Author Archives: Rachel

Chinsapo

by Rachel

There’s always more ministry than there is time.  Especially here in Malawi.  We try to stay intentionally focused on church ministry, because we realized a long time ago that if you try to do everything, you won’t do a good job at anything.  One of the great things about church ministry is that the church is involved in different ministries, and members of our church head up different outreaches and projects throughout the Lilongwe area.  We’ve mentioned the prison ministry before, but another one that Matt got to visit recently is a children’s ministry in the village of Chinsapo.

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Two dear ladies from our church, Grace and Mirjam, hold a kids’ program in this nearby village every Thursday afternoon.  They have about 150 in the younger kids’ program (up to 10 years), and about 100 in the older kids’ program (11-18).

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The ladies include Bible stories, skits, songs, and coloring or activity time in their programs.  This all sounds fairly normal until you remember they they hold these programs under a few large trees in the middle of a village, with very few resources but an abundance of creativity and love.  Sometimes the ladies bring something special for the kids.  Right now our church is collecting warm clothes and blankets for the kids as we approach the winter months.

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Grace actually lives in this village, so has great opportunities to build relationships and shine the light of the gospel in her every day life. Both Grace and Mirjam are active in the church as well as the Ladies’ Bible Study, so we’ve gotten to know them well.  Neither of them would claim or aspire to hero status for what they do every Thursday afternoon; rather, they have put to use the gifts, talents, time, and opportunities God has given them for this ministry.  We’re thankful for them, and glad to come alongside them as a church to help and support them in this work.

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Please pray for these ladies when you think of them.  I know they would appreciate it!  And if you’d like to hear more of what they do, you can check out Mirjam’s blog.

Baby Flo 2.0

by Rachel

We’re expecting Baby #2 sometime around November 6th!  After much thought, we’ve decided that if we are able, we’ll stay in Malawi for the birth.  Abigail was born in Glendale, California, and we had thought about going to South Africa for this kiddo, but SA is a long way away.  We have a great support base of friends to help us here in Malawi, and a good Dutch doctor – who’s not afraid to send us to SA if he needs to.  With that in mind, we headed to the mission hospital at Nkhoma for our first official pre-natal check-up.

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Pre-natal check-ups here in Malawi are SO easy: heart beat, blood pressure, weight, how do you feel?, ultrasound.  Done.  And all for $1.75.  I don’t think we’ll be filing an insurance claim on that one.

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Ultrasounds are fun!  Our little one was so wiggly that it took a long time to freeze the picture to get a good measurement.  He’s right on schedule for a November 6th due date.  And yes, he’s already referred to as a boy – both motherly intuition and all the old wives’ tales hint strongly that this is a boy.  It’ll be about another 10 weeks before we can find out “for sure” – the ultrasound machines aren’t as technologically advanced here as they are in some other parts of the world!

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One of the most reassuring parts of today was seeing this room: delivery and recover in the private wing.  It’s a large room, with 2 beds, a couple shelves and cupboards, a desk and chair, and a private toilet and shower.  And in true mission hospital tradition, the Dr. offered for Matt to come stay at his home if he’s not a fan of the spare bed here, and he said his family could watch Abigail for us.  Mission community is like family, and we felt that today.  We’re excited to have a baby here, and are praying that God would give us a healthy pregnancy and delivery.  Now if we could just do something about the “morning” sickness!  =)

Church Camp 2013

by Rachel

We love church camp!  Granted, this is only our 2nd annual church camp, but we looked forward to it all year long!

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We love the way everyone pitches in and makes camp “home” for a few days.

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We had great times of worship and teaching in the Word brought to us by a team of 7 from Faith Bible Church in Ladera Ranch, CA – who also put on a kids’ program at the same time.

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We had hours of fellowship around food, around campfires, around campsites, and all around the game reserve.  It was so nice to just stop and spend the better part of 4 days together with these people we love and always want to see more of.  We can’t think of a better way to spend Easter weekend than with our church family!  (You can click on the group photo above to see a large version.)

Um, Now What?

by Rachel

We drove to Dzalanyama Forest on our day off a couple weeks ago.  It’s a rough road, and we were thankful for a vehicle with 4-wheel drive and high clearance.  At a couple points after coming through swampy sections or small canyons we commented “hope we don’t have to turn around and go back through that…”  And then, shortly after one of those comments, we came to a road block:

truck fire jerry can on the road

 

There are several things about this situation (and picture) that make us laugh.  1) The truck that is very obviously in the way.  2) The fire, which is also in the way, as it’s about where our right wheels are supposed to go.  And 3) the jerry can of fuel sitting right next to the fire.  Thankfully the truck driver was willing to back up to a small clearing where we could squeeze around him.  That just left the fire and the jerry can.  With a little motioning, the jerry can was moved, but the fire was just left, so we hugged the left side of the road as closely as possible.  “Hope we don’t have to turn around and go back through that!”

Spitting Beetles

by Rachel

Last night when getting Abigail ready for bed, we noticed about 7 small blisters on her chest, just below the neckline.  She was acting completely normal, not itching them, not complaining, not even appearing to notice them.  We gave her some Benedryl and decided to see how they looked in the morning.

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By the morning (pictured above) a few of the smaller blisters had dried out, and the bigger ones looked better too.  Later in the morning, we saw in town a friend who has lived in the area almost her whole life.  She instantly diagnosed the work of a spitting beetle!  She said that only one of the various types of spitting beetles in the area spits strong acid, so apparently – based on Abi’s mild response – she only encountered a mild variety.  Thank the Lord!

Around Our House… The Other Day

by Rachel

We’re a bit busy around our house these days… which would explain why the post entitled “Around Our House Today” didn’t get written for a couple days and so didn’t qualify as “today” any more.   =)  But like we said, we’re busy, so late is better than never! 

Here are a few of the things going on around our house right now…

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Ladies’ Bible Study meets at our house every Tuesday morning.  We’ve averaged about 8-9 ladies every week, and we’re still enjoying the study through the Bible one book a week.  We just finished Psalms, and are on to Proverbs next week!

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As 2 1/2 year olds, these three little ladies make our house a busy place!  (Yes, they were all born within a couple months of each other!) The Ayres family has been living with us for about 2 1/2 weeks, and Moriah Ayres is fitting right in!  Abi is, of course, enjoying playing host and general rabble-rouser.  And Rejoice, our housekeeper’s daughter, looks sweet and innocent, but she’s right in the mischief with Abi!

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It’s rainy season, so the grass is green, the gutters are flowing, and the ferns, palms, ginger, and heliconia are lush and happy.

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The grenadilla are happy too.  We’re picking fruit off the vines almost daily and enjoying grenadilla lemonade.

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You know the people who collect spare cars in their front yard?  I feel like we do that with laundry appliances.  No really, there’s an explanation for the 3 dryers and 2 washers on our back porch.  2 dryers and 1 washer are broken.  And the one washer that does work isn’t ours – it’s the Ayres.  The guys mistakenly brought it over to our house when the container was unpacked.  We do have a new washer that came on the Ayres’ container, so it will come, the Ayres’ washer will go, an old dryer will go to be fixed, and then… somehow we’ll still have 5 appliances on our porch.  We are those people.  At least it’s not cars…

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Titus (4) and Caleb (6) Ayres jumped right into school the week after they arrived.  School starts at 7:15, so they are up early every day!  And then they come home just before 1pm to work on homework – these guys are busy learning and making friends!

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Matt and Abi had a special father/daughter project morning.  It was a bring-your-own-toolkit kind of event.  They were blocking up holes under our gate and in our drains, because…

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We got a puppy!  The Ayres got one too, so it’s puppy town around here now!  Samson is our new little guy, and he looks very much like his dad, Simba, did when we first got him!  Simba’s a little jealous of all the attention everyone’s giving his kids.

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Mac and Cheese night.  With all the kids in the house, we’ve eaten a few more kid-friendly foods lately.  The big kids didn’t seem to mind either.

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And we still get our regular, and not so regular, power outages.  Here Bethany’s looking over Jim’s shoulder to see pictures of light fixtures he found in town during the day.  Those two are spending a good part of each day, and several hours each night, working on plans and changes for their house.  It’s coming together, and I know they’re all eager to open all the boxes that came on their container and make that house their home!

Day Away

by Rachel

Pastors don’t usually take Saturdays as their day off.  Saturdays and Sundays are busy days for those teaching, preaching, serving, counseling, and overseeing in the church.  So we picked a different day as our day off: Wednesday.

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Last week we decided that not only did we need a day off, but we needed a day away.  A night, in fact.  So we rented a cabin on a small dam west of town and spent about 22 hours there.

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We took advantage of the canoes and Abi’s new lifejacket for a little boating excursion.

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Some friends of ours live just across the dam from where we stayed, so we canoed over for tea about 4pm (“official” tea time).  We’ve never canoed anywhere for tea before, so it was a fun experience!

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All in all, a nice day and night away.  We even made it back in time for 9am meetings on Thursday, so now we know it’s doable!