This was our my morning routine, we I would get up by 3, 4 or 5 am everyday, mostly 3 and 4. And I would walk, run jog through the African Bible College campus. I realized that out of the 3 years I have been there I have not seen much of this incredible campus. (If you want to know more about the school and how it came to be this link African Bible College is where I wrote about the school) The story is incredible.
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| The huts* |
I was able to see the huts, the homes where the teachers and volunteer live, The POOL, I never knew there was a huge pool on campus. I walked through the ABC academy, and saw the classrooms and playground, I saw the campus workers walking to work every morning, and I watched as they built another classroom at the college campus.
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| Chinchen home? I'm not sure which home is a Chinchen home or volunteer housing, either way they were all beautiful. Paul Chinchen and his family have lived in Malawi for 26 years. His sister and her family about 20 years. Their parents (founders of ABC), have a home on campus, but their main home is on the Liberia campus |
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| Teacher's home or volunteer housing. The volunteer missionaries share a home and rent the bedrooms on campus, so they are between 2 minutes and 10 minutes away from the school they teach at. |
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| The Boys Dorm-this is where I stayed |
Do you see the difference from this dorm and the huts pictured above? This was one of the dorms that had water consistently, (out of 12 days we had water 6 days of water) so not only were we sharing the bathroom (3 showers, 2 toilets) with the 24 housed here. Where I am standing taking this picture is an identical dorm of 24 and to the right another dorm of 24 all sharing. The huts had between 5-8 people sharing 1 shower 1 toilet, but they had beds, and they looked amazing. We I slept on a one inch thing of foam that had no covering (which makes about a 2 inch difference), and the bed was so squeaky and shaky I thought I was going to break it, or my bunk mate was going to fall on top of me and break me, no worries though, my bunk mate was a doctor, so she would have saved me to!!
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| The POOL |
This pool is behind a HUGE wall. That I never thought twice about, but for some reason this time around I decided to see what was on the other side (last year I didn't even walk around the campus, the previous year I walked by this wall 2 times at night). It was a blessing that I could not sleep well. I got to spend time enjoying a place I love, and I got spend time in devotions and prayer, in a place where you can feel God.
We had breakfast at 7 AM every morning, and chapel at 8 AM. This was the first year we went to chapel every morning, we usually have devotionals in the student center, and chapel on Sunday in the village, but with over 200 people each morning, the chapel was the only place we could fit.
The Chapel
Chapel, what can I say about this amazing place. It was having church/worship everyday. It was listening to our leaders speak God's word and motivating us to keep going, to make a difference in someone's life, or let someone make a difference in ours, and to be still Psalm 46:10 and listen. It was listening to worship songs sung by our own Grove team 19 year old Kei'Ana and 17 year old Jadyn. And 2 new amazing Chichewa*** songs written and sung by the Mosaic team (which are still stuck in my head, and everyone in the village). And of course the Malawian students and their amazing singing and dancing that are so beautiful and interactive that I never truly got a good enough video or photo of what they can do. I will see if I have anything from the past trips.
After Chapel our day for each team would start, either in the village, a prison, a clinic, going to orphanages like COTN (Children of the Nation), and other amazing places.
More to come......
*I took a ton of pictures of this campus and then TIA** , all my pics were gone, so the campus pics are limited and not done very well.
**TIA- means This is Africa, meaning if something goes wrong it was probably cause TIA, or if you're late by western standards TIA, or if there is no water TIA, or if there are huge rats in the ceiling of the cafeteria where we are eating TIA, etc...
***Chichewa-official language spoken at the village we were in.
