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
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| 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.
