Malawi Update

Hi everyone!

It's email time once again. This past week we had a camp for the kids. On Sunday we went to Chiwengo and stayed until Wednesday afternoon. We left on Sunday after church which was a 3.5hour service but it was soo good. I really enjoyed it. All the different choirs sang and we were with the Amayi Mgwiro (the lady choir). And they totally didn't do the songs that we had practiced with them. But we caught on and it was fun. haha before church started we were just standing around outside so I told Monica let's go on in. So a man ushers us in and here we go prancing up the aisle talking and then we saw a couple of guys we know so we were like hey! and waved really big. then we sat down and talked. Then I looked up and saw a man standing in front talking to the audience who I then noticed were all men. I slowly realized that we had just walked into the Men's Sunday school class. hhaha it was so embarrassing. then we had an amazing malawian meal with the preacher and different people and then there is a group from Hawaii that's here. They are soo nice. And they brought us different American things to have while we are here which was really nice. One of the lady's mom died (in America) while she (the daughter) was here so you can pray for her and that group.

The camp went well. We had devotions in the morning and evenings and activities inbetween. I taught Esther on Tuesday-and that's funny cause they chose me to teach it because when we were talking about different stories to do they were explaining Esther to a girl who was unfamiliar with it, but they left out parts-mainly about Haman-so I told that part and for some reason I was cracking up because he thought that he was going to be honored but it was Mordecai so here he goes parading him around. it was really funny to me. (and still is). So they chose me-but that wasn't why I mentioned that- That was neat because I got to help with the youth group during vbs at eastanallee and I had taught Esther on one of the nights and I had mentioned how that's preparing me for Africa and here I told that story. I thought that was neat.

The activities withthe kids were fun. We played capture the flag almost every day. And one day I had a kid on my back and then a kid holding my hand and I just walked down the field and got the flag. They of course tagged me right after but it was funny. These kids are so athletic. One day I was with a group of really young girls during our free time. I was the only one who spoke English and I played games, sang, and danced with them for 3 hours. It was so cool. I taught them the only Chichewa songs I really know which were all abuot Jesus so that's cool. There was one kid-Toko who really took up with me. He's supposedly one of the bad kids and he's on medicine, but he was really good with me. He clung to me when we were leaving and then one of the Malawian Interns had to pry him off so I could leave. It was so sad. And it was sad leaving the Malawian interns because we won't see them again. They were so fun. One night we stayed up and learned how to do the dances for Malawian weddings. It was so fun. We stayed up until after 2 then woke up after 5 to watch the sunset. So between that and all the activities with the kids, it's been a kind of tiring week. We had camp on Thursday and Friday withthe Chitipi kids. The younger girls are going to spend the night with us tonight and then the older ones will stay with us next week. There's just so much going on and I'm just randomly mentioning some stories. Sorry if that's frustrating! But everything's still going well! This up coming week is our last ministry week then next week is safari and debriefing. I get really sad thinking about it, so I don't. Thank you all and I'll see/talk to you soon.

Shawna