Malawi Recap for 10-9-19

               First day we will be traveling into the bush to visit the orphanage so, the ladies prepared a hearty breakfast of pancakes and ham and our first trip to LepLes started.  First, we visited our friends at the A/G compound where we had stayed for many years, filled the rent vehicle with Petrol and head west toward Msundwe. 

               One the way to the orphanage we saw the aftermath of some of the protests that had taken place after the Presidential elections.  A few places had been burned, one police station had been burned and remnants of blockades; but, not problems for us.  We turned off the M12 highway and head toward the bush.  The road was quite challenging again this year as in other years but this time we had our novice, Shirley (my wife) along for her first ride into the bush.  It is difficult to describe her reaction but there was much hand-waving and many “look out” and “be careful” along the way much to the delight of the seasoned travelers.          

               We arrived while most of the children were still in school, so we were able to inspect the facilities without much interference.  Everything was clean and swept, the grounds still had some greenery from some recent rains, work was progressing well upon the house being built for Maxwell and the Staff Houses.  As expected, the Clinic was not 100% complete (I would say 98%) but freshly painted and in good repair, only needing cornices to go in the corners between the walls and the ceiling and painted.  Still no electricity in our location though all the wiring was installed.  Much to our delight we saw a young doctor from the Department of Health that had two beds set up in one of our rooms and was doing minor procedures daily (about 10 per day) on the young men ages 10 and up and they had been doing this for two weeks. It was good to see something productive going on in the Clinic. 

               The kids came back from school and seemed thrilled to see us again; but, my how they have grown.  They were presented with some sunglasses, pencils and paper pads, from Doris and Shirley much to their delight.  The kids were in a good mood, but the overall morale of the project was not as good as it had been in the past.  We will deal with what is causing these issues as we are here. 

               A volunteer from our Bible School has been working with our children several days out of the week to teach them English and they presented a short program for us all in English, with prayer, singing and a drama put on by the kids.  Outstanding job by the kids and we have some talented children in our orphanage. 

               Came back to our domicile and had an outstanding supper (dinner) cooked by our ladies; did some washing of our clothes; and us guys had a meeting preparing for the next day.

               It is 11:10 PM our time and it has been a long and tiring day; so, we are going to close this report for today.

We have been here two days and we miss home, but the work is much and great and we are excited to do our part in God’s glorious kingdom.  The harvest is white, but the laborers seem few; we are thrilled to be a small part in God’s work in the poorest country of Africa.

May God bless you all and continue to pray for us while we are gone.

Your Team in Malawi