Some pictures from Malawi

Yep. Here we are, in the Johannesburg airport, no sleep for WAY too long. The pictures will be random, I'm trying to see how to do this.













And yes, the video is sideways. Tip your head left to view it, I can't figure out how to rotate it. I am copying all of the videos to the blog for viewing, mostly because I can't figure how to send them otherwise...
And here is the girls' room at the Wallaces' house:

Our first day in Malawi we were treated to a baptism in the river at Chirimba:

Here is a scene from the childrens' program:And another:

ALL Goals mostly met

HI ALL -

We are all doing very well here, just struggling greatly with internet access. The old reliable Icon internet cafe has been down all week, Richard and Alima, the owners of the shop, are beside themselves, since the internet is their only business. This explains the lack of ability to get any pictures on the blog thus far. JORDAN and I have gone on a recon mission, and landed a little internet shop upstairs in a little building n a back street, so we are back in communication once again. We have a missionaryu lady here who has internet access at home, but only if you hold the laptop at an angle, standing sideways at one end of the dining table on your ear. We have managed to register everybody for their classes, and have checked a few e-mails, but this has been a difficult trip for maintaining contact.

HOWEVER, everything else has been going verfy well. We have done medical care in Chilimbe and Ndirende, as well as checking the pastors and their families, and, on Saturday, held a mini-children's fun day at the orphanage site. I wish that I could send pictures of the children and the Toccoa Falls students, with nail painting and duck-duck-goose playing and soccer playing and songs and skits and memory verses, all thrown together at the last minute because we were flooded with children. We were told to plan for 15 or so, but we had 96 children in total, a HUGE rainstorm, and a mostl;y-finished orphanage building loaded with young'uns. The medicines have been well-used, and the Toccoa students have seen a good bit of unusual pathology, but, more than that, have gotten a real taste of Malawian life, complete with numerous problems and pitfalls.

For those of you who are familiar with the ministry here, Wanda and I had an opportunity to sit down with Elton Jobe, and were able to discuss openly with him the steps that would be required for him to remain with Acts3 here. We have also had good meetings with many of the pastors, a very good church service this morning at the |Ndirende church, and plan for medical ministry in Nkolokoti tomorrow.

As far as each of the students is concerned: goat meat, freshly cooked, is okay; fried flying ants are tolerable. Jordan is developing major market-buying skills, but is not much liking being away from Shawna; Joseph is taking all of the minor injuries upon himself - bug bites, burns, etc. - but nothing serious (and he's taking his pills) - also showing amazing ability to sleep anywhere; Anna & Katie look a LOT more like twins here than they do anywhere else - and are taking turns with sunburns; Brittney is showing amazing ability to draw children from a half-mile radius to her, and even had a chance to name a new baby at a foster home - a child dropped off in the market at 15 months old, taken by the police to the orphanage we visited. Really - they had her name the child!; and Whitney is keeping everyone's spirits up with her 'Whitney-isms'and thoroughly entertaining the Wallace children.

The Wallaces are doing very well, and are loving their new furniture, new gifts, new toys, new pictures, in fact, everything seems new right now!

I should be able to try some pictures tomorrow, now that I know that this internet source is here...

Rick & Wanda

We're back in Malawi! And multiplied!

January 15, 2008
We are back in Malawi with 6 students from Toccoa Falls College – Katie Greer, Anna Bailey, Brittany Carroll, Whitney Luke, Joseph Vinson, and Jordan Treworgy have joined us, doing a lot of medical work and learning a good bit about poverty, disease, spiritual health and spiritual attacks, and cultural issues. We have had a very busy last 2 days, many pictures have been obtained, but most will have to be processed back in the States. Here are a few of them:(NOT - can't get them into the document)
So far, the schedule has been:
Thursday – Friday – Saturday – One long day. Joseph, and Whitney impressed all of us with their separate abilities to sleep anywhere, on the plane, in the airport, you name it – they got their rest. Jordan went the first 2 days without sleep, but got into the sleep zone in the Johannesburg airport. The remainder of us – well, it was one lllooonnnggg day. We played cards at 4 AM, talked, ate granola bars, pretended to rest, and just got through!
Saturday afternoon, we unpacked, organized, and participated in the Wallace family Christmas – every item, whether it was presents from Bob & Daisy, new items brought from Grace Church, or older items brought from the container in Rincon, money brought from the Ithaca CMA church, Port Wentworth CMA, or Shawn’s family & friends, everything was just so exciting.
Sunday, the work started in earnest. We all attended the Chirimba church service. There was singing, dancing, a baptism in the early morning (picture above), and a very strong message by Shawn. Right in the middle of the service, there was a stir, and a large contingent came into the room with a flourish – a member of the Malawi parliament came and sat – ostensibly to hear the service – but actually, he got restless quickly, and sent a message to the pastor that he would like to speak. He stood up, tooted his own horn a bit, talked about how he enjoyed the preaching of the “gospel”, and ostentatiously presented a 5000 kwacha offering in front of everybody (average offering totals 150 kwacha a week. ) He is a Moslem, and his idea of the gospel is to buy converts to Islam. Behind the scene, 2 of his men came to Emmanuel, a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, after the service, and demanded part of the money back. It was an excellent opportunity for Shawn and myself to speak to the church about the darkness that is Islam, and how Eph 5 commands us to have nothing to do with that darkness. We were sorely tempted to burn the 5000 Kwacha in front of the congregation, but stopped short of that.
Sunday afternoon, we were to see a “few” people medically, to get the ball rolling, but ended up seeing a hundred people or so (for which we were unprepared.) What a start! We have made lists of medicines that we need to get from the pharmacy here.
Monday was much better. We walked about 6 miles to the Ndirende church, where some church members had gathered for medical care. We spent about 5 hours, the students alternated between playing games with the children and helping to deliver medical care to the sick. We saw a lot of very deep pathology; malaria, osteomyelitis, chronic mastoiditis, a severe cervical adenitis, a lot of unusual things. We walked the 6 miles back in the late afternoon after making a “house call” up into the middle of Ndirende to see Rhoda, a wonderful Christian lady in middle to late HIV disease who had developed a severe malaria which, for her, was life-threatening. We were able to provide her with vitamins and with the latest malaria treatment. We will check back on all of this. In the evening, we were treated to a Malawian meal of nsima and fried flying ants (some of us had peanut butter and jelly instead – I bet anyone reading this knows what 2 people had PB&J). We then heard a long testimony from Gray and Caroline about forgiveness, restoration, and consequences. We have testimonies set up throughout the week, both from the pastors and from the students.
Today(Tuesday) we have an orphanage visit, with exams of all of the children there, and tomorrow will be a day of rest, trip to Mulanji and then Thursday will be a day to bless Shawn & heather with work around the house, and with shopping for household goods.

We covet your prayers.

Rick & Wanda

I'm trying to get some pictures on here - running into difficulty.