Malawi: Part I

Sorry for being a bit late in getting this post up - our internet wasn't working, and then out power went out...anyway, finally here it is! I missed all of you and reading your blogs while we were gone, but we had a really great trip.  We visited Malawi in 2006 and it was so good to go back again.

We left at 3 a.m. on the 12th, and got there at around 7:45 p.m.  We drove for a long time...

 

Hopefully Malawi won't become a complete dustbowl.  They take down the trees for lumber, and don't do hardly enough replanting to balance it out.  We'd drive along the road and it looked like a tornado came through.  Or the part in Lord of the Rings where Merry and Pippin take Treebeard past where Saruman has destroyed the forest.  We wouldn't go too far before we got to where they cut and stacked the lumber.

These are what most of the little towns look like

It's interesting because Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and yet because of foreign funds Lilongwe, the capitol, is actually quite a modern city.  Compared to Tanzania, anyway.  See, there was even this modern pizza place in town we went to on one of our days off. "Pizza Inn - It must be the pizza!"...I guess it must be since that's all they serve.  I guess Luke wasn't feeling too good.

There were fuel shortages in Malawi, so people would line up along the streets in  long queues to get diesel and petrol.  

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On weekdays besides Wednesday (our day off) we'd get up early and go to different villages and teach for four hours from 9-1.   Thankfully there were breaks - I'm used to sitting on wooden benches for a long time without a problem, but sitting on plain concrete can get uncomfortable after a couple hours.  Last time we visited my dad taught the men, my mom the women, and my sister and I the children.  I really missed teaching the kids this time - they're just too precious.  This time around everyone was together and Dad taught a class on personal evangelism\how to share the Gospel with others, and it was fantastic!

Saturday classes were actually in town, so they went from about 1-5, and on Sundays we would visit different congregations.

Luke, Jake and I would pile into the back of the truck...

...and we would stop to pick up our translator, then be on our way.  The drive would usually be around an hour - an hour and a half. 

It was so frustrating, because people don't speak Swahili down there, so we weren't able to communicate with anybody past a hello.  

We weren't able to do any running while we were in Malawi, but the people we stayed with actually had a pool so we went swimming alot in the evenings even though it was freezing!

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I'll have to post a part II a bit later since it would be too long for now - stay tuned, because it may be the most interesting...it involves staying in the village for 3 days with over 600 women!

If you could go anywhere in the world, expenses paid, what place(s) would you go?

I would love to visit Egypt, Greece, Italy, Ireland - pretty much everywhere if I could. 

Is anything exciting happening with you all?