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!

This will be the last post that I make for this blog; I just want to share a little about my personal experiences in spending 6 months in Malawi. This is probably something I should’ve done much earlier as I’ve been home now for a little over 2 months! But since I’ve been back, I have been seriously struggling with feelings that I guess can be attributed to reverse culture-shock; I’m thankful that God has had so much grace with me, because I’ve just recently started to work through some of it and I’m beginning to feel like myself again =)

Something that I struggle with is being transparent with others, and as a result I haven’t really shared very many of my experiences in Malawi. Yes, I did see a lot of animals while I was there and I did play with the sweet children at Esther’s House a lot. But even more than that my relationship with God grew an incredible amount and He revealed to me so many things that I’ve been blind to in the past.

The most incredible experience I had while I was there is something that I can’t pinpoint to a specific day or moment. One of our first goals when I arrived was to increase the number of children in the residential program, and I was blessed with the opportunity to see God radically change the lives of each new child that came to live at EH. Elford, the first 5-year-old boy we enrolled, was severely malnourished and as a result he was very fragile, had no energy, and was very quiet. For the first month that he was there, he would just sit with the adults and watch the other children play with this glazed look in his eyes. I remember looking out across the EH campus one day and seeing Elford talking to one of the other children, when he suddenly broke out into these awkward, jerky movements with his arms and legs. A few of us were watching him, trying to figure out what was going on, and then we realized…he’s trying to dance. Watching Elford develop physically, emotionally, and spiritually in just 5 months has changed my life. By the time I left in February Elford would walk up to me with a big smile on his face, take both of my hands, and put them on his tummy just so I would tickle him. That may not sound like a lot, but it was such a far stretch from the little boy I met in the village!

Elford, the day we picked him up to take him to Esther's House, Sept. 2010

Elford "climbing" a tree =) Jan. 2011

I fell in love with Enelesi the first day that I met her. Although she had probably never seen a white person before, she walked over and tugged at my skirt so that I would sit her on my lap and let her play with my hair (which became a habit over the next 5 months).

Enelesi =)) Jan. 2011

I can’t put into words most of the memories that I have of these children—it honestly wouldn’t sound like anything noteworthy. It was 6 months of just loving them. But I do have a lot of sweet memories with them that I think about often =) Esther’s House has the ability to house 100 residential orphans, but those first 9 will always be special to me.

I did love spending time with these children, but God really used them to reveal to me how great His love for all of us truly is. I don’t know if I can say that I had ever seen God move in such a real way before living there..I was so caught up in my own little world before I left for Malawi, that I don’t know if I was even bothering to look. But when I think about how radically God changed the lives of the 9 children that now live at Esther’s House, I feel overwhelmed by how great His love is. There are millions of children in need in Malawi, and He hand-picked these 9 double-orphaned children to be cared for by this ministry. Thinking about how different their lives would have been had God not interceded blows my mind.. I think it’s such a beautiful example of how God’s love can transform us.

I don’t know if I can say that I was a strong Christian before I left for Malawi. I loved God, but I wasn’t really involved in church beyond Sunday mornings. Although being involved in missions was not something that I had planned on, I did respond when I felt that God was calling me to it. I was more than okay with the idea of living without modern conveniences and about being away from home, but I was nervous because I didn’t feel like I had a lot to offer spiritually. God used the 6 months I was there to stretch me past my comfort zone in so many ways—the last Sunday I was at Madzanje Baptist I actually had the opportunity to teach one of the lessons, which is something I never saw myself doing! A verse that I’ve gotten to know well over the past few months is 2 Corinthians 12:9:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

I’ve learned to be grateful for my weaknesses—the fact that God can use such an imperfect person to do His work says so much about God’s greatness and so little about me. I am incredibly thankful for that!

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”
--2 Corinthians 4:7

God used my time in Malawi not only to allow me to serve at Esther’s House, but also to give me the time and opportunity to grow my relationship with Him. He put me in an environment that took away all the distractions—art, work, entertainment, etc— that I was using as an excuse to stay at a distance, and I’m so incredibly grateful that He did. I developed a peace in my life that I’ve never known before, and that only could have come from Him. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude when I think about how even with all my faults, weaknesses, and constant mistakes that I make, He loves me unconditionally.

Being home has been a struggle for me because I do often long to be back in Malawi. God has really opened my eyes to the fact that I am in this world, but not of it. I know that God has a plan, and in the meantime I’m excited about doing what I can for Him with where I am in my life.

♥ S

I’m so sorry for not updating since Christmas!! Time has really flown by.

Right after Christmas Cindy and I were busy making preparations to host a team of 11 people from Living Hope Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. They were such an amazing blessing to us! I’m sitting here trying to think of how to describe this group of people, and I don’t even know how to put it into words. They were so incredibly focused on serving and loving this Malawian community, and they did it with so much passion and enthusiasm. God accomplished some amazing things through them, and I’m so honored to call them friends.

Kristin Copher packed paints with the team, so after their departure I started working on murals at Esther’s House. The first mural was done in the dining hall, and it’s of Jesus sitting with children, with the Bible verse Matthew 19:14 underneath.

“Let the little children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven”

Over a year ago, when the Kennedy’s were living here, they stenciled James 1:27, the verse that Esther’s House was built on, on the wall but didn’t have paint to fill it in. This is also in the dining hall.

"Religion pure and faultless is this: to look after the widows and orphans in their distress."

The next week I started on a mural in the classroom of Noah’s Ark. Eugenio and I picked out the best verse pertaining to the story of Noah’s Ark, and decided on Genesis 9:16.

“The rainbow will be in the cloud and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature on earth.”

This one was the most fun to do, if for no other reason than the excitement of the kids that were watching! As I was painting the lions, all of the kids started roaring and walking on all fours, pretending to be lions. Peter was an especially cannibalistic lion--he spent most of the afternoon chasing all the other kids around!

The last couple of weeks we focused on having some of the older kids work with art. Most of them had never used colored pencils, and none of them had ever used paints. They all had so much fun and did really well!

We’ve been having fun just playing with the kids--when it’s rainy, they like to do a lot of clay molding.

We spent the morning making trucks, buses, people, dogs, snowmen (although they don't know what snow is!), and cups.

We had the kids and the house parents over for dinner and a movie last Friday! =) We watched Madagascar 2, which they loved!! The next day they were singing "we like to move it!"

I think I have enough pictures of Enelesi to make an album completely of her! She's so adorable.

The last couple of weeks has been plagued with sickness. As the rainy season continues, the number of mosquitoes are beginning to multiply. Peter, our 5-year-old residential orphan, came down with a horrible case of malaria last Monday. A few days later Nedson, our 6-year-old residential orphan, developed a milder case of malaria. (Both children are better now!) Two of our house parents fell ill with different sicknesses, and a 3-month old child in our village passed away with malaria. We’ve taken multiple numbers of our non-residential orphans to the doctor for malaria. Going into the weekend I developed a stomach infection that kept me at the house for 3 ½ days (unfortunately). Today Cindy is showing signs of the same infection that I had, so please be praying for her to recover quickly!

I’m so grateful for all of the new friends that I’ve met since living here. I’m overwhelmed by how people, who were strangers to me 6 months ago, have been so supportive during my whole time here and especially during the last week as I’m preparing to go home on Sunday. I’m going to miss everything about this place so much, and the fact that I’m leaving in a few short days seems to just now be setting in. Driving away from Esther’s House is now all it takes to make me cry! I expect that acclimating back into Western culture is not going to be an easy thing, and I’m so grateful for all of the support you've given me!

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

♥