Welcome to our neighborhood! We moved into our house this past weekend, and are in process of settling in – which is better than opening Christmas presents! We haven’t see our furniture since we packed up our apartment in January. Everything was wrapped in brown paper and packed in boxes, so it’s like someone gave us the biggest present – all the stuff that we enjoy and picked out ourselves!

Here’s the neighborhood – all residential and fairly quiet, and there’s always people walking around and sitting in the shade to talk. It feels very neighborly.

Matt put up towel rods in the master bathroom. We did quite a bit of work on the house.

And then came the cleaning. Scrubbing bathrooms, wiping out kitchen cupboards, sweeping cobwebs off the ceiling…

Here comes our furniture! Our friends Richard and Felix helped loading and unloading.

And in case you’re wondering about Jack, the cute little dog in the picture above, no he’s not ours. We’re dog-sitting for the former tenants for a couple weeks. Wait until you see the other dog, the “lion!”

Kellen came to help unload too – thanks Kellen!

Boxes everywhere! Moving is over, now for the unpacking!

The Biedebach family came over to help and brought us lunch. It was so fun to have them helping us unpack and rediscover things! And thanks for putting our table together, Brian, so that we could eat lunch! =)

Lots of odd jobs go along with unpacking. Matt is sweeping concrete sand out of the way so that he and Brian can hook up the washer and dryer. Bradley is walking around and supervising.

Benjamin helped by collecting paper scraps and sitting on the pile of paper so it didn’t blow away.

Ami did a fabulous job of unpacking and unwrapping – everything from our kitchen cups to our living room kids’ toys! Thanks so much Ami!

And baby Allison just coo’ed, slept, and looked adorable.

Many of our extra boxes went home with the Biedebachs, and we hear that Biede-Box City is currently under construction on the back veranda!

Ami takes a much deserved break to jump in the boxes and packing paper!

Thanks Biedebachs for helping us unpack, and thanks to all the guys who helped us move all the boxes and furniture! We pray that this house will be a place where people can be encouraged, refreshed, and directed to the Lord.

If you get our newsletter, you know that the Lord has provided a fantastic house for us. Yay! The former tenants moved out last weekend, and we spent all this week working on remodeling and repairs. Here’s what the week has held for us…

Several of the walls needed to have the plaster patched, and how do you like that green wall color? The whole house was this color, inside and out.

Lots of paint, lots of walls to paint!

The glass inset in one of the kitchen cupboards was broken, so we took a hammer and chisel to the rest of the glass insets and broke them all out. We’ll replace the glass, but it was kind of fun breaking it all out!

How to buy home improvement supplies in Malawi – go on a scavenger hunt. We laughed remembering how in the States you can just go to Lowe’s and get everything all in one place. Yah, not really here. Washers in one store, large key rings that double as curtain rings in another store, 1 meter of galvanized screen in the next store…

The fluorescent lights in the kitchen always got messed up by the power fluctuations, so Matt replaced them with these great hanging lights!

He also took the fluorescent lights out of the hallway and put in small, inset halogen lights – so nice!

And the painting starts: good-bye green (and no, the new paint isn’t as pink as it looks here!)

The kitchen is done, but the green is still peeking out of the hallway…

The entrance hallway is done…

Did I mention that our house is a series of hallways with a couple rooms attached? =) It’s looking more and more like home to us, and we’re so excited to finish up the rest of the projects this coming week, and hopefully move in next weekend!

Blantyre is just over a 4 hour drive south of where we live in Lilongwe. We drove down and back on Wednesday, with the primary goal of visiting the Immigration Office to pay for our Temporary Employment Permit (TEP). Hopefully we will receive the final letter in the next few days, which will function as our visa for the next 2 years.

In the 5 hours down to Blantyre (details on the side trip below), and the 4 hours back from there, we saw a good portion of the country of Malawi. Here are some highlights from the trip:

We have no idea what this sign means, but if you say it in a cutesy voice… well, just try it.

The Shire River (pronounced “sheerie”, sorry Tolkien fans), part of Liwonde game park.

Matt got pulled over for going 56 kilometers an hour in a 50 kph zone. That would be like getting pulled over for going 25 in a 22 mph zone. But they actually made it very convenient and let us pay right there – and gave us a receipt, so we knew it was legit. They also told us that the only other speed camera in the country was another few miles down the road. Ah, good to know!

Somewhere along to way we missed a turn, and took an hour detour through Zomba, a mountainous, forested area. It was beautiful, and one of our favorite parts of the drive!

Hand-holding is common amongst friends, and means nothing more than friendship.

Once we finished up at the Immigration Office, we had one other stop to make in Blantyre: Game, a South African store somewhat similar to a Target in the USA, but about half the size. There’s nothing like this in Lilongwe, so we stocked up on things like drill bits, ceiling fans, and a 220 volt iron. And for those of you wanting evidence of the man-purse, here it is!

Some things, though, were still a little more than we were willing to pay. This little roll of Duck Tape costs about $7. No thanks.

On the other hand, a few things are a great deal! These are the exact same cups that I got for $1 each at Crate & Barrel. Here, they’re 37 cents.

On the trip back home, we passed this sign. It’s hard to read in this pic, but it says “Aids is Real. It’s Not Witchcraft.” What a reminder that the people here need the truth of God’s Word and His grace to be free of the lies of superstition and witchcraft.

One of our favorite trees in Africa, the baobob! This one’s for you, Judah Gundersen!

Our other favorite tree, the acacia. It just looks “African.”

And finally, one of the most common sights in Malawi, a little village perched on a hillside.

At times, electricity can be shockingly complicated. Oh yes, pun intended! My sense of humor might be suffering from the jolt of electricity I experienced a couple weeks ago. At this point we believe we’ve managed to keep the electrical wires away from the overflowing water heater, and we’ve definitely experienced fewer shocking episodes in recent days. There was the issue of the living room light, but really, my arm had that tingly feeling for only 10 minutes, so it doesn’t count. =)

In other electrical news, Matt has retrofitted his computer cord to work here in Malawi.

He bought a generic cord at the outdoor market, then cut off the plug and stripped the wires. You can see little black leftover pieces. He also bought a simple Malawian plug (same as what they use in the UK). That’s what he’s holding in this picture.

Then he attached the new cord to the new plug…

Put everything back together, and…

Plugged it in! You can see the new plug in the socket on the right. The new black cord connects to the Mac power adaptor, and runs electricity to his laptop.

If fixing the water heater were only this easy…

Since we arrived about 6 weeks ago, we’ve purchased a few things that are a bit out of the ordinary for us…

What: Car Battery
From: QuickFit
Why: Because the battery in the Biedebach’s van was dead – very dead. So dead that we had to borrow another battery to drive the van to town to buy the new one.

What: Mosquito Zapper Racket
From: Santa Plaza
Why: Because it’s more fun to electrocute mosquitos than to smash them, and a racket is faster than my hand.

What: Oil Lantern
From: Chipiku
Why: Because the electricity goes out often here, especially in the evenings; and the lantern cost $2.20.

What: Emergency Light
From: Santa Plaza! (Yes, Santa as in Santa Claus)
Why: Because it’s brighter than the oil lantern, and it comes on automatically when the power goes out.

What: Toyota Hilux Surf
From: Pam Forester, who moved back to Ireland
Why: Because we need to haul lots of stuff around and survive all the pot holes. Yay! We have a vehicle!

Our first official visitor was our good friend Wendy Simpson. Wendy and I have run into each other all over the world, so it wasn’t at all surprising when she said she’d be traveling through Africa and could she stop by? Of course! Matt and I haven’t explored very much of Malawi yet, so we took the opportunity to find a few new places with Wendy.

Kumbali Lodge, just outside of Lilongwe, has a great little village and cultural center. We stopped by to check it out and climb their trees.

We didn’t know how to play the popular local game of bano, so we made up our own game. Learning how to play the real way is now on my Cultural To Do List.

Lake Malawi is a required outing for any first-time visitor. It’s also great for second and third time visitors. =)

Thanks so much for coming to see us, Wendy, and for letting us take you to new places! We really enjoyed your company, friendship, and encouragement. You’re always welcome in our home!

When I posted on Facebook the other night that I was going on a date with my husband, I didn’t realize how many people would want to know what a date in Malawi looks like. I must interject here at the beginning and let you know that Matt is mortified that I have chosen to post this date for all to hear about. It’s nothing fancy. It’s not as elaborate as the morning he made breakfast for us and we had an early morning picnic in the park, and it’s not as exciting as the afternoon we got cited for hiking in a park with a mountain lion on the loose… But hey, it’s really and truly what we did on Friday night.

So here you go – date night in Malawi!

We started off with dinner at The Copper Pot, a restaurant in a local hotel. They’re known for their Chinese food, so we tried that – sweet and sour chicken and King Pow chicken (yes, King, not Kung). =) We talked and had a great time just checking out our surroundings and fellow diners.

And then off to the show! We jumped back in the van and headed home to catch the great classic – Swiss Family Robinson. What a great adventure story! We read the book together last year, and I do believe that in the last few weeks we’ve put to use 4 or 5 things we learned from the book…

That’s it! Date night in Malawi. The most important thing, and the thing that will make every date special is that it’s time I get to spend with my husband. God has blessed me so greatly with this wonderful man. I don’t want to take for granted any moment that I have with him, especially times like these when we can laugh, talk, and enjoy life together. I love you, Matt!