anyone want a new pet?

well, my mother told me my blog needed a new post, so here goes...

bech and i have two pets, a dog and a cat.  both need homes for next year!  ideally we would love to find people that would keep either animal for a year, then let us have that animal back when we return.  but we know that is extremely unlikely, so we are okay with just giving the animals away for good.

marmalade is an orange and white striped cat.  he is less than a year old and is litter box trained.  he is sweet and cuddly.  we have him as a half indoor/half outdoor cat, but i think he could do well being either full time.

juno is a 7 month old dog.  she is full blood german pointer.  she sits, shakes, lays down, all that good stuff on command.  she is also house and kennel trained.  right now, she stays in her kennel during the day, and plays outside and inside when we get home from work.  she has never had an inside accident.  she is very sweet and loving, and really really cute.

so if anyone is interested, please let me know!  or if you know a family that is interested, please put them in touch with me.  my number is 601-757-9094.

i was going to add some pictures, but my computer is being mucho slow...so i will add some later...

okay, so things are still progressing! we have been working on our support letter, and hopefully we will be done with that this weekend. also, our support address is African Bible Colleges, P.O. Box 103 Clinton, MS 39060.

a carton goes out the end of April, so we have started thinking about what we will send on it. bech would like to send out some art supplies, and i am going to go ahead and send towels and sheets, etc. i keep trying to think of things i will need or want over there, but might not think of now. i am definately going to pack a cake mix for bechs birthday (can't get that there), stockings for christmas, and maybe some christmas wrapping paper. but if anyone has any packing suggestions, please let me know!

a little about malawi....

most of these pictures are actually stolen from google. i have some of my own, but they aren't on the computer...

here is where malawi is in africa...

as you can see, malawi is not a big country...

here is malawi again...

the big lake on the right is called lake malawi, and its beautiful!

next, this is a picture of some local crafts sold in the market by the post office. i loved this part of malawi, and bech is really excited about seing art like this and talking to the people that made it. its incredible to think that none of these men have had any training in art at all! and this work is incredible!

and finally, here are some pictures i took the first time i was over there...

the first four pictures are of children in malawi. most are from the chimbalama (spelling?) orphanage, which is right across the street from the college. one is of a child in a village a little big out from lilongwe. the last one is of a sunset in zambia...isn't it amazing!

some big news...

well, bech and i have some exciting news for everyone...

we have just decided (as in this past week) that we are going to go to lilongwe, malawi next year. we will be teaching at the christian academy at the African Bible College. Bech will be starting a fine arts program and i will be most likely teaching the sixth grade class.

African Bible College is located in the capitol city of Malawi. The purpose of the college is to create a good college education for Africans. They want to train students to be Christian leaders within their own country. The Academy has an elementary school and a jr. high. It was first created mostly for the missionary kids, but now many other children attend as well. The website is www.africanbiblecollege.org, if you want to check out whats going on over there. It's an amazing ministry, and we are excited to be a part of that.

We will use this blog while we are preparing and while we are over there as a way to keep people updated. The first big step for us right now is to begin raising support. We have to raise $1800 a month and traveling costs (plane tickets, shipping extra boxes, etc.). We also will start getting our shots and passports.

I will continue to put stuff on here to update people...