to find, as in the last 3 hours road construction crews have bulldozed our front yard and dumped dozens of loads of dirt on the (tarred) road as part of “improving the road.”
12:30 – Rachel has gone back to pick up Matt who lets her know that he volunteered for us to go to the Malawian friend’s house this afternoon, as he and his wife are in urgent need of marriage counseling. Pending items for the afternoon: 1) car to be picked up from the mechanic, time unknown – mechanic will call; 2) bed delivery, time unknown – they’ll just show up at our gate; 3) marriage counseling in a nearby village, time unknown – friend will call.
12:45 – Lunch: leftover chicken pot pie and salad from the night before.
1:15 – Prepping for afternoon marriage counseling appointment, now scheduled for 4pm; Matt makes a call and sets up a time on Sunday with another couple to do PRE-marital counseling
2pm – Rachel calls the lady who was coordinating the bed delivery, pretty sure that the workers are getting paid by the hour, and probably taking a nap on our bed on the side of the road as they wait for gas to magically appear.
2:15 – Matt gets a call from another friend in a different village who has malaria and needs a ride to the clinic for medicine. Matt drives out to get him, passing the truck (with our bed in it) at the gas station.
2:45 – The bed arrives, but none of the workers want to get out of the truck because they’re scared of our 4 month old puppy who is already clearly a large dog. Brave souls bring the bed inside, and said puppy ran away with only one of their shoes. Simba graciously gave back the shoe, like it was his high and royal duty to guard it for the man.
3pm – Matt returns from taking our friend with malaria to the clinic, we change our clothes and get ready to leave for the other village and marriage counseling.
3:15 – Mechanic calls. We should pick our car up in half an hour, once they’ve had time to wash it. No thanks, we’ll be by first thing in the morning.
3:30 – Off to the village
4pm – Arrive at our friends’ home in the village, knowing they are in need of urgent marriage counseling. The house is surrounded by women, children, and cooking pots and utensils. Are the women here to take the wife’s side? What have we gotten into?!?
4:15 – Finally understand that the women are all from the couple’s church and are cooking for an upcoming conference. We begin one of the more difficult counseling situations either of us have ever been in. The issues themselves are not difficult – the language is. The husband speaks very good English, but the wife does not. The wife doesn’t want another person involved in the situation, so is satisfied with having her husband translate for her.
4:30 – Counseling continues; the women outside start to sing, right by the window.
5pm – Counseling continues; it starts to rain. Conversation is drowned out as the rain quickly turns to a downpour and hammers on the single sheet of tin that is the roof and ceiling of their home. We struggle to shout through the ruckus. The women outside crowd on the porch, and send all the kids inside to be out of the rain. We now have an audience of 8-10 small children sitting in the hallway watching with wide eyes the two white people who have come to this home.
6pm – The rain has let up a bit, and we have finished our time with this couple. God’s grace is a marvel to us, as we have seen issues resolved and plans made to continue to walk together in love and grace. We pray with them and for them as we leave.
6:10 – Got a message from our night guard that his mom took the umbrella and he’s reluctant to walk 45 minutes in the rain to our house. We wouldn’t want to do that either, so, since we’re still out, and our guard’s village is on the way home, we swing by the pick him up. That would be village #3 for the day.
6:30 – Home, but the electricity’s out, so we start up the generator and get dinner in the microwave.
6:45 – Dinner: leftover chicken pot pie and salad, again. Yes, the same thing we had for lunch, but we’re tired and this is easy, even if this is the 3rd time in 24 hours that we’ve eaten exactly the same meal.
7:20 – Power is back on, so the generator is off. Matt decides to teach the guard how to turn on the generator so that he can do it next time, and the starter pull cord breaks off in Matt’s hand. Glad that didn’t happen at 6:30!
7:40 – Matt starts a big theological discussion with Rachel about how to describe the trinity to someone who is not a believer. Rachel tries to listen, but can only think about the hours she was awake in the middle of the night, and being exhausted at 16 weeks pregnant. The trinity is too much for her right now.
8:30 – Go to bed before anything else happens. It can all happen tomorrow…
Growth
A few things have changed around here, so it’s time for some updates…
Our cute little puppy of a couple months ago is quickly becoming a large dog. Weighing in at around 45 pounds, Simba is now 4 months old, and this picture is a pretty accurate idea of what he spends his time doing – lying down and eating. And if he’s not eating his food, he’ll gladly eat rocks, snails, entire maize stalks… anything that fits in his mouth!
Rachel is growing too, as she enters the second trimester. Baby Flo is starting to make an appearance!
At 14 weeks, Baby Flo is doing great! Matt got to come and see the ultrasound this time, and we marveled at God’s creative design as we watched Baby Flo lift up a hand to show us all 5 perfectly formed fingers – so tiny, but already there and moving around!
Another thing that’s growing is grass! The rainy season was very late this year, but it’s finally here. We’ve had rain every day for a week now, and it’s so beautifully green! It feels like we brought the green home with us from vacation!
What’s growing here? Our box of burned out electrical items! Voltage spikes, brown outs, and all other kinds of electrical anomalies are a part of daily life here, so we try to protect our more important items (fridge, freezer, computers, etc) with voltage guards. The guards lying on the ground are both dead due to a spike a couple weeks ago. The one on the left has a little black hole one it where it burned completely through – but it protected Rachel’s computer! The one on the right protected Matt’s computer, all his back-up drives, the printer, and the internet router, but when it burned up, it got so hot it burned the two holes in our wall! On to the next set of voltage guards, and more lessons in Malawian electricity!
The Ladies’ Bible Study on 1 Peter has been fabulous! They’re 16 weeks into the study, and just starting chapter 4. All the ladies have learned so much from this small book and God has grown in each of them a greater appreciation for studying His Word carefully, thoroughly, and in context. The graphic above was generated by Wordle.net, highlighting the key words for the book of 1 Peter.
And finally, though this has nothing to do with growth, a little glimpse into our adventurous lives here in Malawi – a Nile monitor lizard that we chased out of our kitchen last week. He’s much smaller than other monitor lizards we’ve seen, but he made up for his size with aggression and snake-like movement! We’re hoping this guy does NOT grow and come back for a visit!
Time for a Vacation
After almost 9 months in Malawi, we decided to take a little time away. When you’re living in a new country, your “days off” are just as busy as your work days, so we knew we needed to go away to rest. And away we went…
To the Zomba plateau. It’s a 4 1/2 hour drive south of Lilongwe, and a whole world away! The ferns, trees, and GREEN overwhelmed us, and we started to relax right away.
We had rented a 2-bedroom cabin down a little dirt road, and thoroughly enjoyed a cozy fire to keep us warm in the evenings. It’s the hot time of year here in the southern hemisphere, but up on the plateau it was cool and brisk, and high enough in elevation that there are no mosquitos.
The first thing we did when we got to the cabin was take a walk. This is how we looked when we left for the walk…
And this is how we looked when we got back to the cabin. You might notice that we’re smiling even bigger in this picture – the rain was awesome!
We decided that this trip qualified for Christmas and birthday presents for both of us, but Rachel did have her actual birthday on this trip, so we went for a boat ride at a trout farm.
Matt thought that Rachel probably shouldn’t be paddling on her own birthday, so quickly took over paddling duty. =)
In between resting and reading, we saw quite a bit of the plateau, including William’s Falls…
And Chagwa Dam, a hidden, remote little lake that was one of our favorites.
One of us took A LOT of pictures on this trip and thoroughly enjoyed hauling a big camera across fields, through the rain, over waterfalls…
Same said adventurer conquered a few mountains in search of just one more photograph.
Our last adventure was exploring the western side of the plateau. We had tried to drive out this direction, but the roads were too eroded, even for 4-wheel drive. So we hiked them. It was almost 4.5 miles uphill to reach Chingwe’s Hole, a hole ~60 meters deep, situated right on the edge of the plateau, overlooking the valley and plains below. When we got to the cliff, this is what we saw. Fog and clouds!
But as we waited, the clouds lifted and the fog blew out of the valley – it was beautiful! Suddenly the 4.5 miles uphill was worth it!
On the way back down, the clouds settled back in, and we slipped and slid in the rain all the way down!
And we loved every minute of it. We drove home from our vacation feeling rested. Our times of refreshment in God’s Word and our times of enjoying the beauty and wonder of His creation are reminders of His grace to us, and we’re ready to jump back into life and ministry with a renewed excitement!
Introducing….
Baby Floreen!
For those of you as unskilled at reading these pictures as we are, Baby Floreen is at the bottom of the oval shape, between the two plus marks. Though only about the size of a blueberry right now, we decided it would be a good thing for Baby Floreen to get used to being in pictures at a very young age.
We’re planning to return to the States for delivery. We are officially due the 23rd of August, but are still working with airlines and doctors to figure out when we’ll be flying to the States. We’ll let you know! For now, Rachel feels like she just got off of a 35 hour plane ride… turbulence, airplane food, exhaustion!
And if you’re wondering, no, the baby’s name is not going to be “Florence.” I spelled Floreen several times for the ultrasound tech, and finally he said “Is this close enough?” Um, sure. =)
Christmas in Malawi
Christmas in Malawi was fabulous! We did miss the cold weather and snow, but we had no lack of good friends with whom to share the holidays!
We hosted 2 church Christmas parties in our home. We had about 60 people come to the parties over the 2 nights, playing games, talking, and eating lots of food.
We sang carols, read the Christmas story together, and had a great time!
We’re so thankful we were able to spend these days of celebrating Christ’s birth with our church family!
We hope these holidays have been full of times for you to reflect on the wonder of God’s plan of salvation, and on the beauty of His Son, Jesus! We are truly blessed to love and serve Him as we head into 2010! Happy New Year, from our family to yours!
Our Fierce Guard Dog!
We finally found him – our fierce and ferocious guard dog! He’s only 8 weeks old now, but this Great Dane / Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy will be one LARGE dog someday… soon.
His name is Simba. We thought that meant “lion,” but apparently Shumba means lion, and Simba means great or powerful. That works, we’ll keep it!
For now he’s practicing his ferocious moves on a pig’s ear. That ear doesn’t stand a chance!
Watch out bad guys!
Mosquito Season
With the summer rains come the mosquitos, and, around here, with mosquitos comes malaria. Before we moved to Malawi, we didn’t know a lot about malaria, and kind of expected that every mosquito here would be carrying it. Not true. Only the female of a certain species of mosquito carries malaria. Still, we’ve adopted a policy of trying to avoid ALL mosquitos. Because it’s not like they show their “I carry Malaria” ID card before they bite you…
Here are a few things we do to fend off the mozzies:
Frequently used items, sitting next to our front door: mosquito repellent spray, mosquito repellant cream, and sunblock. Don’t leave home without it.
We have 2 types of windows in our house, and this type doesn’t have a screen of any sort. The mosquitos come out from dusk to dawn, so we simply keep these windows closed from about 5pm until we get up in the morning.
We can’t keep all the windows closed, though! It’s summer here in the southern hemisphere, and it’s HOT! But check out these awkward windows – you can’t put a screen on the outside because they open outward, and you can’t put a screen on the inside, because then you can’t work the handles to open them…
Solution: mosquito netting curtains. Three lengths of mosquito netting firmly attached to the wall, but with enough overlap that you can pull them aside to open the windows.
But no system is foolproof, and the mozzies can still get in sometimes. They come in the doors with us when we get home at night, or in the windows we didn’t close on time. So we also use these “mosquito coils”. Think Citronella candle in incense form.
And we found these great handmade coil holders at the pottery place in Dedza!
The last defense against mosquitos is the net over our bed. Most bed nets hang from a frame about 3 feet below the ceiling. We decided to make our own and attach it to the ceiling so that we could put a fan inside our net; because otherwise it feels like sleeping in a cheesecloth bag!
And this is Matt’s design and Rachel’s sewing ability on display – we made it with 2 cords to raise and lower the net. If we lived in a tree, we’d be just like Swiss Family Robinson.
Safe and mosquito-free!
Lastly, we take a weekly medication as a malaria prophylaxis. We don’t have a picture of us taking a pill, but you should see some of the weird dreams that medicine gives us!
While we try our best to protect the health that God has given us, ultimately, He’s the one who determines if we get malaria or not. Our greatest comfort is the knowledge that if we do get any kind of weird disease, God will give us the grace we need to endure it. That knowledge keeps us from living in fear, and helps us enjoy life here in Malawi!
New Friends
Making new friends is always fun, and here in Malawi it’s really easy. So we’re making a lot of friends, but some of them stand out above the rest. Meet the Banda family.
We first met Bright, on the far right, at our church where he helps lead worship every week. He’s a senior at African Bible College, and it’s been so great to get to know him over the last few months. About 2 weeks ago, he took us out to his village, Moya, and we were able to meet some of his family. One of his younger brothers is standing next to him, and his mother is next to me. Have you ever met someone that you immediately liked and wanted to spend more time with? Bright’s mom is one of those people for me, and I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.
The purpose of our visit, in addition to meeting Bright’s family, was to meet with the chief of his village about making door mats and area mats for our house. He makes the mats out of sisal, so Bright and his mom introduced us to the sisal plants around the village.
We bought a couple mats while we were there and put in an order for some more, larger mats. Then we took a look around the small village and met quite a few of the people who live there. This is the chief’s house and backyard fence.
Before we left that day, we took a tour of the Banda’s farm. It was fascinating! Bananas and rice in the boggy area near the river, tomatoes, lettuce, guava, maize, sweet potatoes, and so much more over the rest of the area. It’s all farmed by hand, machete, and hoe by 2 or 3 people. It was beautiful! They sent us home with lots of lettuce, tomatoes, and bananas, and they were so good! I was going to take a picture of them, but the electricity went out, which is not uncommon around here. So I made dinner in the dark and we ate by candlelight that night.
This last week, we were back in the neighborhood with Bright. After we confirmed a few things about the mat making process, Bright showed us another, larger variety of sisal. Some of you may recognize it as “mexican agave.”
He also showed us the sand mine that is a source of income for many people in the surrounding villages.
We’ll be back to this village many times over the coming weeks and months, so it’s fun to get to know some of the people and places. Please pray for us and for the Bandas, that we can encourage one another in the faith. And pray for us as we get to know the people of the village Moya, that we can be a testimony of God’s truth and salvation to them.
Moving In!
Welcome to our neighborhood! We moved into our house this past weekend, and are in process of settling in – which is better than opening Christmas presents! We haven’t see our furniture since we packed up our apartment in January. Everything was wrapped in brown paper and packed in boxes, so it’s like someone gave us the biggest present – all the stuff that we enjoy and picked out ourselves!
Here’s the neighborhood – all residential and fairly quiet, and there’s always people walking around and sitting in the shade to talk. It feels very neighborly.
Matt put up towel rods in the master bathroom. We did quite a bit of work on the house.
And then came the cleaning. Scrubbing bathrooms, wiping out kitchen cupboards, sweeping cobwebs off the ceiling…
Here comes our furniture! Our friends Richard and Felix helped loading and unloading.
And in case you’re wondering about Jack, the cute little dog in the picture above, no he’s not ours. We’re dog-sitting for the former tenants for a couple weeks. Wait until you see the other dog, the “lion!”
Kellen came to help unload too – thanks Kellen!
Boxes everywhere! Moving is over, now for the unpacking!
The Biedebach family came over to help and brought us lunch. It was so fun to have them helping us unpack and rediscover things! And thanks for putting our table together, Brian, so that we could eat lunch! =)
Lots of odd jobs go along with unpacking. Matt is sweeping concrete sand out of the way so that he and Brian can hook up the washer and dryer. Bradley is walking around and supervising.
Benjamin helped by collecting paper scraps and sitting on the pile of paper so it didn’t blow away.
Ami did a fabulous job of unpacking and unwrapping – everything from our kitchen cups to our living room kids’ toys! Thanks so much Ami!
And baby Allison just coo’ed, slept, and looked adorable.
Many of our extra boxes went home with the Biedebachs, and we hear that Biede-Box City is currently under construction on the back veranda!
Ami takes a much deserved break to jump in the boxes and packing paper!
Thanks Biedebachs for helping us unpack, and thanks to all the guys who helped us move all the boxes and furniture! We pray that this house will be a place where people can be encouraged, refreshed, and directed to the Lord.