Shortages

Well, our life is constantly changing and adapting to the new culture and the new country in which we live.  The weather is getting extremely hot!  Last week was the hottest yet and this week looks to be more of the same.  The temperatures are reaching into the mid 90's each day.  Now, I know that we have those same temps in MS (and even hotter) but remember, there is NO AIR CONDITIONING here!  Yes, MS is hot.  But we stay inside in the AC during the hottest parts of the day.  And even when we have to get outside we are only running to our car where we quickly turn the air up as far as it will go.  Here, we don't have AC to escape to.  We went out this weekend to buy more fans for our home.  The fans were nearly $100 a piece but we gladly laid down the Kwatcha in order to gain a little more air for our children to sleep peacefully during the night.  (I must admit here that our master bedroom has a little AC unit and we do turn it on at night when we go to bed.  I'm in my 3rd trimester and don't feel the least bit guilty about trying to receive a good night's sleep.  Well, maybe just a little guilty....)  People say that when the rains come it helps cool things down.  I'll let you know.  Apparently the rains will start in mid to late November.

Fuel is very scarce here right now.  I'm not sure there is any logical explanation for the scarcity except maybe that the Kwatcha is so devalued that no one is trading forex (foreign exchange....i.e. American dollars) to get Kwatcha.  Therefore there are no dollars with which to buy fuel.  I'm no economist and I don't pretend to be one.  I just know that we have no petrol and no diesel in this country.  People are waiting for days on end in the ques (lines) and still leaving empty handed.  We are currently trying to purchase a second vehicle so that we will have one diesel and one petrol.  That way we can hopefully better ensure that we can get to our areas of ministry when we are needed.  The Lord has been so very faithful to us though and we have always found fuel when we needed it (and haven't had to wait extreme hours).  God is good!

Water and electricity are also scarce in our country right now.  Yesterday our power was out from 7am to 7pm.  From what I've been told, Escom (our power supplier) is working on some broken generators and designing new ones.  While they are working on the broken and new ones there is not enough electricity being generated to supply all of their customers.  So we are experiencing load sharing.  Our power goes off at certain times (not scheduled times....it appears to be random) so that others can have power.  The sad thing is, the "load sharing" doesn't appear to be equal.  For instance, our area doesn't really lose power as much as the ABC campus and the area surrounding it.  ABC has had an intense two weeks of NO power and NO water.  ABC has generators BUT those generators take one very important thing to run them....diesel.  And as you read above, there is none.  So although we do lose power here quite a bit I really can't complain because it's not as bad as most of our friends (maybe it helps us that the President of Malawi has a house close by....hmmmmm.....).

Speaking of power being out:  I had a fantabulous weekend!  I was called in by Becky to assist (i.e. watch) a vag delivery on Saturday.  Wow, things are so different here!  All of the births are natural and the machines, security measures with the baby, transition time for baby, postpartum care, etc are all WAY different.  I'm learning a lot and have much more to learn, yet I'm fascinated and can't wait to help in another delivery.  Now, back to the power problem.  Sunday morning they called me from the clinic and asked if I wanted to watch a C-section.  I jumped all over that one as well.  A vag birth and a section all within 12 hours...I was in heaven.  One small problem: no power.  Jeremy brought me to campus because we have only one vehicle (another reason we are buying a second vehicle) and he needed to help set up sound for one of the churches.  That plan soon got erased as he scurried to figure out why the generator hadn't come on for this emergency c-section.  Jeremy is the "problem solver" of the campus (one of two men that seem to know much about a LOT) and he quickly determined that there was no oil in the generator.  It was bone dry.  So they got the oil only to have a bunch of fuses go out when they went to crank it up.  So Jeremy is up stealing fuses out of campus staff vehicles while we are going ahead with an emergency c-section with no power.  That's right, WE DID A C-SECTION WITH NO POWER!  Ok, I didn't do it.  The amazing Dr. Sonja did it.  But the Lord's light shone right through the window at the appropriate time for her to be able to work.  Amazing and scary all at the same time.  God is good all the time!

One last thing that is scarce in our country now:  beef.  Apparently there has been an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease and we have no beef.  Yep, we are really living in Africa!

Sorry this was so lengthy but I hope you feel a little more informed and know how you can pray for our family and for our country.

Much love,
Jill