the wedding videos

Something New Part II

'With all the sadness and chaos that is going on in our world right now, I'm glad to know that God is doing something amazing out there too.'

Girls Shine Christian Academy.

This is a high school for girls that was started by Blessings and Tiya. Both Blessings and Tiya had a vision where girls in the villages would be able to go to high school and not have to leave. That they would be able to further their education and not become mom's and wives by the time they are in 3rd, 4th, 5th grade. They had a vision and they achieved this vision.



The 10th grade building being built.

When we were in Malawi last year we were able to see the beginning of what this high school was going to look like, it wasn't complete but they were hoping it would be by the new school year. This year we were able to not only see the completed vision of the school but to be there with the students and see their smiling faces. The school was only built for 9th graders, as that was what they raised the money for, but also they did not know what to expect in terms of how many students would be coming to this school. IT WAS FULL (120 students). The success of the Girls Shine Christian Academy showed them that they needed to build more, they needed another building and they started the foundation while we were there, they also asked us to help raise to start raising money for the building so they could complete it, in hopes that we would go back to our homes and ask our churches to help with the completion of what needed to be raised. So 80 of us started to help donate money right there on the spot. They asked us to pray and to write a quote, bible verse, word of encouragement on a piece of paper, and put it under a brick that would be apart of the school  They would also build that paper into the school so that it would always be apart of the foundation. By the time all the money was collected and counted we found out that we, the 80 of us, passed the amount they were asking for by several thousands of dollars, we invited Tiya to come eat with us at the college to let her know, and once again I did not disappoint in NOT taking a photo or video of Tiya's priceless reaction, but it was amazing, and another 'be in the moment' situations. I don't have a picture of the wall of people who donate to the Academy, but there were at least 100 people on this wall, and the 80 of us would be included. They are hoping to build two more buildings for 11th grade and 12th grade within the next two years, as well as a girls dormitory, so these girls don't have to walk so far everyday.  And speaking of girls dormitory.



 Girls Dormitory for ABC college

During the last year our church and Mosaic church were asked to be apart in raising $300,000 for a dormitory that would fit 100 college students. We would raise 1/3, Mosaic a 1/3 and ABC a 1/3. We were asked to do this because there is not enough room on campus for a lot of the girls to stay on
campus, a lot of the girls try to sleep on the floor of the already full dorms, but most have to go back home. This sounds perfectly fine where we live, as we have many modes of transportation and several safe ways to get home directly after school is over. However, most of these girls live very far away, hours away. Most of them wake up before the sun rises and have to take several minibuses packed like sardines, just to get to school. Once school is over they stay to do their homework, because they need to utilze the computers at the school they don't have their own computers at home, and even if they did, there is no way to get internet. So they stay til after dark, and once again have to travel back home. It is not safe for women after dark either. So we were asked and we just barely finished raising the money while we were in Africa. I know I have mentioned it before, but when we raise money for our trips we are asked to not stop raising money once we hit our goal, because the extra money goes to projects that we do while we are there. This year were had enough to finish giving the last $10,000 we needed to raise for this dorm to be built for these amazing students that always help us when we are there, who go to the villages and continue to help there even though they have already had a long day at school and will have a long trip ahead of them going home. I wish I could say I can show you the finished project, but it wasn't even started before we left, what I do have is the sign and location of the project. And hopefully, I will be able to get a pic of the final results next year.

Updates and News: Thank you all for your prayers and positive thoughts for Melinda Gunther and her family. She is doing well, they got out all the cancer, and went straight into reconstructive surgery after, she will be starting chemo in the next week or so, so please continue to pray for her.

Our church is doing Barefoot Sunday on Sunday, November 5th. If anyone has any shoes that they do not need anymore and are planning on getting rid of please let me know. We get as many shoes as we can and then ship them out to Liberia with a team to distribute to the villages and remote locations by motorbikes. Here is a picture of the last Barefoot Sunday we had. Yes we do not have shoes on either, we are asked to donate the shoes we wear to church as well, and to try to go the whole day without shoes, this is actually hard to do, since most places will not allow you to go into them without shoes in AZ.


Here is a picture of our last Barefoot Sunday. This is what
we were able to donate, these boxes were overflowing.





Something new this year

 

2 Corinthians 5:17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!


This year we had a survey team, this team was made because one of the men from Mosaic who came with us last year had it very heavy on his heart that we needed statistics about malaria in Malawi. A completely preventable disease that is easily treated and cheap, but also one of the biggest death causing diseases in Malawi. The 'government' in Malawi do not understand how bad malaria is in this country. They do not see or know it as a problem, but if you have never had malaria and were not raised in an area that has it all the time then you probably don't know how bad it is. Out of sight out of mind right?!? So the guy from Mosaic, Joshua, decided to create his own app with a bunch of questions about malaria (once again I did not disappoint you all, I did not take a photo for you all to see exactly what it looked like and what the questions were so that you could have a visual, this would obviously be a good idea, and that is why I didn't do it, haha. sorry). His hope was to go through two of the villages in the two weeks we are there and go to each home individually and gather as much information as he can to show the statistics of malaria.

His app started with the head of the household which asked a bunch of questions for them, including questions like: How many times have you had malaria this year? In your lifetime? Age? How many wives do you have? How many children do you have? What their income is? How many animals?  How many people live in your home? What is your job? How far do you travel to and from your job? Have you ever taken malaria medication? Do you have any side effects of the medication, and if so what are they? How far away is the closest hospital/medical center? Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you have a mosquito net?  And many more. We even got a picture of each person. The app has the head of household first and then there are different pages designed for each individual family member or person(s) living in the home. Each head of house hold had a number assigned to them, this was helpful just in case there was a family member that was not home they can put in the number and pull them up to have them answer the questions later, also because the homes don't have addresses, we could find them easier on the map that Joshua printed up and had printed on fabric to easily roll up and go (also would have been a good picture). Depending on how many people were in the household this process took a long time (15 min a person). Joshua was able to talk to some people about getting IPads for this process so we could travel the villages door to door.

At first we thought that we would have someone from our team use the IPad and a student would translate, but we quickly realized that the students at ABC college knew how to use the IPads very well and if they didn't they learned very fast, so they did all the talking and we were their just in case they needed a different way to translate what was being said to them. Because English is no ones first language, where we are. I was able to make it for one day during this process and I am glad I did. It was so amazing to see how every thing worked and it was humbling to listen to their stories. Something that I really loved was the reaction of our own ABC students, they were so excited to do this, they were dressed up in nice clothes everyday ready to get more information. They understood more than we did how important this information is for these communities and these families.

 

 

Since I cant remember to take pictures of anything IN Africa here
is a picture of something a drew on my flight coming home
from Africa, while my brain was processing. Please
note the huge ink spot where my pen broke.

Of the many families me and my student, Elias, almost everyone story was similar. Most people had at least one wife if not two, most had at least four kids or more, most had had malaria this year between 2-5 times (it's only the middle of June when were we there), and everyone said they have had malaria so many times in their lifetime that they lost count, this would include their children who could be as young as 2. Many of them have taken malaria meds and almost everyone had some sort of reaction to them. Most people did not have a mosquito net. And everyone had a story about something else in their life that they wanted to share, whether it be how they became homeless, another disease that they have currently, how they lost their family, other ailments that they may have, what they were hoping for from us, I can't even explain even a little what it meant to me to be apart of this. If I wasn't so dedicated to my women and widows of these same villages I would have been on the survey team the whole time I was there.

 I was able to travel through these villages and see even more than I ever have, I was able to visit families that were 'rich' by the village standards, and a homeless man who was the poorest of the poor. The circumstances were different but they all had similar stories. We spoke with a 15 year old boy who wanted nothing more than to get out of the village and go to school, because he knew, JUST KNEW life where we were (America) (he pointed at me) was so much better than life where he was currently, and he knew that I had no problems, worries or cares in the world, this boy was in high school, and his father is a farmer whose land/job was 20 feet away from his home, they had many animals, and plenty of food, they were considered rich by a village standard. We spoke to a homeless man who lost his leg to disease, who laid on the dirt ground every night right behind the home of the 15 year old. He was happy and really wanted his picture taken, and was slowly building himself a small place next to where he lay at night, he proudly showed us the 'concrete' ground and the very few bricks that he had already placed for his new home approx. 5X4 feet. All he wanted was a place to stay when it rained. We also got to speak to chief Chiliza, this was not something I expected to do. I thought that the chiefs would have been complete by this time, but they were all very busy, the survey team would go everyday to their homes to see if the chiefs were available and it just happened that chief Chiliza was. I got to learn his age, and his real name, I'm pretty sure I have mentioned this in the past but it can be repeated, but when a chief becomes a chief they do not go by their name, they go by whom evers name was the original name of the chief that first started, so his name was not Chiliza. I found out that he currently only has 2 wives and is in his late 80's early 90's he cant remember, he can't remember guys, he was surprise he's still alive. He has a bunch of animals, (how many animals a person has in a village can show you how wealthy) he said that he gets a lot of animals as gifts and just keeps them around. He does not kill them for food because he and his family are vegetarians. One of his wives lives with him and the other lives in a completely different village, so they were going to speak to her on a different day potentially. It was an honor to be apart of his survey. We spent all day on the surveys, and tried to get as many people as we could, as it was approximated that there were almost 200 homes to visit in each village (we found out later that it was less, not by a lot), but Joshua and his team were able to complete every survey.

This survey team was amazing to watch come alive. It was so beautiful to be apart of and although I do not have any information as to what is happening with the findings, I am excited to find out.


Thank you all for your support and prayers, love and thoughts on Melinda. An update on her, she had a double mastectomy on Wednesday September 13th and went straight into reconstructive surgery. They got all the cancer out, and she is currently in pain, but recovering well at home. Please continue to pray for her healing as well as the chemo and radiation she will be enduring soon. As you might know this part can take a toll on a persons health and body and strength. Thank you again.

If anyone wants to continue to support Live Love Malawi and the villages that we go to you can donate here. Please make sure to select Live Love Malawi, and write in the box what or where you want the money to go. This could be for bibles for the womens team, or mosquito nets for the people in the village or you can also help donate to get a vehicle for the Live Love Malawi team who if you read here  just lost their only form of transportation after they were in a rollover accident recently.

Malawi truck needed

below is an email from the Live Love Malawi board of directors.

 

Friends,

As some of you may have heard, Tushah and Innocent were in a car accident with the Live Love vehicle at the end of August.  

 

They are both fine!  Neither of them were hurt!

 

They were driving late at night to pick up Diana who was struggling with her asthma and needed transportation to the hospital.  A drunk driver pulled into the main road and hit the back tire of the truck, causing them to lose control and after swerving severely, the truck flipped over.

 

 

Although it is the drunk drivers fault (thankfully, she was also uninjured) and police were called to the scene, well…TIAJ. There will be no payment from the other driver or insurance and the time it would take to fix the truck and the cost would be high.  I've attached some pictures.

The wisest thing is to purchase a new vehicle, however this was not planned for in the budget for this year.

 

We need your help.  This vehicle is imperative for the staff to have transportation to and from the village and to fulfill all of the tasks associated with their ministries.

 

Please prayerfully consider helping us with a one-time donation that will be used to purchase a new vehicle.  We would love to raise $10,000 for them.  This is the cost they have investigated in the past to purchase a multi-passenger van type vehicle. 

 

You can donate by clicking on this link​

http://donate.whatislivelove.c om or going to the website 

​www.whatislivelove.org.  Pick Malawi in the project drop down and put vehicle in the memo.  

If you prefer to use check or cash please contact me at hope@dpstconsulting.com or 480-353-9041.

​ ​

Zicomo! 

 

Hope Stevenson

Blessings Chibambo

Womens and Widows-leadership

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.1963)

So I tend to stick with my women's and widow team, I don't like to stray from them, because I love them so much and I have an amazing connection with most of them from previous years, I always feel like I'm cheating on my team if I go somewhere else, well I strayed for two days this time around. What was nice was the two days I strayed were two days where my team had breaks. This might sound bad, but it is needed.  Last year my team was overwhelm with too much to do and not enough time to do it, and this is something we usually try to avoid, but we just overloaded our schedule.

This year we did the same things as last year but were able to condense everything, for example we did one long women's conference with all three villages that came to one spot, instead of 3 separate conferences at all three villages in three days. I really liked this way because all the women can come together and learned together, and taught each other. The other thing we did was instead of going to each individual widows home, we had the women come to one location in their village and we saw them at the same time. This was good and bad in my opinion. Good because again we had everyone come together to be with each other, also we did more dancing and singing, which was fun. What I did not like about it was we were not able to do things with them in their homes/huts, we couldn't go to their homes to help them clean or cook or learn their lives, and we couldn't go to their homes to see if maybe they may need a new roof or if their 'foundation' was cracked. These are things we look for when we go. And the other thing I didn't like about it, is that not every widow could make it to us, because they had a disability or were too sick which prevented them from being able to make it to where we were. This was a new way for us to do our widows meetings, and I think it was a good jumping off point to teach us what will be better for the future. I know our hope is for the women to be able to take control of their own conference and lead us, which is coming soon, this year they did a lot of the work on their own, and we did very little.

We also did something new this year, a leadership meeting, where Duwa  the women's leader of Live Love Malawi, found and brought who she knows are amazing leaders in their village back to the ABC campus, We got together with approximately 30 women leaders to learn about what they wanted to see change in their village. It was really neat to see them all collaborate together and even have some arguments of what they felt was more important or should be first on the list. Collectively each of the three villages, wanted better education for their children, more people of the village to come to know God, and to have a way to be able to provide not only for their families but for their community. We had them write and draw what they were looking for, for their future and then choose one thing out of their list and explain how they can start trying to make that happen. It was pretty amazing. I am excited to see if anything comes to fruition by next year.





Here is a Chichewa Bible
 1 John 4 2-6
 I took this pic for 1 John 4:4

Here are the three things that they came up with.


One team wanted their village to have more of their community come to know God. They decided that it needs to start with them, and that they need to be the voice of their community to have people learn of Him. They really want more men to come to know God, and realized that getting the wives involved to see how they are changing can in turn help the men find God as well.  They also need more bibles, they do not have enough bibles for each of the women in the bible studies they do every week, only a couple for everyone. I believe the received many bibles almost immediately as Mosaic church found a way to get them more Bibles. I own a Chichewa Bible myself from an amazing student who gave me one last year.







Another pic of Chichewa Bible 1 John 3:16-23,
I took a pic for 1 John 3:18.



 

The next group came up with a way to make money, They wanted to start their own farm, and ways to be more self sustaining, I wish I would have taken more pictures of this leadership meeting, rather taken any pictures, but of course, once again, I was too excited to even care about pictures, and was just happy to be there. The moral of this story is if you want to see more of Malawi, you all need to come with me next year :)

 

The last group is a village that has been with us from the very beginning they want to be more self sustaining, they want to make money on their own to help their community, they have a garden, they have land, and they have a sewing business, and they make a bunch of stuff, clothes, purses, bags, bracelets etc. They are partnering with Live Love Chandler to find a way they can sell all of their product(s) here in the states. It is pretty amazing.

Watching these women learn together, argue together, find a way to make their own villages better, and more successful together is something I wish everyone can see. These women have very little and yet they have each other. 



The quote at the top of this blog has been seen a lot recently and it needs to be. I am saddened by the hate, the loss of lives, the violence, and the lack of love we have seen, and I LOVE the generosity, and togetherness, the love, and education of the people this has been affecting the most. HERE is an article my pastor wrote this last week in Relevant magazine. I'm proud my church spoke about what is going on, I'm proud my church prayed together for everyone.

 

 

A surprise

Galatians 5:22-23:But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.


I don't even know where to begin on the trip there. When we first arrived I was excited to see all the students again. They all show up at the airport to meet us and they wait a very long time for us to go through customs and get our visas. They are always in a long line on the other side of the airport waiting and from where we get our visa to where they are waiting is only 30 feet away, but we are blocked by walls. Lilongwe has a very small airport.

The other thing/person I was excited to see was my roommate, we knew ahead of time who our roommates were going to be, but I had never met mine and did not know who she was or what she looked like. I learned through traveling that she was from Colorado and only made it to 2 of our meetings and she was engaged to a guy named Matt who I have been to Malawi with 2 other times. Matt and my roommate Becky traveled separately from us since they lived in different states, but we all arrived about the same time in Malawi.



This is kind of what my room looked like this year but with only two beds and no bunk bed, and we share a bathroom,
with a room that looks identical to ours.

Becky had never been to Malawi before and wanted to go to a place where her soon to be husband loved so much. She was so excited to see this place that he could not stop talking about. She was the epitome of a new person going out of the country. She had 3 bags. One had supplies for Malawi, but the other 2 had stuff. A lot of stuff. It was amazing what she was able to fit in to her bags. Lots and lots of clothes, I counted 7 pairs of shoes at one point (tennis shoes and sandals) she had vacuumed packed pillows and blankets (more like comforters) a ton of food. It was amazing, she brought her home with her. This is all normal for a lot of first timers, however, I have never been roommates with anyone who packed quite like she did. Becky is a very sweet lady, she offer me and our suite mates anything that she had, she loves Matt completely and she was very happy to share this time with him. But Becky had a secret that I did not know or see coming.

Every morning we go to breakfast and then we go to chapel to have a mini sermon and our daily tasks for each group get sorted out. Once this is complete we go to the cafeteria to get sack lunches the we go to our buses and we leave for the day with each of our teams, who we usually do not see again until we get back to the campus. I was the only one of our 4 suite mates that was on a different team.


I only spent a few nights with my roommate. Because she was on the same team as the two other women we shared a bathroom with, they noticed that she seemed to be very upset on her first day. I could not tell, because when I saw her she was with her fiancé and she was very happy when she was with him, however, several more people came up to me asking if she was okay. I decided that one too many people saw something that I did not see, so I asked her how she was, and sure enough she was struggling, and she was embarrassed that others noticed she was not doing well. But these people care about her even if they don't know her. I found out she was upset with what she had seen, she wasn't expecting Malawi and the village(s) to be the way they were, she was hurting. We talked for quite awhile, and we were able to get to a point where she didn't want to run away and stay on campus the rest of her trip. One of the things our pastor says to us during the state side meetings is if you are overwhelmed and you need a break, then get up and get on a bus, there is always a bus around to get on and breathe. Also, you can stay behind on campus if you need too. We are not in our own environment, this is not something we see even in the worst parts of our cities. She was able to breathe again after our conversation, she was able to take a break and a step back, but there was something else that had been on her mind the whole time.

Cut to two days later, it was a normal day, breakfast and chapel. Our pastor told funny stories of his life and marriage and it was a lot about marriage, my roommate and her fiancé sat right next to me. I remember telling her that she looked amazing that day. And next thing we know our pastor says, would anyone like to get married today? He had to ask twice. As soon as he said it once, I knew that was what she had been concerned about as well, she was about to get married in a country that her fiancé adored, but she wasn't too sure of, but she wanted to marry this man. And so the second time our pastor asked, 'does anyone want to get married today?' they both stood up and we had the first American Malawian wedding!! I wish I could say that I took sooo many pictures of this amazing occasion, but I cant, I never take my phone with me to chapel or my camera, cause 'I don't need it' Wow was I wrong. It was a very quick wedding, maybe 10 minutes. We did the throwing of the money, to which they donated right back into Live Love Malawi. It was fun, beautiful and spur of the moment. I barely knew my roommate, and yes she did leave our room that night, so I was now roommateless, <~ (is that a word. Oh well it is today). But she is an amazing woman, she married a great guy and what little we learned of each other we really seemed to connect with what little time we had. I saw her throughout the rest of our next week or so, her and her husband left a little early to have a honeymoon in South Africa.

One of the most amazing things though, was later that evening, I was in the gym on campus watching futbol, I believe, and her now husband took his marriage license to our pastor to get it signed, and they need two witnesses. They asked me to sign their marriage license and be one of the two witnesses!! I was so excited!! I even questioned them as they handed it to me, but they said they talked to each other and knew that they wanted me to sign it. It might have been a small gesture to them, but I was honored to be asked.

Every year I go on these trips and every year I am surprised at something new, I know this is not a story of being in the village or anything we were doing with our teams, but this was a very special day for me (I lost a roommate, and gained a friend). But this place is magically every year, I don't see many things like this in the states, and it always amazes me that I can make friends across the globe but it is so, so hard for me to make friends in my own community. Malawi is home.

I just found out that my leader and beautiful, amazing, faithful and strong friend Melinda has stage 2 breast cancer, please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

Collect Beautiful Moments

-'The best things in life are the people you love, the places you go,

and the memories you make.'-anonymous

 

 

I found the above quote, and I liked it, it reminds me of what I will talk about in this post. I wanted to give credit to the person whom this quote is from, so I did a little research and found a name that correlates to this quote. When I researched the only name I could find is that it is a British Thoroughbred born in 2003 (yes, a horse) who did pretty decent at racing. I don't think he was a Mr. Ed equivalent so I skipped his name and just put anonymous.

 

This post is all about moment(s). I notice a lot of people keep and share their moments through pictures, my mom was amazing at this, people ask us all the time if our mom had a picture of so-and so, and my answer is always, I sure she did. We recently went to a funeral for my mom's best friend and the lady who passed away kids asked if we had any pictures of her, and my mom had several, it was a blessing for them, as they had none. I love pictures and I love taking them, but the more I go to Malawi, I want those pictures in my head and I want to be able to have the moments I feel could have been missed because I was taking a picture instead of paying attention.

 

This happened to me on the way to Ethiopia. We had a 17 hour flight. We started in New Jersey and we landed in Lome to get fuel and we continued on our was to Addis Ababa. The first half was 7 hours long. I was sitting next to a guy and we had the middle seat free so we were able to share that and have space. The man spoke Amharic, a language of Ethiopia, or rather Addis Ababa, I learned this quickly, because our flight attendants and captain would speak Amharic first then they would repeat whatever they just said in English. The guy next to me would tell me in English what the person on the intercom just said before they would tell us in English. I asked him what language they were speaking and that's how I found out. I really didn't speak to him at all the first half of the flight that was it.

 

when we landed in Lome we were all stuck on the plane as passengers left and other passengers came on and we re-fueled. Because I am super tall myself, I can literally stand up on any part of the plane, even next to a window and not have to duck/crouch so I don't tend to be too cramped on a plane. (go ahead be jealous, but do realize I honestly cannot reach the overhead compartments either). So we were all on the plane stretching and talking, and walking around, when a few people came to where I was sitting to talk, and they had polite conversation with the man I was sitting next to. I found out through listening that he was coming from Kansas City, but that was the extent of what I really got, before we started off on the next 10 hours.

 

After a few hours the man asked me how many people I know on the plane, as a lot of people seem to be talking to me like they knew me. I let him know about our trip and that 48 people were with us, so I knew people throughout the plane. He asked me about what we were doing and we talked about it, the row behind us overheard and started talking to me a little and this lasted awhile. It was neat to get insight on what we were doing from people who have lived in Africa their whole lives, they were especially interested in our surveys (I will talk about this more later) we were going to do this year they all thought it was a great idea, as learning more about and eradicating Malaria was something each of the three people I was talking to knew a lot about and wanted to see gone as well. I finally decided that I should ask him about himself. I heard earlier that he was coming from Kansas City, so I decided to ask him if he was from Ethiopia, and he confirmed that he was. I asked him how long he had been gone from Ethiopia, automatically assuming that he was in the states because of work and he was coming back home to Ethiopia, but I was surprised when he said, he had not been back to Ethiopia for 12 years, since his younger brother graduated high school. I found out that this man has been living in the states for the last 12 years, in Kansas City, and that he was coming back to his home town to see his family that he had not seen in a long time, this included two younger brothers. He was coming for a month. His wife and 2 daughters would be coming in 2 weeks, and they were staying for a month as well. He was nervous and scared about what he would see and how much time has past. We ended up having a really good conversation about his story. I got really excited for him, he started to become really excited and I started to tell the people I was with about  his story. I was so excited to see his reaction and his brothers' reactions to not seeing him in the flesh for so many years. I had several people who were prepared to take pictures of this moment that was coming. When the plane finally landed I told him good luck and that I was happy for him, he said he was glad he talked to me about seeing his family, as it made him less scared and more excited to see them. When we finally got off the plane, I should have known this, as it happens in every airport I have been in Africa, but we got off the plane using stairs that go straight to the Tarmac, and shuttles take us to our next destination. The man I was sitting next to was on a different shuttle than we were and there was no way I or any of us were going to see him reconnect with his family. But I am glad that I was able to talk to him for several hours and learn a little about him, and also happy that by talking to me, he was able to be less scared.

 

This was an amazing first moment I had on my trip. It was right in the beginning, and it really showed me that this trip was going to be special.

 

 

 

Another moment I had was in Ethiopia, we had a 12 hour layover so we stayed the night in a hotel. I was put in a room with a friend of mine. This was the first time this has happened on a missions trip to Malawi, we usually just tour the city of a long layover, but this time we were able to sleep and take a shower in between our 3 days of travel. I was still sick for the last 5 weeks, from my new job and had this terrible cough that I could not get rid of, but seemed to be getting better. Everyone kept telling me that I was going to be completely healthy in Africa, because that's my place, and I have never been sick there. And when I step back into the states I would be sick again. Well the cough in the states was so bad that I would have to sleep sitting up to keep from coughing so much. So my roommate asked what I was going to do if I started coughing in the middle of the night, and I let her know I would go into the TV area of the hotel room and sit sleep if needed. I ended up not having a cough the whole night, which was amazing.

 

The next morning I got up to take a shower, and in our bathroom we had our own small water heater that was in the shower, and the shower head was on the longer part of the wall, it was weird. Our pressure was amazing it was super hot (we were the only ones who seemed to have really great pressure and hot water at this hotel). They provided us with a non-slip mat to put on the bottom of the shower, and I put it there, which I never do. There were fresh towels hanging up. I took a shower and went to go dry off and realized I did not grab a towel off of the towel rack and place it on the toilet like I normally would. I looked at the towel for a second and thought that it really wasn't that far, probably 3 feet away, the bathroom was rather small, and instead of stepping out of the shower to grab the towel, I reached across standing on the non-slip mat, and what do you know, the non-slip mat slipped right under my feet and I fell right out of the shower, without bending my knees, without using my hands to stop me and without making a peep from my mouth cause I didn't want to wake up my roommate. My roommate asked me several times how someone fall without making a sound. My thigh landed on the bath and my arm landed on the floor, I never hit the wall with my head, cause as I talked about earlier, 'I'm really tall'. I ended up with a pitch black bruise the size of soccer ball for the next week and a half. It was hilarious. Every time I told the story I couldn't stop laughing. It was another great moment. I never took a pic of the bruise, I wish I did.

 

 

This was the beginning of my trip just before we made it to my favorite place in the world. It was an amazing beginning, it was the start of so amazing moments. Take in the moments you have. I can't wait to tell you the rest.