Ndatopa

My new, most used Chichewa phrase is "ndatopa," or "I'm tired!"

It's a good kind of tired though! Whenever Alyssa and I aren't working on something, we spend as much time with the kids as we can. "Girigisha," which means "tickle" in Chichewa, is the the second most used word lately. We play a lot of games of tag (I'm always "it"), and they think it's hilarious to be tickled when they're caught. The only way I can get a break from chasing them around the Esther's House campus is by telling them "Ndatopa!" They've taught me how to play a game that's similar to jacks only they use small pebbles. I'm not very good at it, and it's kind of humbling to be beaten by a bunch of 5-year-olds! They're very supportive and are always really excited when I finally catch a few pebbles. =)

Alyssa and I have been working on a few new projects! A donation was made for school supplies for Esther's House, and from that we received posters for our classroom. It's amazing the difference a few posters can make!

Jailosi, an Esther's House staff member, built a shelf for the teacher's materials and we are working on having cabinets built for the classroom that will hold all of our library materials and art supplies. I've already found our 1st graders in the classroom using the poster above the chalkboard to practice writing the alphabet on more than one occasion! =)

On Saturday we had a tailor come out to Esther's House to measure all of our 60+ children for 2 sets of school uniforms. It'll be a lot of clothes for the tailor to make, but we're looking forward to getting those to the kids sometime next month!

In preparation for potential new children, we are having more bunk beds built for our dorms.

An important aspect of the Esther's House orphan care program is teaching the kids skills that they will be able to take with them once they leave the program. The carpenter will be making the bunk beds on the EH campus so that some of our older kids can learn carpentry skills. We are also planning on having the tailor work at EH so that the children can help!

A project that Alyssa and I finally got done today was cleaning out our residential children's clothing. We were not looking forward to it because we expected that it would make the kids unhappy, but it actually went really well! We want the children to learn how to take good care of their things, so we minimized their wardrobe. We laid out all of the clothes and let them pick out their favorite outfits, and we put the rest into storage in preparation for possible new children.

The smaller piles are the clothes that they took back to their rooms, while the huge pile on the left was all of the excess clothing!

After cleaning out their closets, we had everyone over to our house to watch The Lion King and have popcorn, Sobo, and cookies. It was incredibly fun!! It also happened to be the birthday of Joshua, our house parent!

Stuck!

When I was in Malawi last year, our car was having some serious problems. It was apparent when I returned a few weeks ago that the car was still suffering from the same problems. So I decided to do what any normal girl who knows nothing about cars would do: continue driving the car until it completely dies!

And that's exactly what happened! At a most inconvenient time (not that there's a "convenient" time for a car to die). On Friday morning I drove Patience to the maize mill, and as we were trying to leave, the car decided it would rather not start.

*****side story...

The most important crop grown in Malawi is maize (similar to corn); after it's grown it is dried, picked off the cob, and ground into a flour. When the maize flour is cooked with water, it forms a puddy-type substance which is called "nsima." Nsima is the major food staple of Malawi--it is eaten with everything and with almost every meal.

The maize mill is where everyone goes to turn their dried maize into flour. Although I've eaten plenty of nsima, I had never actually gone to a maize mill and seen the process.

Everyone usually packs their maize in 50 kg bags. They unload their maize into metal buckets that have small holes drilled on all sides.

The bucket is then dipped into a container of water to soften the maize, and the excess water drains out of the holes.

When I asked Patience if I could help, she told me to "put the maize in water." Not understanding, I started to dump the maize straight into the water (to her horror). I think it was at that point that I decided we would all be better off if I just took pictures instead. =)

After the maize is softened, it is put through the mill, and comes out on the other side as flour.

*****

When the car failed to start, Patience started to walk back to Esther's House with some of the maize flour so that she could have lunch ready on time. After waiting close to 3 hours Bruce, one of our houseparents at Esther's House, returned from the market and biked over to the maize mill to save the day. He was able to "pop-start" the engine--3 men pushed the car down the road while Bruce turned on the engine. I was extremely thankful that the car was no longer in a public venue, but once we returned to Esther's House, the engine would not start on its own again. Bruce was able to pop-start the engine again (with the help of 10 little boys pushing the car), and we got the car back to our house in town.

Alyssa and I unfortunately have been stuck at the house since then. 3 and a half days. We're going a little stir-crazy to say the least!

When a car breaks down in Malawi, there isn't a local Sears that you can take it into to get it fixed. You have to know someone who knows a mechanic, the mechanic will have to travel hours away to find the right parts, and then he attempts to fix your car in your front yard.

Our mechanic had to ride a bus 3 hours to Lilongwe to find the right parts, but since he wasn't able to leave til Saturday afternoon the shops were all closed by the time he arrived and most of them remained closed until Monday morning. We are praying that he will be able to fix the car tomorrow morning, and we are REALLY hoping to get away from this house and back at Esther's House by tomorrow afternoon. It has been really frustrating to be only 10 miles down the road but to not be able to be with the kids. I miss them so much! Please be praying for Henry to successfully fix our car!

There's a phrase that everyone uses here that is fairly accurate, which is "we're running on Malawi time." It pretty much means everything in Malawi runs much slower than you're used to. A car problem that would've taken a few hours to fix in the U.S is now going on 4 days. It's been a good chance for me to practice slowing down. I don't do well with idle time or relaxing, but there is only so much work you can get done with you're stuck in the same place for days. I'm so excited to get back to Esther's House tomorrow!

Alyssa and I have been working on a couple of different projects at Esther's House lately--I'll be sure to update you on those in the upcoming week!

♥ S

Saturday is the busiest day at Esther's House, and it went amazingly from start to finish!

Waking up to the sound of running water was a great start to the day! Although I guess I should clarify that by "running water" I mean we had water flowing from our backyard faucet. While the team was here we were having to fill buckets and bottles at Esther's House and bring them into town, so having running water in any form is a welcomed change!

Another praise is that I drove from our house in town to Esther's House without any problems at all! Alyssa and I said a little prayer before getting in the car. =) Doug Sarver, our missions pastor, was an awesome driving teacher last week--I've never driven a manual car before, especially not on the left-hand side of the road and on the right-hand side of the car! With all the possible problems that might come from living in Malawi, driving was the ONLY thing I was concerned about. I'm hoping it wasn't just beginner's luck!

Saturday is the day we have our widow and orphan program--the widows walked to Esther's House and arrived by mid-morning for fellowship, lunch, and they then spent time doing a Bible study. The kids had class with Joshua (one of our house parents) and lunch. After lunch Alyssa spoke to them about some of the new rules and rewards we will be putting into place, and then I taught a lesson sin and repentance.

One of the new things we started this month is rewarding kids for their good attendance. It is mandatory for the children to attend afternoon classes, but it was brought to our attention that not all of them were. Instead of punishing the majority for not attending class, we decided to reward the kids that have been coming to class. After our afternoon class today, we had our "good attendance party," which consisted of s'mores, juice, and water balloon games. It's funny that you can go down an aisle at Wal-Mart and find a huge variety of different kinds of marshmallows, but most Malawians have never heard of them! And chocolate is definitely not something that is eaten often, so everyone (staff included) was hyped about the s'mores. Alyssa explained what 's'mores' meant, and by the time we were finished they were all chanting "we want s'more!"

Enelesi with her s'more =))

& Nedson with his

Limbani

After s'mores, we did a water balloon tossing game that everyone loved! We had them partner up, and with every successful toss they would take one step back. Somehow Enelesi and Elford, two kids who don't enjoy catching, ended up being partners. A few times they would toss their water balloon, drop it, and it wouldn't break--it would just kind of bounce around on the ground; they thought that was the funniest thing ever!

Filling up water balloons

Water balloon toss

We're not sure what to do for next month's reward day, but it'll have to be good! Hopefully this will encourage the other kids to attend class every day.

I had forgotten how much I missed these kids! I feel incredibly blessed to have gotten to spend all day with them! They discovered how to take pictures and videos on my iPhone, so I'll have to figure out how to those up here at some point. =)

♥ S

Luke 6: 43-45

Back in Malawi!

August 14 was the 6 month mark of having returned from Malawi in February 2011; it was also the day when I was given the opportunity to return to Malawi to serve for a 3 month period! I have been and still am praying about the way God wants to use my life, and although I wanted to return to Malawi I didn’t expect to have an opportunity to for a long time. I’m incredibly excited and thankful for the chance to serve this ministry again! Alyssa Stewart and I will be here until late November doing various projects at Esther’s House Orphanage.

Our team of 10 people left Arkansas last Sunday and arrived in Malawi on Tuesday—it’s been so good getting to know them. I’ve learned so much from every one of them. It’s an incredible encouragement to spend time with others who have such an amazing passion for God! Ross Greenwood taught a discipleship class to a couple of us and all of the Malawian interpreters, and as a result we’ve seen over 100 come to Christ this week. I’ve had some unforgettable experiences with visiting the homes of some of the women in our widow program, loving on the children at Esther’s House, and getting to pray for and share the Gospel with some of the people in Madzanje and the surrounding villages. The team will be leaving on Thursday, and we’ll be sad to see them go—looking forward to our Malawian get-together when Alyssa and I get back though! =)

I’m incredibly excited to be here (have I already mentioned that?) and about the changes that are happening at Esther’s House; I will definitely be keeping this blog up to date with everything that is going on here in Malawi!