Sunday, September 7, 2008

1 month update

well we have been here over a month now! we have learned alot but still have a way to go. the car is great. if you had told us a year ago that we would be this excited about a toyota carina (its a japanese brand, not even done in the u.s.), we would have thought you were crazy. but we love our little car...it takes us places, and thats what matters!

we got our camera this past week! my parents bought it and sent it overnight to a team that left from seattle. so we will put a picture post up either monday or tuesday. we have just been so busy! we have school from about 6:45 (well it starts at 7:15, but we are supposed to get there at 6:45) until 1:10 (but we are supposed to stay until (1:40). then on tuesday and thursday, i teach ballet from 3 to 4, and bech teaches outdoor arts and crafts on tuesday from 2-4. plus staff bible study on wednesday night and potluck on friday night. plus grocery shopping takes like 3 hours to do! hopefully this week i can start going to do some orphanage ministry stuff...thats what i am really excited about over here.

we have visited two different churches the past two weeks. mclaude (pronounced mcleod, though) works at the academy and took us to both. the first was a combined chewa/english service at an anglican church in lilongwe. it was interesting, but very long. the malawian music was really good. bech LOVED the music! then this morning, we went to a CCAP church called Kafiti (i think...oh and CCAP stands for Central Church of Africa Presbytery). we went to the 2+ hour chewa service. we were the only white people ("mzungus") there, and we couldn't understand anything they said. we went with mclaude and nweene (pronounced, neh-way-nie...sorry, i have been studying my vocab cards for the gre, so i am really into pronunciation today) his wife, and katherine, his niece.

we went to the market yesterday with vicky (from england) and rachel harper (from jackson, ms). we took them to the largest market, which can be intimidating. they really liked it. i got my first present for a family member...playing cards that say world cup 2010 (bc its in south africa). obviously, these are for blaise. we also got some peanuts and boiled them when we got home...so good! it reminded me of the summer we boiled peanuts from my uncle mikes land.

anyway, i wanted to do a couple of praises and prayer requests, so, if you are praying for us (and if you are, we are very thankful for it!), you know what to pray for specifically...

praises:

* the carina!!!
* our sweet students...they make teaching fun!
* our new friends
* our one year anniversary is a week from tomorrow, so we are going to the lake!
* our new camera

prayer requests:

* they "fixed" our water heater last week...um, its definately not fixed! we are still just able to take baths, because the water is either burning up or (when the hot water runs out) freezing cold)! we are going to call again this week and see what can be done!
* our stove broke! the top part works, but the stove itself doesn't work. this is definitely not good, because the apartment manager isn't responsible. you have to provide the stove and fridge yourself. we got these from an expat leaving, so if it isn't fixable, we will have to buy another stove!

that's all for now...it's almost bedtime for us! we will try to put pictures up soon!
our

5 comments:

Courtney said...

yay for a car and good students! i didn't know you knew any ballet, marley. that's cool. yay for the 1 year anniversary. i can't believe it's been a year already. sometimes it seems like forever since i was on that plane to your wedding and sometimes it seems like just yesterday. good luck with the water heater and the stove. I hope that gets fixed soon. love you!

Liz T. said...

i was happy to read that you and bech seem to be doing well. we will continue to keep you in our prayers and are happy to know of specifics to pray about. I love your blogging!

soundofthesun said...

Alipo munthu pano olankhula chizungu?

Anonymous said...

yay for updates, prayer requests and praises. love you!

RCO said...

Thank you for the newsy update. I know you all are busy so whenever you can post is great. And I am looking forward to seeing some more pictures when you can post them. I'm sorry about the hot water heater and the stove, but I'm so thankful to the Lord that, on the whole, things are going so well.

Happy Anniversary!! May the Lord bless you with many, many more.

With love and prayers,
Mr. Rob