Last Tuesday with Johanna

This is our Tuesday dedicated to Johanna. It included an awesome video that Lisa made. So great! We had about 2 weeks of lunches and goodbyes. I was truly blessed to have Johanna as my teammate. She is a great friend! love you lady. Included in the this picture is: Top Row, Cheryl, Me, Annie, Lisa and Jessica. Second row is: Johanna, Kat, and Edith. Let me just tell you a little about these ladies. They are amazing and I love that the Lord put us together.

Cheryl: She grew up here in Malawi. She has dual citizenship with Canada and the US. She is an amazing lady who happens to be one of the coolest Mks ever. She works at one of the schools here as the accountant. and does many other things as well!

Annie: She works for Children of the Nation (COTN). Works with about 15 orphanages, helps get them started and their education grounded. There are about 15 orphanges that she helps out with. Wow!

Lisa: she is a teacher at ABC (African Bible College). She teaches 6th grade and is an amazing teacher! I have seen her in the action!! She brings out all the energy in us! Love it!

Jessica: She is a nurse here for Partners in Hope. As well as working in the clinic, she goes out villages as well to check on the wellbeing of others. She also is my walking buddy, I wouldn't be at all healthy if I didnt have Jess!

Kat: She works with special needs students here in Malawi and has been here quite a while now. And I have to give a shout out to the UK, she would kill me if I didnt. I just love to listen to her talk!


Edith: She is a Navigator, that is she does college student ministry. She gets our humor and still wants to hang out with us. =)

All these ladies are super awesome and are here working for the Lord in many different areas!! Im truly truly blessed to have them in my life! Just thought you would like to see who I get to spend most Tuesday nights with!! And Jo, you arent in here, you left right before the picture. I love you too!

Johanna...we miss you already!!!

Zambian home visit

Johanna and I are back in Zambia for the next month. We have a much smaller group of kids this time. They are very sweet and funToday as a field trip the students went to visit a Zambian home. In this home Bambo taught us about Zambian games and also gave us a Zambian snack. The children really enjoyed themselves!!

South Luangwa Park

So before we arrived for duty in Lusaka,Zambia..we stopped at a game park. It was quite nice. Some interesting things... it took about 5 hours to get there from Malawi and about 2 and an half hours of that was on a washboard board.. ugh. I was greeted by 4 baboons one morning while going to the bathroom in my tent. The elephants were so close that I didn't even have to get out of tent to touch one of them. And.. drumroll. We saw at least 21 lions. They had attacked a momma and baby buffalo and were chowing down when we arrived. =) AMAZING!!

Two of the coolest ladies come to Malawi...

During the first week in October my friends Sandra and Ruth came to Malawi for a visit. We spent 5 days in the village of Zidunge. We had an amazing time. The church there was planted about 4 years ago, so we were there to help encourage and disciple. We had lessons in the morning and afternoon. While working in this village I was given a new name from the kids. I taught them a silly song called Doody bop and all the days following that, they called me doody bop. Fun times. In the morning and afternoons we had lessons with the children and ladies of the village. Along with the ladies there were 4 men that joined us everyday as well. Ruth and Sandra came very prepared and were ready to be lead by the spirit. It was a wonderful time of seeing discipleship. One of my favorite things that happened this week was when Sandra shared with me that the 3-5th grade class at her church had saved money and sent it with Sandra to use how she felt lead. The money was the amount that was needed for tarp for the roof of their church. I don’t know about you, but I think that is stinking cool!!!!!!!! Here is us with our awesome interpreters. Chifundo and Melify did a wonderful job and we had a lot of fun with them!! The middle picture is of the whole gang, without Chifundo, sorry, he was taking the picture. and last is a picture of the girl I fell in love with instantly. She taught me a rock game that I was horrible at and she was laughing right here when I couldn’t catch one of the rocks. Is she not beautiful!!!!!

Language....

So some of you may be wondering why in the world I am doing a post on language when I have been in Malawi now for a year and 8 months. Well, when we first arrived within 3 days we started our job. We tried to have language lessons after teaching. Note for all: Language at 4 in the afternoon after working 7-3:30 doesn't work. So the past week in a half we have been in language. Since I am staying for another year, I thought it would be very beneficial, and Johanna wanted to join as well. We had Chichewa lessons for about 3 hours everyday. Although my head was spinning by the end, it was great. Our teacher Dyna was awesome. She is a natural teacher and she loves her job, so it made it fun for us to learn!!! The picture turned out fuzzy, but here we are with Dyna. We finished our lessons on Friday with a story that ended up being almost a page long, I was impressed with ourselves!

The Best Wedding ever ever!!!

This past Suturday our friend Floresa was married to Innocent. Floresa is Italian and Innocent is Burundi. (not sure on spelling)It was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been too. (and not because of how it looked, but how it was put together, if that makes sense) There were Burundian drummers for the reception. For the wedding itself when the pastor preached it was in English, then it was translated into Italian and Swahili. It was so cool! Its Amazing how God brings two families from two completely different cultures and unites thems. Even though the families could not communicate to each other without Flo and Innocent, there was the beautiful acceptance from both sides. Flo and Innocent are passionate about the Lord and it shows in their relationship to each other and to the people around them. That was awesome to see!! And there was some really really fun dancing!! whoo hoo.

McCall in Malawi

We were blessed to have a team of 7 from South Carolina. We went to two different villages. Kumalindi and Nkoko. At Kumalindi the guys had discipleship classes in the mornings and then went out for evangelism in the afternoons. At Nkoko they stayed for 3 nights, and the last day they helped mold bricks for the building. Here's a fun picture of the crew.

Chichewa literacy 101

In my August update I shared that we helped with a literacy class. The ladies first started not being able to read any Chichewa. By the end there were 15 ladies that graduated. It was so awesome to see!!

My sweet kiddos for a month

So here is my crew. This was our third time back to Zambia to help with 40/40. Instead of 2 preschoolers I had 6. The three boys were very much boys, and the three girls were very much girls. We had so much fun!!! I couldn’t of had a better group. The only really hard tasks were painting with that many and bathroom time at bush camp. (Bathroom time was sometimes difficult because it was a ways to get there and it was a big hole). But... they did a great job! We did lose a shoe down the chimbutzi, but it was because Micah (the blond right next to me) was trying to kill a bee for all of us. He kicked the bee and his flip flop hit the ceiling and then fell down the hole. Wish I had a picture of the 6 kids and myself leaning over looking down. They really thought we could save that old navy camouflage flip flop but it was a sad day for Micah’s shoe. Luckily mom and dad went to the Boma (town) the next day and picked up Micah some new flip flops. All is well.

Meeting the family

We took a trip to the village and we went to see my Zambian Family. This is the family I stayed with my very first time. This is the kitchen where they do all their cooking. The kids thought it was very cool that you cook in a completely different place. The second picture is my mom Agnus and I. It was such a sweet visit. It was a blessing to see her and her children and to know that everyone was doing quite well. I look forward to seeing her again in October.

Big Birthday Bash

Today was the official day for Jessica and my party. And wow were we amazed and feeling loved! Our day started out with breakfast at Pams. So nice and relaxing. Then we had notes to open each hour. We opened out next envelope and it was a pedicure and manicure. So great. When we finished at the saloon the ladies had got so excited for us, they wanted us to read out next note which was lunch at the restaurant next door. We had an amazing chicken salad and pizza. Then we opened our next envelope, we found ourselves heading back to the saloon for a back massage. Ok, do you think we are feeling pampered? Totally and very special!! Then after the massage we received a text message to go to Jessica’s to relax and wait for our next visitor. So we watched a movie, than our friend Kat arrived and she said she was hair and make up. After we were dolled up we opened a bag with clothes for us to wear. There were two outfits: one really cute dress and the other was a very Malawian outfit that you would wear out in a village. Kat said we could choose… I wonder which one we picked. Then we hopped in the car and headed to our house (Johanna and I). When we arrived we were welcomed by an overwhelming amount of our friends and family (our adopted family). Then they had dinner for us with menus, the restaurants name was “Trattoria 1979”. Can you guess what kind of food we had? On the menu was sweet notes to Jessica and I. Then after dinner we had a video from our friends in England, then a slide show with pictures from our friends and family. It was so so wonderful!! I was overwhelmed with how much love I felt. Our two friends Lisa and Johanna worked so hard for us!! Thank you for making my day so special! And Jess I was so blessed to get to celebrate our days together!

Music and Art extravaganza

Today was our music and art day at our school. It was so great. The parents were asked to arrive at 5pm to come and look at their students work then there would be a music program at 6pm. I was worried at first because parents were dropping their students off and not sticking around… and I frustrated thinking we had become babysitters. But then the parents started piling in and I was so excited. Then we heading to the hall at about 10 till 6 and we walked in the it was completely full. There was about 200 parents that came. It was very smooth and most of the kids came. It was noisy and crazy as well, but the kids had a blast and so did we!!! The pictures are from the art room. These girls in both pictures are just the sweetest ever!!

Sweet Retreat

So about a week ago I found myself getting to have this as my scenery. I know huh!! I forgot I was still in Africa. It was our annual prayer retreat. You never know you need something until it happens. For many weeks the Lord had been laying many things on my heart and asking me to give it up to Him and I was really trying to hold on. I wanted to be able to make decisions on my own. This weekend here I felt the burdened just completely lifted and such amazing peace. And I was blessed with seeing this beauty while asking for extra guidance. Thanks to all of you for always praying for me. Many days I can feel those extra prayers!

Chakakala Village

I spent three days in the village and had a wonderful time. Along with me at the village were our supervisors Mat and Janet, the two new hands on guys, Steve and Bryce, and two translators, Chifundo and Laiter. One of the pictures here is some of the kids playing peek a boo. Later they came and hung out with me. Through out the 3 days we showed the Jesus film and four videos about True love waits and Aids. Both nights we had such a wonderful turn out. The second evening I had an opportunity to share with the village. I was able to tell the people why I am here in Malawi and how I have chose to save myself until I get married. It was a great time to show the women in the village that they can do the same thing.

Art and Music funness!

Here are some great pictures of my students. And yes I know that funness is not a word, but I like it. They are really enjoying art and music and I think I am loving it just as much!I asked the younger kids to paint shapes and they turned out so cool. The older ones are making paper mache drums, and standard 5 is dancing in music. And Johanna is teaching PE and the nursery. Here are the kids doing some stretches. Love it love it!!Cuteness!!

So during the raining seasons we have massive amounts of snails and some of them are bigger than my foot. They are quite gross!! But as we were leaving the airport, we found this snail. No, we didn’t put the flower on him, it already was there and we just had to take a picture! So for the first time we thought this snail was way cute.

One the coolest pictures I think I have ever taken..

Im diving in...

Today we were asked to drive some of our fellowchurch members to be baptized at the Lilongwe river. Pastor Urgent baptized 10 people today. It was so great to see this many people show others that they are part of the family of God. What a blessing!! I hope you enjoy the scenery, not everyday do you get to see baptisms in a river. I also find it quite entertaining that if you went a little bit farther in, I’m pretty sure that you would go right on down stream. The waters were very strong. There are five pictures for you. One is of the river, the second one is one of the girls being baptized, the third is Pastor Urgent praying as we ended the baptisms, the fourth is everyone getting a ride back to church in our truck, and the fifth is one of the girls accepting her certificate. What I enjoy about the fifth one is if you look in the back on the chalkboard it says “please all phones on silent” and then there is Habakkuk 2:20. This verse says “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” Enjoy!!!

Three Amigos

These are three of our sweet students. Sarah and Batoul are sisters and then Fatima is their cousin. We also found out that these girls are our neighbors. We are now teaching at Mt. Sinai International school. I am teaching art and music. (Music with the help of Johanna). We are in our third week or school and I am really enjoying it. God has blessed us with many opportunities to share and we are blessed to have awesome students!These girls come and see us everyday almost twice a day and they bring us sweets. They are the nicest students we have ever have. Are they not the cutest ever!!