Thursday, September 6, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Last E-mail
Hello Everyone! Well, this is our final email as we will leave the computer here in Lilongwe...First, we feel like we are fully recovered - minus a few bathroom issues here and there. Thanks for your prayers! We really feel like they have helped. For the last couple of days, we have been traveling and relaxing. We traveled to Lake Malawi and stayed at a little resort by the name of Carolina. It was not necessarily what we in the U.S. would deem a resort, but it was a luxury for us. The lake was beautiful and reminded us of home, staring across Lake Michigan. We met some other Americans at the resort. They were on a two month stint with Children of the Nations. Most of them were college students. We really enjoyed getting the chance to talk with a few Americans again and share our experiences with each other. They were encouraging to us in many ways. Our trip to and from the lake was another test of our patience. We traveled with Emmanuel in the Toyota LandCruiser. It is a fairly old vehicle but from what we have heard always reliable. However, we think we bring bad luck to SOM vehicles because we once again broke down. This time it was a tire but instead an overheating engine. We had to stop about every ten minutes to let the vehicle cool down and add water (we guess they don't use coolant here) to the engine. Nevertheless, water is not always a readily accessible commodity on the roads of Malawi, so there were a few times when we waited 30 or more minutes while someone went searching for water. We were impressed, however, at how many people stop to help you when you break down here in Malawi. There was one time that we had a crowd of twenty standing around watching us. We aren't sure if we were just a comical sight or what, but they were a big help in the end. After about 11 hours of car travel (when it should have taken 5), we made it back to Lilongwe. We are staying at St. John's again, and we are thankful because we think we got the luxury room at St. John's (compared to what we had last time). We are enjoying our last few days here and are trying to nurse our stomachs back to health before we travel. We fly out tomorrow around 1:20pm. We fly to Nairobi first and then on to Amsterdam. We will spend a few days in the Netherlands, checking out Nate's mother country, and then will head back to Holland, MI. We can hardly believe that our time is coming to an end, but we want to say thank you to all of you. Thank you for reading these emails, for praying for us, and for supporting us in so many tangible ways. We are so grateful for the wonderful support team we have had back in the U.S. We look forward to sharing more with you when we return. Check the blog later for some pictures! Blessings,Nate and Bekah
Good News!
Hello Everyone,(this was supposed to be sent last Friday, but the internet was down. we haven't been by a computer since! we'll write our last email here in a few minutes.) This is just a quick note to update everyone on our status. We woke-up this morning with bad stomach cramps and so on, but this afternoon we are feeling better - not perfect. We think that we are on the upswing, and to be honest with you, we are feeling pretty positive that we did not have malaria. We will explain more as to why we feel this way later. We had lunch at Chet Burns' house (the missionary from Action International) with him, his wife Leanne, and his family. His family consists of his two biological sons and five adopted children (two of which are living in the United States). You may have read what I wrote earlier about him in one of my emails, and I should say that his ministry is not quite what Naomi made it out to be. It seems that instead of only wanting to work with the CCAP church he actually only wants to work with churches in general. The CCAP church won't work with him that much, actually, because they are focused on doing their own projects. He works with the area evangelical churches. The catch there is that Save Orphans Ministries does not necessarily work through churches. They work through communities. Now I will not be the one to judge whose philosophy is correct, but I will say that each in their own right seems to be doing positive things. Chet's house was luxurious by any Malawian standard. He had four bedrooms, one and a half baths, an almost typical American style kitchen, a living room, dining room, and an amazing view. He is renting this house for only about $130 a month, so can I say that I blame him for wanting to find a comfortable space for his family? No. They were very hospitable to us and served us "sloppy joes," chips, and oranges. We were thankful for a little American style food after many meals of nsima and rice, and we were thankful for a little debriefing time with people who come from our same culture. I think that both Nate and I needed to have the opportunity to ask our "dumb American" questions to people who would both know the answer and not think we were ridiculous for asking them. With all of that said, though, Nate and I both said as we walked away that we were happy that we were forced (in a way) to interact only with Malawians for most of our trip. If we had met Chet and Leanne earlier, it probably would have been too easy for us to try to escape to something more familiar. However, because we surrounded ourselves in the Malawian culture, we feel we have been given a fuller perspective (not the entire perspective by any stretch of the imagination). One interesting conversation that we had with Chet and Leanne had to do with our illness. We explained our symptoms to Leanne who immediately got a smile on her face. She said that malaria is very over-diagnosed in Africa by doctors. She said even when tests come back negative (which ours did) they still prescribe the malaria treatment (which Dr. William did). She then asked us what malaria preventative medication we had been on, and we said Lerium. She said that she thought maybe our illness had to do more with the Lerium than with malaria. She explained that Lerium can be very harsh on our bodies, stripping them of even the good bacteria that we need. She then suggested that we try eating yogurt to help introduce new bacteria into our system. She said that may help. She also gave us each two probiotic pills which are like a mini-shot of the good bacteria. She also said that my heartburn could be caused by the Lerium as well. Now, of course, she is not a doctor, but I think that I am going to listen to her advice at this point. Little unknown fact about malaria (according to Leanne)... the mosquitoes that carry malaria are only in very warm areas - meaning when it dips into the 40s here at night the mosquito would die - and they only feed from midnight to 6am - hence why you need to use the mosquito nets. Also, a distinct symptom of malaria is that your eyes ache, like they are going to fall out. We did not have this symptom! More than likely, our illness has been caused by the stripping of our immune systems by our antibiotics, leaving us vulnerable to some common bacteria that is creating havoc in our systems. We are hoping that we will feel completely better before tomorrow when we travel to Salima and Lake Malawi. Once again, thank you for your encouragement and support. We are so thankful for all of you. Many blessings,Nate and Bekah
I forgot to add something to the last picture I posted. That is a picture of inside a minibus...public transport at its best!
Nate is helping to fix one of the many flat tires we experienced...
Nate and Picard...brothers from another mother...:)
Bekah helping to hand out AIDS buckets in Katzecara area...
Nate is helping to fix one of the many flat tires we experienced...
Nate and Picard...brothers from another mother...:)
Bekah helping to hand out AIDS buckets in Katzecara area...
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Read second
Hello Everyone!
Well, I wish I could say that I have great news to report today, but it seems that everything I have to say is either depressing or just simply not good. I will start, though, with our health.
After staying home yesterday and resting, we were hoping that Nate would wake-up this morning feeling like a million bucks. However, instead, we both woke-up not feeling quite right. Nate's headache and stomach cramping worsened, and I woke-up throughout the night with chills and sweating (not to mention a few stomach problems). We thought we would try to at least make the journey to the office, though, which is where we were suppose to meet up with Lonely to make the trip back to Tsngano area. When we got to the office, though, Nate's headache was in full bore. Lonely asked Nate to described his symptoms, and immediately after hearing them, she made a phone call to the hospital. She said we were going to take Nate to get tested for Malaria. Well, needless to say, this was a shock to both of us as we did not even consider Malaria to be an option; after all, we have been taking our medicine and using the mosquito net. :) Nevertheless, it was off to the hospital...
Since we are visitors (and white, I presume), we were taken immediately to a doctor in a private room where he asked Nate some questions and examined him. He said that Nate was going to need to get blood drawn because he was concerned about two things. He thought that either Nate had Malaria or a blood infection. Well, as soon as I heard the blood infection part, I figured that I better get examined as well :). We ended up both going to the laboratory to get blood drawn (lots of blood!)...I won't go into too much detail concerning that whole experience but will say that it isn't quite as sterile as in the U.S.
Nate was concerned about having a needle in his arm, and I was concerned about the dirty gloves that my lobotomist was wearing! :) Well, our blood tests came back negative for the infectious disease. Praise God!
However, the doctor was still convinced that we have Malaria, so he prescribed SP or Sulfadoxine B.P. (500mg) and Pyrimethamine B.P.
(25mg). This is a single dose treatment that is supposed to do its magic within 72 hours. If our symptoms do not go away, though, we are suppose to call Dr. William (he gave us his cellphone number...so different than in the U.S.) to tell him that we need to switch to a different medicine. The drugs were free as they are to everyone in Malawi (if you can find them). We mentioned to Dr. William that we were surprised that our whole examination was free as we pay a lot of money back home for such things. He said, as if it were common thought, "Well if it cost money, only the rich would be alive, right?" As I walked out of his office, I understood his point as I read the faces that looked up at me - saying that they were just happy to have enough money for the nsima they ate last night.
So that leaves us here, back in bed, waiting for the miraculous healing of SP...
I would like to share a few details from my trip yesterday to Tsngano.
While Nate was bored at the hotel and struggling with his headache and stomach cramps, I was once again traveling on the worst road known to humankind (okay..maybe a slight exaggeration!). Seriously, though, the trip itself was enough to make me want to curl-up in a ball and fall asleep. The red truck, though better in handling the rough terrain as far as tires are concerned, has no suspension, so the whole ride I felt like my insides and outsides were being flip-flopped. At one point, I really thought my brain may have dropped into my stomach. We reached our destination safely, which to me is what really mattered after our last experience with the four flat tires, and we began our journey in handing out the buckets. I wrote in our journal last night that this was a humbling, maddening, and saddening experience all at once, and I think that there really is no better way to describe it.
The whole experience was humbling because as we passed out the buckets I quickly realized that these few items were no where near enough. These people needed so much more than the two bags of rice, bag of milk, salt, etc. that we gave them, yet they were all so grateful. I cannot count the number of blessings that were sent into the sky for me. The ladies would just shake their hands towards heaven and ask God to bless me over and over again. I did not know how to respond as I was only the messenger of someone else's gift, and it left me feeling only one thing
- humbled. I wish that I could have communicated better with the recipients as I would have said to them, "You have already been a blessing to me. Because of you, my life is forever changed."
The day was also maddening, though. It was like a slap in the face with the injustices that exist in this world. You may remember the woman I spoke of in one of my previous emails who has three young children and is quite destitute. Well, on Monday, she found out that she iss indeed HIV positive. You could see the sorrow in her face as she wiped sweat from her forehead. Her sorrow was certainly not only for herself but also for her three children. The injustice in all of this was that she is poor and sick because some man decided he needed a bed to sleep in while he was in Katzekera. She probably thought her marriage to the man was the happiest day of her life. Ironically, it was the beginning of the end of her life. The small bucket of items for her was like a truckload. She will undoubtedly conserve the items, so they will last months. Her children will receive a few invaluable months of decent nutrition because of that bucket. Most certainly, they will still all be hungry, but they will at least not be starving. I think, though, that Frecious offered to her the most comfort as he told her - from experience - that she could live a long life with the disease as long as she received the ARV treatments. For her, those three letters spelled death, but with the encouragement and example of Frecious and the healing power of the ARV drugs, death could be many, many years away for her. To me, that is one injustice being made right.
I think that I had to question God as well when I handed one of the buckets to the little boy we had met last week. His eyes spoke of a pain that I could never know, and the crusted blood under nose spoke of an illness that would his life short. Why should one boy have to know death so well? I know that God's comfort comes through the people that have been placed in his life to care for him, like his grandmother and Frecious. I wish that I could have offered him something more. Maybe I will just pray that God will do with that bucket what He did with the five loaves of bread and fish many years ago.
The day was also very heartbreakingly sad for me. On top of the pictures I have painted above, I was faced with the abrupt reality of life. When we arrived at a house, I remembered that it was the one where the man had been resting under a blanket outside. We never actually saw the man's face but instead spoke with his wife. She was taking care of him as well as an orphan she had welcomed into her home.
When we walked toward the house this time, though, I was told by Picard that the man had passed away. Just like that, my heart fell to the ground. We gave the bucket to the wife, and she praised God for me and the bucket. Yet, all I could think about is how this woman knows a strength that I could never muster. She had cared for her husband, diligently tending to his every ailments, and she, at the same time, found the strength to open her heart and home to a child that had nothing. I praised God for her, as she was the real messenger of God's grace and comfort that day.
We walked to another house that we had visited last week and were met by the son. He escorted us into a dark, round hut that is usually used for cooking. However, instead of the life sustaining piles of shucked corn, the figure that took center stage was the man we had visited last
week. He lay on the floor, paralyzed from the waist down by
Tuberculosis. Every breath he took you could tell came with incredible effort, and yet with all of his strength he mustered up enough breath to thank us for the bucket. The air felt so thick to me at that moment.
He was the last patient we were to visit that day, having handed out 16 buckets in total. Little did I know, he would be the last one we would visit at all since we woke-up this morning not able to make the the hard journey back to Tsngano. In a selfish way, I am happy that we did not go back. I do not know if my heart is big enough to handle any more sorrow. Yet, I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to walk into each of those 16 patients' lives. I have been blessed by them and hopefully changed for the better.
So...at the end of this email, I am left worrying about Nate who continues to feel the effects of a terrible headache, but I am also left thankful that we have been able to easily obtain drugs. We will soon be feeling back to normal, but the people I met yesterday do not have a normal. There is no drug that can wipe away their pain. And so once again, I am left humbled by the blessings we enjoy.
Do I believe that there is a God who allows such pain and suffering?
No, instead, I believe with all of my heart in a God who is using His
people to fight with all of their might the pain and suffering. I
believe in a God who will not stop fighting for His people until the end, and the good news is that the end will be the greatest victory of all.
Blessings,
Nate and Bekah
P.S. Tomorrow we will pack, and Friday we will head to the lake. I am thinking that God helped us out by having us plan a nice resting period into our last few days. We can hardly believe our time is coming to an end, yet we are feeling like the time is right for us to go home...
Well, I wish I could say that I have great news to report today, but it seems that everything I have to say is either depressing or just simply not good. I will start, though, with our health.
After staying home yesterday and resting, we were hoping that Nate would wake-up this morning feeling like a million bucks. However, instead, we both woke-up not feeling quite right. Nate's headache and stomach cramping worsened, and I woke-up throughout the night with chills and sweating (not to mention a few stomach problems). We thought we would try to at least make the journey to the office, though, which is where we were suppose to meet up with Lonely to make the trip back to Tsngano area. When we got to the office, though, Nate's headache was in full bore. Lonely asked Nate to described his symptoms, and immediately after hearing them, she made a phone call to the hospital. She said we were going to take Nate to get tested for Malaria. Well, needless to say, this was a shock to both of us as we did not even consider Malaria to be an option; after all, we have been taking our medicine and using the mosquito net. :) Nevertheless, it was off to the hospital...
Since we are visitors (and white, I presume), we were taken immediately to a doctor in a private room where he asked Nate some questions and examined him. He said that Nate was going to need to get blood drawn because he was concerned about two things. He thought that either Nate had Malaria or a blood infection. Well, as soon as I heard the blood infection part, I figured that I better get examined as well :). We ended up both going to the laboratory to get blood drawn (lots of blood!)...I won't go into too much detail concerning that whole experience but will say that it isn't quite as sterile as in the U.S.
Nate was concerned about having a needle in his arm, and I was concerned about the dirty gloves that my lobotomist was wearing! :) Well, our blood tests came back negative for the infectious disease. Praise God!
However, the doctor was still convinced that we have Malaria, so he prescribed SP or Sulfadoxine B.P. (500mg) and Pyrimethamine B.P.
(25mg). This is a single dose treatment that is supposed to do its magic within 72 hours. If our symptoms do not go away, though, we are suppose to call Dr. William (he gave us his cellphone number...so different than in the U.S.) to tell him that we need to switch to a different medicine. The drugs were free as they are to everyone in Malawi (if you can find them). We mentioned to Dr. William that we were surprised that our whole examination was free as we pay a lot of money back home for such things. He said, as if it were common thought, "Well if it cost money, only the rich would be alive, right?" As I walked out of his office, I understood his point as I read the faces that looked up at me - saying that they were just happy to have enough money for the nsima they ate last night.
So that leaves us here, back in bed, waiting for the miraculous healing of SP...
I would like to share a few details from my trip yesterday to Tsngano.
While Nate was bored at the hotel and struggling with his headache and stomach cramps, I was once again traveling on the worst road known to humankind (okay..maybe a slight exaggeration!). Seriously, though, the trip itself was enough to make me want to curl-up in a ball and fall asleep. The red truck, though better in handling the rough terrain as far as tires are concerned, has no suspension, so the whole ride I felt like my insides and outsides were being flip-flopped. At one point, I really thought my brain may have dropped into my stomach. We reached our destination safely, which to me is what really mattered after our last experience with the four flat tires, and we began our journey in handing out the buckets. I wrote in our journal last night that this was a humbling, maddening, and saddening experience all at once, and I think that there really is no better way to describe it.
The whole experience was humbling because as we passed out the buckets I quickly realized that these few items were no where near enough. These people needed so much more than the two bags of rice, bag of milk, salt, etc. that we gave them, yet they were all so grateful. I cannot count the number of blessings that were sent into the sky for me. The ladies would just shake their hands towards heaven and ask God to bless me over and over again. I did not know how to respond as I was only the messenger of someone else's gift, and it left me feeling only one thing
- humbled. I wish that I could have communicated better with the recipients as I would have said to them, "You have already been a blessing to me. Because of you, my life is forever changed."
The day was also maddening, though. It was like a slap in the face with the injustices that exist in this world. You may remember the woman I spoke of in one of my previous emails who has three young children and is quite destitute. Well, on Monday, she found out that she iss indeed HIV positive. You could see the sorrow in her face as she wiped sweat from her forehead. Her sorrow was certainly not only for herself but also for her three children. The injustice in all of this was that she is poor and sick because some man decided he needed a bed to sleep in while he was in Katzekera. She probably thought her marriage to the man was the happiest day of her life. Ironically, it was the beginning of the end of her life. The small bucket of items for her was like a truckload. She will undoubtedly conserve the items, so they will last months. Her children will receive a few invaluable months of decent nutrition because of that bucket. Most certainly, they will still all be hungry, but they will at least not be starving. I think, though, that Frecious offered to her the most comfort as he told her - from experience - that she could live a long life with the disease as long as she received the ARV treatments. For her, those three letters spelled death, but with the encouragement and example of Frecious and the healing power of the ARV drugs, death could be many, many years away for her. To me, that is one injustice being made right.
I think that I had to question God as well when I handed one of the buckets to the little boy we had met last week. His eyes spoke of a pain that I could never know, and the crusted blood under nose spoke of an illness that would his life short. Why should one boy have to know death so well? I know that God's comfort comes through the people that have been placed in his life to care for him, like his grandmother and Frecious. I wish that I could have offered him something more. Maybe I will just pray that God will do with that bucket what He did with the five loaves of bread and fish many years ago.
The day was also very heartbreakingly sad for me. On top of the pictures I have painted above, I was faced with the abrupt reality of life. When we arrived at a house, I remembered that it was the one where the man had been resting under a blanket outside. We never actually saw the man's face but instead spoke with his wife. She was taking care of him as well as an orphan she had welcomed into her home.
When we walked toward the house this time, though, I was told by Picard that the man had passed away. Just like that, my heart fell to the ground. We gave the bucket to the wife, and she praised God for me and the bucket. Yet, all I could think about is how this woman knows a strength that I could never muster. She had cared for her husband, diligently tending to his every ailments, and she, at the same time, found the strength to open her heart and home to a child that had nothing. I praised God for her, as she was the real messenger of God's grace and comfort that day.
We walked to another house that we had visited last week and were met by the son. He escorted us into a dark, round hut that is usually used for cooking. However, instead of the life sustaining piles of shucked corn, the figure that took center stage was the man we had visited last
week. He lay on the floor, paralyzed from the waist down by
Tuberculosis. Every breath he took you could tell came with incredible effort, and yet with all of his strength he mustered up enough breath to thank us for the bucket. The air felt so thick to me at that moment.
He was the last patient we were to visit that day, having handed out 16 buckets in total. Little did I know, he would be the last one we would visit at all since we woke-up this morning not able to make the the hard journey back to Tsngano. In a selfish way, I am happy that we did not go back. I do not know if my heart is big enough to handle any more sorrow. Yet, I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to walk into each of those 16 patients' lives. I have been blessed by them and hopefully changed for the better.
So...at the end of this email, I am left worrying about Nate who continues to feel the effects of a terrible headache, but I am also left thankful that we have been able to easily obtain drugs. We will soon be feeling back to normal, but the people I met yesterday do not have a normal. There is no drug that can wipe away their pain. And so once again, I am left humbled by the blessings we enjoy.
Do I believe that there is a God who allows such pain and suffering?
No, instead, I believe with all of my heart in a God who is using His
people to fight with all of their might the pain and suffering. I
believe in a God who will not stop fighting for His people until the end, and the good news is that the end will be the greatest victory of all.
Blessings,
Nate and Bekah
P.S. Tomorrow we will pack, and Friday we will head to the lake. I am thinking that God helped us out by having us plan a nice resting period into our last few days. We can hardly believe our time is coming to an end, yet we are feeling like the time is right for us to go home...
Read first
Hello everyone!
(This was written on Tuesday and sent on Wednesday when we finally made it into the office)
Due to some undesirable circumstances, I am writing you this afternoon from the hotel room we call home. Yesterday I started feeling a little groggy, and today I don't feel well at all! So Bekah left with Picard and Emanuel for Katzecara(sp?) to pass out the HIV/AIDS buckets we put together on Saturday. So you get to hear from me today.
Yesterday(monday) was quite uneventful. We spent most of our day in the office. It began with a SOM Staff meeting, where we were given the opportunity to meet Chet Burns, the missionary from Washington state living here in Ntcheu. He comes through the organization "Action International" we learned. He didn't stay long but we will be having lunch with him on Thursday to learn more about his family and the work they do here.
We forgot to mention in our previous email about our worship time on Sunday. We were SO encouraged by the opportunity to worship here with the CCAP (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian) in Ntcheu. They have 2 services one at 8am in English and one at 10am in Chichewa. We elected for the 8am service:) It was nice to hear a service in English as it was much easier to follow and were quite familiar with most of the service. As we arrived at about 7:55 we were welcomed by the man unlocking the doors to the church. We proceeded into the dark (no lights) sanctuary that was filled with rows of cement benches. We took a seat pretty much right in the middle. Then a man stood up and lead a few hymns, he kept encouraging the students to sing louder. Then he asked all the students in the back to move forward. We were now in the complete back of the crowd, still in the middle row. During the second hymn we were singing, everyone stood up and stopped singing! The elders and pastors entered in the front of the sanctuary, and the place started filling up. We later realized that this man was just giving us some practice for the songs we were going to sing, and following the grand entry of the elders the service began. It was at about this time that the sanctuary was beginning to fill up when I noticed I was not only the only white man in the sanctuary but I was the only man on the right side of the isle! The sanctuary is divided in two and the men sit on one side and the women sit on another. After singing some hymns/prayer the visitors of the church were invited to the front. We hadn't filled any "paper" out (as we didn't know we were supposed to!) but were still called to the front, for some reason they could tell we were visiting! :) We proceeded to walk up to the front to a sea of snickering where we were given the opportunity to introduce ourselves/where we were from/what we do. It was overall a great experiance and were so blessed by the passion of the MANY students and the church as a whole.
God willing tomorrow we will proceed back to Katzekara to pass out the other half of the buckets. Pray that my health improves and i am able to take this journey. Then Thursday we will have a day to pack and say goodbye to our friends in Ntcheu before we leave for Salima. Like we have said before it is so crazy that our time here is nearing the end.
It feels like only a few days ago we left the Winterfest team (Youth from IL/WI/IA) and were dropped of in Ntcheu. Once again we ask you to pray for safe travels back and forth to Katzekara, as some of you may remember is where we had the 4 flat tire day. Also pray that as we hand out these buckets the Lord would encourage these patients that so desperately need hope in the midst of suffering.
Blessings friends!
Nate and Bekah
(This was written on Tuesday and sent on Wednesday when we finally made it into the office)
Due to some undesirable circumstances, I am writing you this afternoon from the hotel room we call home. Yesterday I started feeling a little groggy, and today I don't feel well at all! So Bekah left with Picard and Emanuel for Katzecara(sp?) to pass out the HIV/AIDS buckets we put together on Saturday. So you get to hear from me today.
Yesterday(monday) was quite uneventful. We spent most of our day in the office. It began with a SOM Staff meeting, where we were given the opportunity to meet Chet Burns, the missionary from Washington state living here in Ntcheu. He comes through the organization "Action International" we learned. He didn't stay long but we will be having lunch with him on Thursday to learn more about his family and the work they do here.
We forgot to mention in our previous email about our worship time on Sunday. We were SO encouraged by the opportunity to worship here with the CCAP (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian) in Ntcheu. They have 2 services one at 8am in English and one at 10am in Chichewa. We elected for the 8am service:) It was nice to hear a service in English as it was much easier to follow and were quite familiar with most of the service. As we arrived at about 7:55 we were welcomed by the man unlocking the doors to the church. We proceeded into the dark (no lights) sanctuary that was filled with rows of cement benches. We took a seat pretty much right in the middle. Then a man stood up and lead a few hymns, he kept encouraging the students to sing louder. Then he asked all the students in the back to move forward. We were now in the complete back of the crowd, still in the middle row. During the second hymn we were singing, everyone stood up and stopped singing! The elders and pastors entered in the front of the sanctuary, and the place started filling up. We later realized that this man was just giving us some practice for the songs we were going to sing, and following the grand entry of the elders the service began. It was at about this time that the sanctuary was beginning to fill up when I noticed I was not only the only white man in the sanctuary but I was the only man on the right side of the isle! The sanctuary is divided in two and the men sit on one side and the women sit on another. After singing some hymns/prayer the visitors of the church were invited to the front. We hadn't filled any "paper" out (as we didn't know we were supposed to!) but were still called to the front, for some reason they could tell we were visiting! :) We proceeded to walk up to the front to a sea of snickering where we were given the opportunity to introduce ourselves/where we were from/what we do. It was overall a great experiance and were so blessed by the passion of the MANY students and the church as a whole.
God willing tomorrow we will proceed back to Katzekara to pass out the other half of the buckets. Pray that my health improves and i am able to take this journey. Then Thursday we will have a day to pack and say goodbye to our friends in Ntcheu before we leave for Salima. Like we have said before it is so crazy that our time here is nearing the end.
It feels like only a few days ago we left the Winterfest team (Youth from IL/WI/IA) and were dropped of in Ntcheu. Once again we ask you to pray for safe travels back and forth to Katzekara, as some of you may remember is where we had the 4 flat tire day. Also pray that as we hand out these buckets the Lord would encourage these patients that so desperately need hope in the midst of suffering.
Blessings friends!
Nate and Bekah
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