Stewarts in Malawi: November 2006

Frying up termites for dinner taste kind of buttery, almond, smokey

A high-class dinner at the cardboard restaurant

November 19, 2006

Wow it has been a long time since I blogged an update. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. First of all we are all super busy hence no update.
Since our last report we did buy the Land Rover. For the first few days I was thinking I made of a mistake. It is like driving a tank and has the turning radius of am 18 wheeler. However after a few days, some rain and a few trips into some back villages I am convinced that it was a good purchase.

Irish’s birthday was a lot of fun. We had a good number of kids come. We played games, ate lots and had a great time. Irish was very happy with the gifts that he received especially the chicken.
A few funny things happened at his party. All the kids asked for water instead of grabbing a coke. When we made the call for dinner all the kids put down the prizes that they had won and started to go home. They thought that they were not allowed to keep them and that only the adults were invited to eat. We got the exodus stopped assured them that they could keep the toys, and that the food and coke was for them! After this was communicated all was good and the children were so happy that they got to keep the toys .

One weekend we went to what I would consider one of the bigger village churches. It would hold around 800 people. The person preaching must side in a thrown-like chair at the front. So there I am sitting at the front and Irish decides that he is going to come to the front to visit. Without missing a beat I popped him up on my knee. There was a slight uneasiness in the congregation but that did not stop it from being a very powerful service. We had and alter call of about 200. Many were baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time and it was very exciting.
After the service we were invited back to the pastor’s home for cokes. These were much appreciated being that it was about 105 degrees out (4000 degrees under my suit coat).

The Bible School is progressing nicely however we are about to stop due to lack of funds. The top floor concrete is now finished as are the columns. We are currently working on closing in the bottom floor with the hydro-form block. We are also working on the upper level ring beams. We are praying that we will have enough money to finish these before shutting the project down.

One weekend we went south to Mvuvu to the wildlife park. We decide that since we are in Africa we better spend the money and go on a safari. It was awesome! We saw hundreds of elephants, more hippos than I could count, crocs, bush bucks, antelope, sable, monkeys, warthogs, birds, and a whole bunch of other animals that I don’t know the name of.
We stayed in a really nice “tent”. It really was more of a cabin with a cloth roof.

Jodi is now the director of the Christmas play at ICA. ICA is the “International Christian Assembly”, it is the National headquarters church so this is a big deal to be asked to do this. She is very busy!

Jodi’s $0.02
Well, we’ve had a busy month! Our really big news is, (drum roll) Batman laid and egg! No joke. We finally have an egg producing chicken!

We’ve done lots of things this month. We all really enjoyed the safari.

In addition to that, the kids and I went on a fun day with Rhonda and Courtney Allen to Nkotakota pottery. This is a pottery shop right on Lake Malawi about 2 hours from our place. They have a café and a place where you can make or paint your own pottery. The kids each painted a cup and a bowl. They will be shipped to us on November 30th.

We also went this weekend to visit Foster, one of the construction workers at the Bible school at his mud brick and grass home in the township, and met his family. He has a 5 year old boy, and Irish had a blast playing with him and all the other kids. The girls played too, but sort of alternated between outside in the hoard of kids and inside the house. Irish ran around with a stick in the middle of the big gang of kids. All the kids were screaming “Azungu! Azungu!” and screamed and ran when he turned their way. Somehow he remained in the middle of the group. The township areas are really high density and there are so many kids!!

Foster had invited us to visit because Scott had been very kind to him. His whole family was suffering from low iron and the doctor’s advice was to drink SOBO (like Tang). So Scott gave him some iron tablets and made him a chart of the food groups. He put a star beside all the foods that are high in iron. After eating peanuts in addition to the nsima (pronounced “seema”, a dumpling made from sundried corn flour), they all felt so much better, they invited us all over to thank him.

I’m directing the Sunday school Christmas play at ICA. Today was my first day on the job. Being very new at this, I tried to direct each scene with all the kids in the room. Sixty kids all waiting “very quietly” for one kid to finish his lines. It’s 8:34 and my throat still hurts. I couldn’t speak for about 45minutes after church. Don’t worry Dad, I’ve heard all the jokes from Scott already. So next week I’m going to do things a little differently. I’m going to take just the kids I’m working with at the time and leave the rest of the kids in Sunday school.

We’ve had lots of neighbours in the house behind us lately. We’ve had Boyd Powers from Oregon who was here visiting Dr. Chakwera and speaking at the celebration crusade services at ICA. And we’ve had some people from the Book of Hope, a ministry dedicated to getting the scriptures into the hands of every child on earth. Right now there are 4 girls in their 20s from the Book of Hope and our girls just love them. They go over all the time and these ladies are so kind to them.

We’ve also had lots of visitors through mutual friends. One visitor was really fun to try and figure out. A Canadian couple who had been missionaries here for a long time came to work recently and visit their son and family. In the airport in Toronto someone gave them our card with our e-mail contact on it. When our neigbour mentioned that we were Canadian, they asked “are they the Stewarts?” and sure enough…. So we go to meet them! Somehow, our card got from the Maves in Deep River to the Bowlers in Oshawa and resulted in a very encouraging visit.

We also had a visit from PJ Cooley a friend of our friends the Connells in Denver. That was another great story. PJ is a representative for Youth for Christ, and he had been trying to get ahold of the Book of Hope people to work with them in Malawi and other countries. He was in Lilongwe for a couple of days, the same time that the Book of Hope representative for this area, Allen Reesor, was staying in our guest house. So because the Connells arranged for us to meet PJ, PJ was able to meet Allen.

The American Thanksgiving is coming up this Thursday, and since we’re living with Americans, we’re going to celebrate it this year. Americans really put a lot into their Thanksgiving so we’re really looking forward to sharing it with them!

We’ve had almost no internet service lately or the ability to text home, so if you’re trying to get ahold of us, keep trying! We may actually be able to reply someday!!