The Wedding



 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
You know this verse. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast...

The Bride and Groom
 



We went to a wedding while in Malawi, it was the best wedding I have ever been to. Actually let me back track that, we went to a reception, the wedding was somewhere else for 20 min. The reception was right next door to the ABC campus and it was 5 or 6 hours long. It was amazing.

Something I loved about this day, before the actual reception, it was a normal day in Malawi, it was hectic and we were everywhere. We were told that we were going to this reception to set up chairs, so when we got there, we all piled out of the bus and prepared to set up chairs, we waited for about 2 minutes before finding out that the chairs were not there yet, so we all piled back into the bus and went to the village for a few hours. Then we were told the chairs were there, so we all got back into the bus and went back to the reception, where there were at least 150 plastic chairs. So we all piled out of the bus and started to set up chairs. As we were setting up the chairs there were suddenly these sheet looking things sitting on each chair. We were told that we needed to dress the chairs with these sheets.  They just slipped on, but it was not what we were expecting. That took all of 30 minutes or so, but then we were not done. They brought out black 2 inch thick 'ribbon' that we now needed to wrap around the back of the chair and tie a bow on to them. I would love to show you all a picture of these chairs, but of course I did not take one.


 

But I stole someone else's. haha
 

After we were done with the chairs we left again for another hour, and then came back.

As soon as we got off the bus, the caterer came up to me and asked us to cut 16 cakes, that were 10X10 size pans into 300 slices. The guys were told to go and start the chicken on the grill. So as we did the math on these cakes, the men went over to the grills, and realized that these grills were charcoal only, so they needed charcoal and fire. But charcoal is not readily available in Malawi, and neither is fire. So they were stuck. We watched as the Malawian men took what they have for charcoal and fire and slowly start each grill (all 5), they would put the 'charcoal' in the grill and they started a small fire for the first one, and as the fire got bigger, they took the charcoal/fire in their bare hands and put into the next grill. The men were then told to fan the flame to get it bigger, and hot enough to cook food.









 

man and grill
 





We found out that because we were the Azungu's we also were the servers for the party. So they set up two stations for us to serve the guests at  the party. We served little tiny appetizers 2 to each person, and a drink. It was fun to see all the people who were dressed up in the most amazing outfits, all the husbands matched their wives dresses.

But the best part of the wedding was the dancing and the throwing of Kwatcha (money). The DJ would call up different parties like: family of groom, family of bride, people from Live Love (us), People from ABC, there seemed to be 20-30 different groups that went up to the couple and threw money at their feet. And you could be in several of those groups too. The best part was we danced up the aisle to the couple and then threw money until we were done.

The aisle and the back of the brides dress, beautiful
 

money we threw at the bride and groom
 



The aisle, and the groomsmen/women dancing down it.

The students that were with us had the privilege of picking up all the money and counting it. By the time we left they had 1,000,000 Kwatcha, which comes out to approximately $3000 in America. I was told by the students that a lot of times the bride and groom use the money to pay for the wedding and reception. So the caterer, the DJ, the reception hall everything may not be paid for, they do everything on good faith. And if they don't have enough money to pay everything back, they can make payments.

 

 

If you ever decide to go to Malawi, ask if there will be a wedding, because that is something you don't want to miss.

 

Also, Blessings is getting married in October, Paul and Melinda are in the wedding and will happily accept any money you want to give towards his wedding before they leave. He is worth every penny, if you choose to do so.















The Travel

The Travel:  Some of you have already done this trip and so this post might be boring.  I know that last year I didn't really think too much of the plane ride and how long it was going to take, in anticipation of what was ahead for me/us.

I did end up spending extra time thinking about the travel this time around. I thought I knew what to expect when we got to Africa, since I had already been, so that was off my mind. I remember thinking that I was even more nervous about going this time. because I wasn't last year. We only had 27 people this time around and so we only had 27 boxes to keep track of and 27 backpacks. This is in comparison to the 59 we had last year.

Our first lay over was in JFK, this is the only time I have ever been in New York, and was excited cause this is where my mom was born. Although I don't really consider this 'being in' New York as I did not step outside of the airport. Our second stop was London. This is amazing, because our lay over is long enough that we get to actually leave the airport and travel a little.  Our pastor has done this trip so many times he has a route he takes us through London. This year we skipped going through Hyde Park and took an extra tunnel from Paddington station to Buckingham Palace. From there we saw St. James Park, Westminster Abby, and Big Ben. From Big Ben you can see The Eye, which is my favorite thing to see, mainly because they blow it up in every movie. 


Buckingham Palace
 

THE EYE
 

We had two more planes til we got to our destination. I love plane rides, even when I hear about a crash it doesn't seem to bother me.  I love to look out the window and see that we are hovering over land or ocean. I even like the feel of turbulence.  The loooooooong flights don't bother me either. They are relaxing and I have time to think. The only thing that bothers me is that I have a hard time sleeping, and so with the 36 hours on the way there I had 1 hour of sleep, exhausting.  Once we get to Malawi, depending on the time, Pastor Paul wants us to stay awake until 10-11pm, so that we can be ready for the next day and potentially not have too much jet lag, but we landed at 930am, so we had a long day ahead of us.

Our traveling throughout Malawi and Zambia is in a bus/truck, and 12 seat van, although the van broke down the second week, so we had to, in the words of Blessings, 'figure it out' and we did. We went from the ABC campus to the village everyday, and on the way back we went to a place called ShopRite. This was their new mall that was built between the time we left last year and was recently finished when we got their this year and is right next door to the campus. Last year we went to 7/11

The Beginning....again

First, I want to thank God for all that He has done in my life.
Second, I want to thank everyone who supported me, who helped me get to Malawi, and who prayed for me and the wonderful people I went with, while I was there. I will be going back every year.

What did we do:
-27 people went
-2 weeks
-4 airplanes there: 36 hours
-4 airplanes back: 40 hours
-London: The Eye, Buckingham Palace, double decker bus, traffic, pounds
-1 bus we drove for two weeks, 1 van that broke down in the second week
-1 amazing driver Suzio




our amazing driver Suzgo

-Sooooo, many children

-billions of stars
-2 safari's in Zambia: one in the AM, one in the PM
-1 guy waking us up at 5 am
-4 extra stamps in my passport for going to Zambia
-Painting the almost COMPLETELY finished clinic
-1 solar panel on the clinic
-ELECTRICITY and outlets in the clinic
-a futbol tournament
-a first-ever Azungu team (white spirit), (meaning us)in the netball tournament.
-11 wonderful widows
-2 conference's: women's and a chief conference
-36 chiefs
-clinics
-a tumor
-Malaria
-A WEDDING
-live goat/dead goat
-live chickens/dead chickens
-goat intestine
-A FEAST
-singing
-dancing
-Live Love

Third,  This is the same blog that I wrote about my trip from last year, feel free to read last years too. Also, the title of this blog is zikomo-Malawi, Africa, for those that do not know zikomo in Chichewa is thank you. Chichewa is the language they speak in the villages that we go in to.
I have been back for a week now and I feel like I left my family in Malawi, and a piece of myself. It has taken me longer to 'recover' this time around.  Last year I knew that I was going to go back to Malawi, but I thought I would wait a year, maybe go on a different missions trip. But God had another plan for me, and even though I did not know why He was asking me to go back this year I did. I was able to spend more time with the ABC students, and get to know Fiki (one of the three who run Live Love Malawi), who happened to be my roommate for the two weeks. One of the reasons I did not start this blog right away, is mostly because of all the emotions, but also because I realized that it is harder to write this time. I have to make sure that I talk about a lot of the same things that I wrote last year, as there are many people who supported me this time around that did not hear or read about my experience last year, and so when I was trying to think of what to write, it was feeling redundant of last year, but I have to be.

Fourth, for those who keep asking me how my trip was, and I don't give them much, it is because I know myself and if I keep telling long stories of my trip to many different people then I won't be able to write in detail to those who I don't get to see and hear the stories first hand. Basically, I will slack in my posts. These posts are my thank you to all who helped me and prayed for me and I want to make sure that everyone gets to hear about it.

Last, here we go...My church The Grove goes on a missions trip for two weeks to Malawi, Africa every year (not nearly long enough). We stay at the (ABC) African Bible College in Malawi. http://zikomomalawiafrica.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-school.html (my post last year about the school and a little background. Also some pics) It was founded and built by Jack and Nell Chinchen, who are the parents of Palmer Chinchen our lead pastor. (He is not the one who takes us on this trip). Paul Chinchen is the president of the college and also happens to be Palmer's identical twin brother. We get to see him while we are there and it is very strange to see someone who looks exactly like the guy who just prayed for your groups trip 36 hours prior, who you are pretty sure did not just do this exhausting and fun trip with you. We stay in the dorms at the school.  We are actually very spoiled to stay in this amazing place. Each door to the rooms had their own skeleton key (I love skeleton keys, my mom used to collect them.) The rooms are bigger than most regular-sized homes guest bedroom. Each room has 2-3 beds. There are hand made wooden bed frames each with a bed, which I describe as a wrestling mat, that a full size fitted sheet fits on. The mats are about 2 inches thick. Each bed has a mosquito net above them. Fiki gave me many tutorials on how I was supposed to have the mosquito net around me and tucked under my bed, I was not very good at it. The rooms have a connecting bathroom. The sink is very small, and our counter was a long piece of wood about 4 X 1, which is funny cause there is plenty of room in this area for a regular counter, the toilet and shower are behind another door, we have an actual toilet and the shower is a stand up, no tub, some days you got hot or cold water and great pressure, and some days you got cold or hot water and scarce droplets, there is no way to control what you get, you just turn it on and wait in an anticlimactic awe. There were two nights where we did not have any water. We had to figure out what we could do. The campus had two different(for lack of a better word) water companies. One was controlled by a company, that gave water to the whole town, so we were not the only ones without water, this one also only controlled part of the campus, the other part was controlled by a well. Some people opted to take bucket bath/showers, others, myself included, were able to find a place that I would describe as a high school locker room shower/bathroom. The place was in the guy's dorm. Me and two other women went here. There were three showers, but we only used one of them, as we were told that if we used more that one, we would not get water pressure, and possibly no hot water,(not like this would be different than our own shower) we took a shower one by one, while the other two waited, behind a wall. We talked and laughed and got to know each other really well. This was one of my favorite nights on campus, because of something as trivial as not having any water, me and the two other women had a great night, we joked the rest of the trip about when 'our next shower would be'.

The campus had the most amazing landscape, grass, and trees and flowers.(click on the above link about the school to see pics of my room, and some of the school). We ate in the cafeteria, which is huge and had breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. They remodeled the cafeteria and kitchen from last year, they had brand new sinks, and they built a wall to separate the kitchen from the tables, and there were no rats in the ceiling, which I personally found quite comforting last year, it was super quite without them. We got to tour the campus this time around, so I was able to see where many things were, the church, the classes, the on-site clinic, basketball court, gym, the radio station, and the people who dj. There was also a garden on campus, for the life of me I cannot remember what the name of it was. The garden is named after a former student of the college to passed away after getting (sorry, this is graphic) burned alive while doing a play. Very sad. and very beautiful garden in her name.

Paul Gunther Jr. is the pastor who takes us on our missions trips he is our Serve the world pastor A.K.A. Pastor of Adventures. He, like Palmer, are missionary children. Paul and his wife Melinda started an organization called Live Love named for 1 John 3:18- Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  Paul would simply say, 'shut your pie hole and do something' http://whatislivelove.com/ (go here to learn more about Live Love in chandler, az)  and Paul and Melinda brought it to Malawi. There are 3 people who help run Live Love Malawi, Blessings, Richard and Fiki http://www.livelovemalawi.com/contact go here if you want to know more about the organization and see what these three amazing people look like.

We did, even more, this year than we did last year, which says a lot since we had half the people. We had conferences, went to 3 or 4 clinics, found that a bunch of people had Malaria, we painted the clinic and added a solar panel, we added lighting, and outlets. We dug a HUGE hole for a new toilet, we played futbol, and had our first azungu (white spirit) netball team, and we did really well. We saw widows, and we told our testimonies, we played with so many children, and bonded with the ABC students that love to be in the village to help us learn and translate for us, we saw a sea of brand new t-shirts running down a huge hill, we watched as the former town drunk is now saved and holding the keys to the clinic, we listened to beautiful singing while driving, and walking, and eating. We cooked and learned new recipes. We got new stamps in our passports when we went on a safari in Zambia. We listened to our pastor preach in the villages church on a Sunday morning, while he tried to make Richard laugh. We saw lions and giraffes. We learned how Malawi lives and loves.

Thank you all again for the support.