Christmas at Esther's House!

The preparations for Christmas started back in November when Bruce started working with the kids on Christmas songs and a Christmas drama that would be performed during the afternoon program at Esther’s House. Precious, who played one of King Herod’s soldiers in the drama, was especially excited! Weeks before Christmas Cindy and I would arrive at Esther’s House to find him giggling, and he would just have a huge grin on his face; all he would say to us was “Christmas!!” To see a 7-year-old boy, who had no idea that he was going to get presents on Christmas, be excited weeks beforehand was definitely a first for me.

Precious! (A very fitting name for this boy =)

The week leading up to Christmas was extremely hectic! Someone was kind enough to make a donation so that gifts could be bought for the kids and widows at Esther’s House for Christmas. Some of the gifts we were able to get for our kids were: soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, pencils, pens, exercise books, a blanket, a shirt, flip-flops, and candy. We took all of these gifts and stuffed them into the book bags I made for the kids. For the widows we were able to get them a blanket, cooking salt, tea, and matching chitinjes (a patterned piece of fabric that is worn as a skirt).

We were so excited to have the funds to buy presents for our kids and widows, but it was quite a project to find all of the items! We were able to find the shirts, blankets, and toothbrushes in Blantyre and Limbe. For the flip-flops, exercise books, and pencils we had to search all over the local city market. I haven’t taken a picture of the city market, but it’s partly an open-air market and partly a series of little brick shops with thatch roofs; there are always chips being cooked over a fire, and an open-air butcher grilling meat. There are piles and piles of shoes and clothes and bags for sale and tons of people selling fresh produce from their gardens. There’s a tiny dirt pathway that leads through the maze of shops and vendors which is almost always packed full of people. Most of the little market shops only had 10-20 exercise books for sale, or only had a few pairs of the right sized flip-flops, so we ended up going from shop to shop to get what we needed. Toting a huge bag filled with dozens of pairs of flip-flops all the way back through the market and up the our parked car was definitely a challenge! We spent the next few days organizing, separating, and labeling all of the items into separate book bags.

We left early Christmas morning to spend some time alone with our 9 residential orphans. Because Esther’s House provides the bedding and hygiene products they need, we bought them some educational materials and toys. We got them books, toy cars, little action figures, and wooden puzzles that teach our pre-school aged kids numbers, letters, math, and how to tell time. Ruth Ann, a missionary who recently worked at Esther’s House, sent the kids some really cute clothes and some great books!

Nedson playing with his new car!

Putting together one of their new puzzles

Busisiwe looking at some of their new books

Mphatso, Patuma, Busisiwe, and Enelesi in their Christmas clothes

Peter, Precious, Nedson, Isaac, and Elford in their new army shorts

Enelesi and Patuma are pretending to be "agona" (sleeping)

The non-residential kids started arriving for their morning porridge, and after the majority of them had finished their breakfast we had them draw nativity scenes and make birthday cards for Jesus. On the cards they all wrote something that they would give to Jesus this year as a birthday present!

Richard drawing a nativity scene

All of the kids working on their b-day cards

Bruce and Stanley overseeing the project

The widows started gathering in front of the chapel early in the morning. While they were waiting for lunch, they started singing Christmas songs and doing a traditional dance. It was so cute!! You can click here to watch a short video of them singing and dancing.

The widows singing Christmas songs and dancing

After the drawing activities, all of the staff, kids, and widows gathered in the middle of the grounds for a prayer before Christmas lunch.

Gathering for prayer

Eunice, Getrude, and Patricia finishing lunch

Cindy helped Patricia and Eunice serve out the lunch of rice, greens, and chicken. Although there was enough chicken for everyone, After serving 47 orphans, 50 widows, and the staff the chicken was running a little low. Cindy and I decided to skip on chicken so that there would be enough for the staff and residential kids’ dinner.

Waiting in line for lunch

Rice and rape greens

Our sugar cookie sheet cakes!

In Malawi it’s customary to eat with your hands, so that’s what we did! The only problem with that is that rice has to be the most difficult food to eat with your hands! It took f o r e v e r to finish that bowl of rice!!

After lunch the afternoon program started. We invited the guardians of our orphans to come, so with the orphans, widows, guardians, and staff the chapel was extremely full. Eugenio, a staff member at Esther’s House, preached a really great sermon about the true meaning of Christmas. Some of our older kids had a Christmas choir, led by Bruce, that sung some amazing songs!

Eugenio preaching the Christmas sermon, Stanley translating

Some of the older kids singing Christmas songs

Bruce has been working with the kids for months on the Christmas drama, and it turned out SO good!! Bruce played King Herod, Stanley played Joseph and a wise man, Belinda played Mary, Tracy and Salome played wise men, Esther, Nopheless, and Nymbezi played angels, and Precious, Isaac, John, Emmanuel, Chiyerequezo, Zenus, and Esau played soldiers of King Herod. The soldiers had this fancy salute that they had to do to King Herod, and when Precious and Isaac did their salute, the whole audience laughed because it was so cute!

Cindy made the closing address, and we then started handing out presents.

Passing out gifts to the widows

All of the widows wearing their matching chitinjes

I’ve never seen young children so excited about getting a new shirt or a new blanket!

After everyone went home, we (the staff and residential kids) went a little picture crazy! =)

Cindy and I with our kids

Getrude and the kids

Eugenio!

Stanley and Bruce--best friends!

Abusa (pastor) Stanley

Getrude and Bruce

I really did miss spending Christmas with my family, but I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend it with the people of Esther’s House. These kids are so incredibly precious. Spending Christmas stripped of decorations, music, big dinner, family, presents, and all the other staples of a typical Christmas was very different, but I really love how it made the birth of Christ the focal point of the entire day instead of just a side note. I hope that everyone had an amazing Christmas and will have a great New Year!

The staff and residential kids at Esther's House

♥

I can't believe Christmas is next week! Time has really flown by. Christmas at Esther’s House is going to be celebrated as Jesus’ birthday. Because Christmas is on a Saturday, we will be holding the feeding program for all of our children and the widows with some special Christmas food and Cindy and I are going to make a birthday cake. Our kids are practicing Christmas songs, traditional dances and some of them will be performing a Christmas drama. Although some of the songs are sung in English, they’re unlike any songs you would hear in the U.S! They actually have more to do with the reason for the Christmas holiday than songs like “Little Drummer Boy” or “Old St. Nick” do! =) We will definitely be taking pictures and videos throughout the day to share with everyone.

I decided at the end of November that I wanted to make all the kids a book bag as a Christmas present. When Cindy and I went to Blantyre I stopped in the fabric store and bought as much material as I could afford--I bought it believing that I would have to buy more at some point, but after cutting out all the bags it ended up being EXACTLY enough to make 48 bags, with absolutely no material left over. That was such an unexpected blessing! When we arrived back at our home, Cindy gave me a quick “hand-stitching 101” lesson before I started on the first bag. It took me two days to finish the first bag. That bothered me a little bit considering I still had 47 more bags to do in about 3 weeks time. After showing the bag I made to Jane, she told me that she had a sewing machine that she would let me borrow. That was such a relief! I kind of learned to sew when I was younger, but the only things that I succeeded in making was an apron and a shirt that ended up being wider than it was tall. It took a few bags for me to catch on to the sewing process, but I now have a little assembly line of bags going. The project has kind of overtaken all of my time, but seeing how it’s the rainy season and we’re stuck indoors quite a bit, it’s been nice to have something productive to occupy my time with. I can’t wait to give the bags to the kids!

The kids are doing so great!

School just ended, so all of the kids are on break until January. We're going to have to find some new activities to occupy their time with! Cindy's been teaching them the hand slapping game (which they love!), and I taught them how to make jewelry out of grass. Of course Peter decided that he wanted to make handcuffs to tie his hands and legs together with instead of bracelets and headbands, but I guess boys will be boys.

During church on Sundays, the abusa (pastor) will talk about a Bible lesson, and then say "halleluiah?" to which we respond with "amen." Elford’s new favorite thing to do is to scream in his high-pitched squeaky voice “Halleluiah!” at random times which makes all the other kids respond with “Amen!” His ‘halleluiah’ sounds more like ‘alliah,’ and it’s so hilarious to listen to him squeaking it over and over! Precious finally got tired of saying “amen,” so he tackled Elford before he could say it again and started a tickle fight.

I didn’t know it was possible to love these kids as much as I do. They’re such amazing little people!

Ntcheu is known for having the best soil in Malawi--I love seeing the endless rows of crops popping up everywhere. I love how green everything is becoming; it seems like it almost happened overnight! We had some of our kids plant beans in our garden for Esther’s House. It actually started raining the day the kids went out to the field….so I decided to stay at Esther’s House under the protection of a roofed porch with our little ones. Cindy roughed it though and walked through the jungle (well, maybe not a jungle but a lot of mud and tall grass!) to help Bruce and the kids pull weeds and plant the beans.

The roof over the girl's dormitory has officially been completed, which we're so happy about! After we get the water damage cleaned out, the girls will be able to move back into their rooms. The carpenter is going around to all the roofs in the compound and securing them with extra roofing nails to make sure this doesn't happen again. Unfortunately last week the brick security wall around our missions house in town fell down. Apparently when the wall was built they used too much sand and not enough cement, so 40 feet of the wall just kind of toppled down. We're thankful to have 2 night guards keeping watch over our house, and hopefully the wall will be fixed within the week.

It's raining almost every day now in an inconsistent way! Some days it's a torrential downpour of rain all day long, while other days it only sprinkles in the morning and at night. One thing is for sure though--regardless of what kind of rain we have, the internet always goes out. And sometimes the power. Luckily our water is working again (hopefully for good this time!). The hot water started running for the first time since the beginning of September. Anyway, all of the rain has made the landscape of Ntcheu so beautiful! I wish I could take a picture that really shows how beautiful it is, but I haven't been able to yet. This is a picture of the fields in Madzanje on the ride out to Esther's House.

♥ S

Today marks the half way point in my 6 month stay in Malawi. I can hardly believe that I’ve been here for 3 months--it‘s gone by so fast! I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have running water (we’ve been without it for almost 2 months now!) or processed foods or what it‘s like to drive on the right side of the road. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to go back to “regular” life in the U.S after experiencing life here.

Soko, one of the widowers in our widows ministry, was admitted into the hospital on Wednesday. He had been very sick for a few days, and the hospital put him IV fluids. On Thursday Cindy and I went to visit him and see if he needed anything. Cindy has been there on several occasions with our widows and orphans, but it was my first experience with the Malawian hospital. It was slightly horrible, to say the least. The stench of sickness hit me like a wall the moment we stepped into the hospital, and it only got worse when we got to the actual ward holding patients. The ward is one large open-air room with separate segments that hold 4 patients each. There wasn’t a fan, A/C, or even much of a breeze going through the ward, so the air was uncomfortably hot and smelled of…just sickness. They don’t have any of the machines you would typically see in a hospital that tracks their vitals. They don’t even provide the patient with soap or water to wash themselves with. The apathetic nurses just sit in their break room doing nothing. Cindy went into their break room and asked the nurse about the condition of Soko, and it took her awhile to just figure out who Soko was. The nurse decided to get Soko’s clinician so that we could talk to him instead, where we found out that the attending clinician wasn’t aware of some serious developments in Soko’s condition.

When we visted Soko on Thursday, there was a man on the bed next to him that literally looked like he could die at any moment--his entire family was gathered around his bed just watching him. Cindy guessed that by the looks of him he was dying from HIV/AIDS. He couldn’t have been older than 35. When Cindy and I went to visit Soko during lunch today, we entered the hallway to the ward and I could hear people wailing. Some of them were chanting, crying, or praying, but the wailing was the most disturbing. Cindy told me that someone had just died, and the family was accompanying the body to the morgue. We immediately thought of the man who was next to Soko, and when we entered the ward and saw the now empty bed our suspicions were proved correct.

Soko will probably get the help that he needs at the hospital if only because Cindy is so persistent in making sure that the clinicians are doing their jobs as far as our patient is concerned, but it really hurts to know that the apathy of these health care works are basically killing people that don’t have to die. I really pray that all of the patients in that hospital will get the help and care that they need.

(Picture of Malawian ambulance! ^^^)

The rainy season is starting to set in, which means that I’ll have spent half of my time here in the dry season, and half in the rainy. It’s still pretty brown and dry, but once it starts raining regularly the Malawians say it’ll get green very fast! I’m not really sure what to expect in the means of how much rain we‘ll experience or how the conditions of the dirt village roads that we travel so frequently will be. We’ve been having rainstorms more frequently, and almost every time our power and/or internet goes out. But if it means that we’ll have running water in our house, I think it might be worth it!

The repair on the roof over the girl’s dormitory is slowly progressing. With the weather being the way it is, I think it’ll be finished just in time. We’ve received the materials from the German orphanage and we hired a carpenter who has a reputation of doing good quality work. We’re hoping that the work will be completed within the next week!

The kids are all doing so well! I had a mini project last week of taking new pictures of all the kids for their profiles on PureMission.org. I have to say that Enelesi’s picture is the cutest! I love that little girl so much =)

We found a package of marshmallows in our pantry the other day, and we thought it would be fun to do a marshmallow roast with the kids!

No one at Esther’s House had ever seen or heard of marshmallows!! I’m a really horrible marshmallow cooker--I never have the patience to brown the marshmallows, so I usually just set them on fire and then blow it out. Apparently no one liked my marshmallows so I let Bruce take over for me, and it turns out he’s a natural! They were so perfectly roasted, it’s incredible.

Cindy and I were invited by our friend Patrick, who works at the hospital, to what he called a “dance party” and dinner. It turns out that what we thought of as a dance party is very different from what Malawians call a dance party! We met at a small soccer ground in our Madzanje village, and walked over to Patrick’s hut where we ate a traditional Malawian dinner, in the dark, on bamboo mats outside. We had boiled sweet potatoes, pumpkin greens, beans, and nsima.

For the dance party, it turns out that Patrick arranged for the traditional Angoni tribal dancers to perform. It was the same group of dancers that performed at Esther’s House in August, but it was a very different experience to see them at night with the whole village joining in on the dance. It seems that children are trained at a young age how to do the Angoni dance, and for the life of me I could not figure out the rhythm (to the amusement of all the Malawians that watched me attempt to join in). There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to the steps, and I finally stopped because my horrible dancing was drawing too much attention!