Pictures!

It has been about two weeks since I have updated my blog, but I hope that the pictures can help you understand the greatness that is Malawi. Click on a picture to see it full-size. The pictures vary.



This picture is of me at the lake. This was the first time we ate out at a restaurant. It was very exciting. If you want a coke, it comes in a glass bottle. It is very exciting still. Drinking coke out of a bottle in America is a treat, but here it is normal and will cost you about 60 Kwacha (About $.40).



This is Nsima. This is what Malawians eat everyday for every meal. For breakfast, they water it down to a Cream of Wheat type substance. Lunch and dinner are Nsima, nsima and beans or nsima and relish (relish meaning cabbage substance), or nsima and vegetables. I have never tasted something that tasted so much like nothing. It is about the consistency of thick grits made of corn mush. They do not have utensils, so everything is eaten with your hands. Nsima will stick to your fingers and the last thing you want to do is lick your fingers. I'm glad I live with Americans so I can get by with only eating Nsima every once in a while.



Because the mosquitoes carry malaria here, we have to sleep with nets over us. I sleep on the bottom of a bunk bed, so I kinda sleep in a cave. It is nice if I want to take a nap because it is dark. I voted to brink Larry on the trip. He isn't allowed to get out in case he gets malaria. He is not on Malarone.



This is the way women carry babies in Malawi. I bought a few chitenjes to carry by babies in when I have them. This is the cutest little boy. He is my favorite so far.


These are the toilets. When we go into the villages, they might have a toilet this nice, if not, find a tree. I have discovered that it is better to pee in a dirt toilet than one of these cement ones because they tend to splash.

In my last entry, I talked about being picked up in the back of a pickup truck. This is me in the back. It is a good picture of Malawi. The man riding a bicycle and the people standing up in the back of the truck in the background. It is winter here which means it never rains. This past rainy season was one of the best in years so people had a good crop this year. No one is really going hungry which is nice. They are enjoying their nsima. This is me in the back of the truck.

American chocolate is really difficult to come by, so when I found a quarter of a snicker in my lunch box I was very excited.

Finally, These are some of the girls that I teach at Gateway Girls Private Secondary School. The other American girls that I work with/live with/teach with and I have been teaching True Love Waits, Chicondi Chenicheni Chimadakira. We have been pondering ways to share reasons to stay a virgin until marriage and seek to attain purity, but what we have found is that it is much more difficult/nearly impossible to stay a virgin in this culture without Jesus Christ. All of our lessons have come back to the gospel. It is nearly impossible to fight the temptation of sex without Christ. By realizing this, the girls I am teaching with have had a renewed fervor to share the love of Christ with these students. This past week, we had over 80 different students and 1 teacher accept Christ as their personal savior. PRAISE GOD!!! A teacher (we had never met before) walked up to Ruth and I and said, “I want to thank you for telling the students how to enter the Kingdom of God. Can you tell me how to become born again?” CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!?!?!? The harvest is plentiful but it is true that the workers are few. People here are starving for the truth.

Wednesday, I spent my birthday with my new friends. We celebrated. I got to talk to Nathan and my family. It was a really nice treat. I had been feeling really homesick, but having people remind me how much I am loved and how much people are praying for me, encouraged me to continue following his plan for me here.

This weekend we are going with our pseudo-mom on an African Safari to Mvuu. I am going to take lots of pictures to show you when I get home. Elephants and hippos, here we come!!!

Continue to pray for the hearts of the students we are working with and for us to have the strength and wisdom to follow Gods plan for us.

MUAH!!!