Well, thanks for all your prayers...We get rain almost every day now and it is making the landscape around us GORGEOUS! Just the other day, as the sun was setting, we saw a beautiful rainbow that framed the many mountains we live under. (I'm sorry to say that I did not have my camera, but it still would not have done justice...) I am also finding myself running in the mud and rain a lot because it gives me a chance to soak up the beauty around me while watching the maize fields grow taller and greener each day. We also have been going on hikes up the local mountains to compare the view from the dry season.
Speaking of hikes, we decided to hike up the tallest mountain in the north of Malawi on Christmas Day, which is also the second highest mountain in Malawi. We rode our mountain bikes about 1 hour to the base of the mountain where a man living at the base insisted he escort us up to the top. Now I consider myself in pretty good shape, (remember, I have mastered a 25L bucket of water on my head...)but with this local Malawian mountaineer leading and Ryan the ex-trail maker right behind him, I found myself huffing and puffing as I tried to keep up. We made it up the mountain in less than 40 minutes!!! It was the perfect place to go and remember that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus and not material things. By seeing what God created from the top of that mountain I was humbled to say that the beauty around is a gift in itself, but we must take the time to absorb it. The other big Christmas treat was we ate some local village chicken prepared by our neighbor. Christmas is the one day a year that most villagers will kill a chicken or goat to eat as a feast. It was some of the best chicken we have had in Malawi so far!
Now, with the rainy season comes tall grass and with tall grass comes SNAKES! On Christmas Eve as Ryan was "emptying his bladder" in our 6x6 chimbuzi (house of toilet) he decided to look up and saw startled by the head of a snake staring back at him. He ran out to get me and we decided by the size of it we needed help from our neighbors. Of course, everyone was no where to be found given it was Saturday (their Sabbath) but eventually a couple people came with long sticks. You know it's a big snack when Malawians say so too! Two women stood on either side of the wall it was curled up on, jabbing their sticks and making it fall to the floor where Ryan and a young boy hit the life out of it. But just to be sure Ryan got his axe and cut it's head off. I decided to be there for first aid if anything were to go wrong and also to take a couple pictures. (See Facebook)Now we never go in the chimbuzi without looking up, just in case...
New Year's we decided to go to Lake Malawi at a place called Nkhata Bay which is a Peace Corps tradition. Peace Corps volunteers often come from Zambia to share in the celebration. It was my first time to swim in the lake and really see how big and beautiful it really is. We had a great time staying at the local lodges and seeing friends. Ryan and I danced into the New Year with hundreds of others from all over the world. It was quite the experience!
On our way back to our village we picked up 3 American friends who work in Lilongwe at African Bible College/Clinic whom we often stay with when we are in the capital. It was our pleasure to finally host them at our village home. They came ready for adventure and adventure is what was given to them. I took the girls running in the village (3 white women running in a village through mud!), we all shared the daily chores including cooking, sweeping and starting the fire in the rain (Ryan loved to give this job to our friend Mike), and even had them participate in a Jam Making training with our Community Based Organization. We really enjoyed the visitors who helped us remember how much our lifestyle has changed in the past 10 months.
The rest of January will be filled with meetings in Lilongwe for both of us and planning future camps, trainings, and getting our youth clubs back in session. We have been brainstorming big plans for our catchment area and need A LOT of prayer as to how best to use our skills with the year and 2 months we have left. We are also starting to sponsor our neighbor's 16 year old boy with his school fees. We are always hesitant to do such things because there are so many that need help with school fees and we don't want to cause jealousy. But this family has been in our lives from the day we moved into our new house from welcoming us and now the mother is the women we hire to bring our daily drinking water. Please pray that we will continue to be open to the opportunities that God places in front of us and how we can help our community whether it be employment, education or just brotherly/sisterly love.
Love to everyone!
M + R
(Check Facebook for pictures)
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