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