Week 5 Update

It may seem early for an update but I'm so excited because we now have Internet at the house where we are staying!! The phone lines here were stolen and now that the Gentry family has returned to Malawi they had the lines fixed. We just figured out tonight that the Internet connection would work. Yay! It's EXTREMELY slow though. By the way I just reread my last update and please forgive any and all typos on these updates. The connection is so slow that it's just not worth the time to edit. :) So anyway.....

We had so much fun this week! We just finished a full week of teaching at the school during the day and playing football/soccer with the kids every afternoon. The first day we played with them we noticed they started calling themselves "Team Malawi" because it was about twelve little girls around the ages of 7-13 against the three teachers from USA. They stomped us each and every time. Let me tell you that they can play rough...without shoes...VERY rough. We have even recruited about four of the girls to play on our team and we still can't beat them. The boys and girls play separately here....not a lot of mingling on the playground....so we haven't attempted playing them in a game. Today we did pass the ball around with some of the boys though. After all of our testing sessions we took the classes out for a "PE" class until their time was up. So fun!

We were able to take Rackson, one of the pastor's and our driver, along with his family out to dinner on Thursday night as a thank you to them for helping us out so much. It was so sweet for them to tell us the story of how they met. He tried to woo her for nearly two years before she would agree to "go out" with him. (That's in American terms.) During the time, he spent the last six months writing a letter to her each and every day trying to persuade her. She finally said yes! Then it took another six months for him to impress her mom enough to approve. Talk about determination. You don't find that with the culture here very often. A lot of marriages are arranged or done for survival purposes. It was sweet to hear a story about a Malawian man trying to impress the woman of his affection. It made us love him even more! He is a very wonderful person and we have been blessed by our time with him.

We were able to go to the hospital today to visit the little girl who was burned. Rose is in a government hospital that is free. The hospital rooms remind me of scenes from old war movies where you have rows and rows of hospital beds sitting two feet apart. There were several children there. The hospital doesn't provide bedding or food so the families have to bring meals and and items for comfort to the patients. Rose is an orphan but her uncle happens to be on staff at the orphanage so her aunt is with her. It was hard to see her today but it's comforting to know that she is getting some pain relievers and she has an aunt to sit with her. Please keep her in your prayers.

I will be leaving a week from tomorrow to come back home. Our last week is full of many activities so I'm sure it will fly by. I've missed so much of what is going on back home and can't wait to catch up with everyone. I would like to congratulate my friends Todd and Lisa on the birth of their baby girl, Claire. She is beautiful!!

I would also like to brag on my husband a little. He earned is "PC" status this past week which means he has enough flight hours and knowledge to fly the helicopter alone without anyone else as a copilot. He has been flying solo all week long. I'm so proud of him!