Our afternoon-

Here is a view of what happens in a typical afternoon in our new home.  Living at an orphanage there is always someone for the kids to play with.  And these are the sweetest kids too!  Such a blessing!

Above is our living room with boxes still waiting to be unpacked.  You can see the island in the bottom right that is part of our kitchen.  It's all one big room.  I love that I can be cooking and still be with the kids at the same time.  

AJ has been learning the sport of Netball which is very popular here.  Above she is practicing her ball skills with the girls.

Everyone helps out in the yard work at Rainbow.  Here are three of the beautiful children I teach.  Hamilton, Beatrice, and Toella

Notice the bandage on Hamilton's ankle.  I've run out of gauze so I'm doing the best I can with what we have available (which isn't much).  But he got a major burn on his ankle from some hot water being accidentally spilt as one of the girls was carrying it on their head.  I was not at all happy with the "work" done on his ankle by a local medical clinic so I took to bandaging and treating it myself.  Thank God for my nursing degree.  Now I see why He wanted me to have it!

Here is a view of our duplex.  We are on the right side and Karen is on the left (or she will be soon). 

Our duplex with Bunda Mtn in the background.  Visiting mission groups love to hike up Bunda!  My kids have been up it at least 4 times!

Standing in our front yard looking towards the rest of Rainbow!  The building barely visible on the left is the mission house where visiting mission teams can stay.  There is plenty of room and much need so please pray about serving the Lord here in Malawi!  The building on the right is the kitchen.  The building in the middle is where the kids live along with their house parents.  

Again, we are so very blessed and excited about what the Lord is doing all around us!

My front porch view

To say we are blessed is an understatement!  This is our front porch view of the beautiful African sunset behind Rainbow Community Church.  God is good!

Update- finally!

Things have been very crazy over the past two weeks.  We're finally finished moving and though we still have some boxes to unpacked we feel that we are finally getting settled.  We love our new home and have been welcomed with open arms.  Jeremy has been very busy with his commute into the city to work at ABC as well as trying to juggle the many ministries that he has been called to help out with.  Today he and CJ are at Gusu/Jidi villages to check the progress of a weather main that he ordered and to look at the amazing aquaponics instillation that E3 is doing!  Rainbow is hopefully going to get one next year!

Jill has started teaching at the Rainbow school.  She teaches the preschoolers and SM is in her class.  AJ is helping out!  It's been great!  She is able to teach for 2 hours each morning and still have time to homeschool afterwards.  It's very busy but amazing at the same time!  There are very few materials for the school so we are thankful that we brought everything that we did from home.  The items are being put to good use!  A list for the container is coming soon so if you have any school supplies or manipulatives then put them aside for us!  An orphanage in Africa is in dire need of teaching supplies (and teachers for that matter)!

The Kyser kids are in complete heaven!  They love being here and have many wonderful friends!  They play outside most of the day and occasionally come in with their friends for games and books in the living room.  We have been blessed with a large kitchen/living area that is very wonderful for the kids to have fun in.  It's amazing how clean they are too!  They always pick up after playing and say, "thank you" as they are leaving!  Such sweet respectful kids!

I'll post more pics as soon as I can.  Internet isn't hooked up at our house yet so I'm actually using the Rainbow internet to post this.  Hopefully we'll get ours working soon.  Pongono pongono (little by little).

Thank you for the prayers and support!  We are doing great and couldn't be happier to be serving the Lord in this way.

Much love!
The Kysers!

January Birthdays at Rainbow!

A new tradition has just been started at Rainbow!  We want to make sure everyone has a special birthday celebration during the month of their birthday.  Sadly many of the kids here at Rainbow don't even know when their birthdays are.  So we are going to let them choose a month to celebrate!  January's birthday celebration happened this past Saturday.  Below are pictures of the older girls (taught by AJ) baking cupcakes and brownies for the party.  This particular month we had a couple of boxed mixes left over from the States.  But the rest of the parties will have cupcakes made from scratch!  

The girls also got to ice the cupcakes and add sprinkles and confetti to the top.  They really loved that part!  We celebrated on Karen's birthday so we kept the cupcakes a surprise from her!

Once they were done we took the cupcakes over to the kitchen to be passed out with their supper!

How do you spell trouble?  Joshua, Praise, and Promise!

Painting on the wall of the kitchen where the kids eat!  Fitting!

Waiting for the party to begin!

Collins and J have hit it off!

SM becoming a swing!

The January birthday kids!  Julita, Praise (who didn't have a bday this month but wanted to stand there anyway), Promise, Clever, Karen, and baby J (Collins is holding him).  Martin also had a bday but wasn't in the pic!

Happy Birthday Everyone!  February is up next!

Living out of boxes...again!

This time next week hopefully we will be moving (or already be done moving) into our home at Rainbow.  It seems to come natural for us to just load up some boxes and tubs with our items and send them on to our next house.  It's amazing that after moving to our 6th home in less than 2 years we are still carrying around too much stuff.  We cull and we cull and we cull again yet still we have so much more than we need.  It's humbling to live in a society that makes less than a dollar a day...Where a peanut butter cookie or a piece of chicken is the extent of many children's Christmas presents.  And living in the city has somewhat shielded us from the true nature of Malawian living.  It's easy to live like Americans here and accumulate lots of stuff. We hide behind our walls and pretend we're the only ones here. Life goes on just like it always has.  But a quick look outside the gate (or even outside the city) reminds us that there are many here who are struggling to survive.  Now we are moving outside the city.  Our home overlooks maize fields and villages where dirt floors and grass roofs are the norm.  Another cull...another humbling experience.  Thank you, Lord for Your provisions, Your protection, and Your lessons.

Our new home...our family will be on the right side of the duplex.

Christmas Day at Rainbow!

Our Christmas day was spent at Rainbow!  What a wonderful time we all had!  The kids were all dressed in their nicest dress and they even decorated a few of the bushes outside for part of the festivities.  Thankfully I brought a bunch of Christmas candies and decorations with me from the States and I couldn't imagine a better use of the items than sharing them with these beautiful children and the staff at Rainbow.  There was "American" Christmas music as well as "Malawian" music throughout the whole day.  

Here is a pic of our candy spread.  AJ made 4 batches of peanut butter cookies and 4 batches of no bake drop cookies.  Then we had candy canes and gum drops and red hots!

The ladies in the kitchen were busy cooking the chicken, rice, gravy, and bread!

Ida and SM!

Justina and CJ!

Our family brought a ton of spaghetti and fruit salad!  Here they are chopping up the delicious fruit!

Some of the kids (and Martin!)

Boy will be boys!

Beautiful girls!

Jeremy sharing the story of the candy cane with Nasson and Martin!  I had to share it to all of the kids once the prayer and preaching started.

Our beautiful spread!

Gospel time!

And this is what Christmas is all about!

Jeremy and Martin

J and Glory

The girls had been working on a dance/march to share with us on Christmas day!

We loved it!

Serving the food!

And don't forget the desert!

Baby!

Not to be outdone by the girls...the boys had their own performance for us.  I believe they are supposed to be dressed up as old men!

Monica and J

After lunch we got out the water toys that we brought.  A sprinkler type water game, a slip and slide, and a ball that shoots water!  The kids had so much fun!

What an amazing Christmas day and a memory that we will never forget!  Thank you, Lord for blessing us with this amazing place and these beautiful people! We are so thankful to serve!