First week in Malawi!

Hello all! Greetings from the "Warm Heart of Africa!" We cannot tell you how crazy the last three days have been- overhwhelming, amazing, tiring, eye opening, wonderful, sad, joyful-- and sometimes all at the same time. We got to Lilongwe on Monday afternoon and got settled in with our wonderful hosts for the week. The Morris's have been SO accomodating and welcoming!

Let's see if I can give a brief overview of our time here so far... so much has happened in the last 48 hours its hard to believe its just been 2 days! We met up with Reverend Vasco Kichipapa on Tuesday morning and it was so wonderful to finally meet him! He is the director of the Youth for the Synod of Nkhoma (youth = age 5- 30!) and he is a partner with Peachtree Pres. He took us to his office and then out to see the Youth Camp run by the Synod where he does trainings (kind of like conferences) for youth who are leaders in their churches. Clearly his job is huge. He has over 100 congregations and does not have a reliable car. The youth camp we visited was about 35 miles out a dirt road- and when i say dirt road- imagine a road with ditches on both sides and sometimes in the middle. They close the camp in the rainy season because it is too hard to navigate. People ride by on bikes carrying other people, firewood stacked 4 feet high, 100 pound bags of coal- whatever! And everywhere children are running and women are carrying babies on their backs- tied on with cloths- straight out of National Geographic. People are everywhere! Every mile or so there would be a "village" of huts and maybe a "storefront." It is like nothing I have ever seen. At the camp we met Absalom who is the camp manager. He became a Christian when he attended the camp as a young man and now runs the camp. He was really a man of God.

After the camp we visited a Woman's Training School also run by the Synod. They have courses for women to train them to be teachers, in computer literacy, and other skills. This was a big highlight for me because the day we got there the women were preparing for their "final examin" to be nursery school teachers. The lack of teacher training is huge in Malawi, and these women are some of the few who get training at all. BUT because these women live in villages where supplies are not guarenteed, they are trained to make EVERYTHING from scratch. They had made beads (for fine motor development- they told me- just like we use in my class) from cutting up reeds along the river. They were finishing up their hand sewn dolls. They has designed and constructed a jungle gym with local carpenters. All the concepts that we use in my PreK class were there- they were just using completely homemade materials. (Erynn, Akilah can you imagine?!) While we were having coffee with the missionary who runs the training school, one of the students brought me a gift from the women- one of the homemade dolls! It was beautiful- such a treasure.

Just writing about all of this is exhausting and that's exactly hos we have felt at the end of each day. Exhausted, but inspired but the great workd God is doing here in Malawi. Amen!