Crisis Nursery Mobile Medical Clinic

 As promised, here are more mobile medical clinic pictures.  The picture above and below is of Carson (American R.N. serving with ABC) holding baby Christina.  One of the main purposes of this mobile medical clinic was to serve the people of the village and help with any illnesses that they had.  Another purpose of coming to this particular village on this particular day was to pick up baby Christina.  She was born on July 5th (AJ's birthday as well) and her mother died soon after.  Christina is malnourished and her grandmother was able to get in touch with Mwawi (the director of the Crisis Nursery) to come and get the baby.  Christina's future is uncertain for now.  Once she is healthy she may either return to the village where Mwawi worries that she won't have a healthy life, or the family may choose to give her up for fostering and adoption.  There are many families who would love to foster baby Christina and give her a loving and safe home.  For now she is being loved and cared for at the Crisis Nursery where AJ and I will be able to see her as we volunteer there.

Above is Mwawi, the director of the Crisis Nursery, talking to Christina's grandmother and another family member.  The work that she and the volunteers of the Crisis Nursery do is amazing and many many children are saved because of her faithful service.

When we arrived at the village the bus that brought us had to leave to take a short-term team to the airport.  Now, we were 45 minutes outside of Lilongwe and the airport is at least 45 minutes on the OTHER side of Lilongwe.  Not to mention there is a fuel shortage and the bus had to find more fuel at some point on the journey.  So we were done with the clinic around 11:30am and the bus didn't come back to get us until after 2pm.  The following pictures are of our "waiting time".  Above, AJ is eating some sugar cane.  My Papaw would have been so proud!

More "Duck, Duck, Chicken"!

More kids loving having their picture made!

And here is another picture of AJ with the children.  She was not feeling well (she had a stomach bug) but the children came to just sit by her.  They just wanted to be close.  It was so precious.  What a blessed experience!

Jill

Village Mobile Medical Clinic through the crisis nursery

 AJ and I were able to go on our first mobile medical clinic this past week.  We went to a village south of Lilongwe about an hour away.  It was so beautiful.  The village was closer to the mountains and there were ridges up above where you could see even more villages.  When we arrived we set up the make-shift medical clinic in the pavilion.  I took blood pressures and there were other people doing weight, and temp.  AJ assisted in writing the vitals in the health passports that everyone had.

 The people at the village had probably been waiting since 5am we were told.  Once they had their vitals taken they got in line to see the nurse practitioner.  They were then prescribed medicines and treatment and they went to the pharmacy area where they were given the drugs.  When I finished with the bp's I went to help in the pharmacy.  Wow, so much to learn!  But I did learn how to say 1, 2, and 3 in Chichewa as well as "morning, noon, and night".  But don't ask me now....I'll have to be taught it a couple of times before it sticks.

 There are apparently no geese in Malawi.  Therefore, instead of the kids playing "Duck, Duck, Goose" they play "Duck, Duck, Chicken".  Here AJ is playing with the village children.

 Carson has been here for a year and loves doing the mobile medical clinics.  She's an ER nurse from the States (Texas).  She's teaching me everything she knows! haha!

 The children LOVED having their picture made.  It was hard finding good pics though because anytime I brought out a camera they acted wild jumping up and down and putting their hands up for me to take a pic.  I tried to show them to just smile.  I need to learn more words in Chichewa.  But after every pic they had to see themselves on the camera.  They'd just giggle and giggle!

 This is a part of the village up on the ridge.  You can see the walking paths going up on the ridge.

 Here are some of the beautiful people from the village.  It's polite to ask before each picture is taken.  Some people don't want it taken, but everyone I asked was happy to have a picture made.  Afterward they always wanted to see themselves in the camera so I would show them the picture.  Thank you, Lord, for digital cameras!

 This beautiful woman above brought her son and asked me to take his picture.  They were both so happy to see them afterwards.  I took a few!

 This woman was my favorite.  I was in the middle of the children taking a picture and I turned around and she grabbed my hand. She held my hand and looked me in the face a gave me the biggest smile.  This was the only way she knew how to communicate with me.  I asked if I could take her picture and she nodded.  The above picture is the first picture (a lot of times the women here will not smile for pictures even if they've been smiling before).

And this was the picture that I took after showing her the first picture.  She had the biggest smile on her face and I was able to capture a little of it.  What an amazing experience!!!!

I have more pictures to share but I'll write another post soon.  Please pray for these people and the work that everyone here is doing.  There is such a need and there are so few "workers".  It was an amazing experience that I can't wait to enjoy again.

Jill

Modes of Transportation in Malawi

Everyday issues in Malawi

 This is what you call a "fuel line" in Malawi.  Petrol and Diesel are a scarce commodity.  There is never any fuel in the pumps without a fuel line nearby.  If you see a line and people aren't in their cars that means they are just waiting for the fuel truck to arrive (usually it's merely a rumor that it's coming and sometime you sit for hours to find out no fuel truck is coming).  If you see a fuel line that's moving then you determine if it's a short line worth waiting in.  You can tell by the types of vehicles in line whether the fuel at the pumps is diesel or petrol.  By "short line" I mean 30-60 minutes.  Yes, imagine the lines in MS after Katrina and that's only a glimpse of what it's like here everyday.

We are not in this fuel line.  Yet we have to drive around them all the time.  Many times the lines block the road and you have to drive on the other side.  But hey, T.I.A. (this is Africa)!

People carry everything on their heads here.  It's amazing.  I especially love the huge baskets full of food  on the heads of tiny women.

This is Chipiku.  This is one of our main grocery stores.  We actually ran by here just today to pick up some Coke.  See, here you don't buy Coke in 2 liter bottles or cans.  You buy them by the crate in bottles.  You pay an k800 deposit to take a crate.  You then pay for the coke inside the bottles that you purchase.  When your crate is empty you bring the crate and empty bottles back, get a deposit slip/receipt for the crate, and go get another crate of Coke.  After you pay the initial k800 (approx. $5) you don't have to pay it again.  Thereafter you only have to pay for the drink itself. The choices of drinks are limited to Coke, Coke light (think Coke zero...kinda), and Fanta.  Nothing else!

CJ and SM waiting with Daddy in the car while Mommy and AJ shop at Chipiku.

This is how fuel is transported in Malawi.

Another way fuel is transported in Malawi.

On the way to church this past Sunday morning we saw a short fuel line at the gas station right by the church.  We turned around and jumped in line.  We were in line about 25 minutes.  Not bad at all.  And we still made it for the sermon (but we missed the praise and worship part....pooh!).  But hey, when there's fuel you get it!  By the time church was out the fuel was gone!

If you look closely there are tiny cars on the road way back in the back of the picture (not the white truck...).  Those are cars waiting in the fuel line that we are receiving fuel from.  They are in a much longer line than we were in and were probably waiting over an hour...and honestly, there was only one pump with fuel so the fuel probably ran out before they received any.

Jeremy paying the man for the fuel.  They pump the fuel for you here.  Sometimes they ration the fuel and only allow you to get a certain amount.  We needed less than half a tank so Jeremy got out to make sure we were filled all the way to the brim! That should last us a little while, hopefully.  We conserve fuel in many ways.  We only drive to and from campus.  We go to the store at one time and get enough for a week.  We don't sit in the car with the car running, it gets turned off.  If we have to run one errand we run a lot so we don't have to get back out.  BTW, the gas cost us k7800 to fill up which is about $6/gallon.  Our entire tank would cost about $84 and we just have a car.    T.I.A!

Jill

Worshiping the Lord in Africa!

One of the things that we looked forward to the most about coming to Africa was being a part of a church where we could experience African worship.  The total surrender, no holds barred, leave it all at the alter style of worship was such a draw to us.  We wanted to be a part of that and we have been blessed to see a small sampling of what we have to look forward to in the future.  For the past 4 Sundays we have visited Flood church here in Lilongwe.  Flood is a church that meets on the grounds of another church site.  It's a mission church of Flood Church in San Diego, CA.  It's a nice mixture of Malawian and ex-pats and that is a huge draw for us. We want to be among Malawians as much as possible.  To meet and create relationships with Malawian Christians is extra nice!  The service is in English and the pastor, Pastor Sean, is an ABC graduate from Malawi.  There is a great praise and worship band who plays everything from Hillsong, Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin and combines that with traditional Chichewa choruses sung in Chichewa.  It's great and our family loves worshiping in such a free and worshipful way!

Here we are waiting for church to begin.  Since the site is shared with another church we have to wait for them to be done, allow our praise band time to set up and practice, and then we will begin our service.  They are hoping to build their own church one day.

Random chickens like to hang around by the church and listen to the praises to the Lord!!!

Flood Church and the congregation.

This is a typical broom that is used to sweep anything outside.  Driving around you will see many many people sweeping the dirt.  Not sure why, but the dirt is always clean!?

Sarah and the chickens....

This is the road leading to the Flood church.  The main road is in view and the church is to the left out of the picture.

Pastor Sean praying over the children as they leave for "children's church".  You can see CJ and SM in the center with their friend Sarah Rose in pig-tails.

-Please pray as we begin to settle in, find a place to serve the Lord and become a part of a church home.  We still have a couple of other churches that we will check out.

-Please pray as Jeremy has begun working full time at the clinic and is currently digging deep to get a year-end report out by tomorrow.  This all after being at work for only a week.

-Please pray for the children as they make new friends, adjust to new surroundings and new cultures, and as they prepare for school to begin.  This will be their first time in a traditional school setting since they've been homeschooled up until now.

-Please pray for me as I get my classroom set up, as I learn new curriculum and how to best teach it, and for the students who will be in my classroom.

More photos and prayer requests to come: check back soon!

Jill