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!

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.