Chiseka Village Water!

Following the repair of a central water well in our home village of Chiseka the entire village was in joyous celebration!  This Agogo (grandmother) was especially excited!  She danced, sang, and started a chorus of many ladies who sang their thanks as well!

This makes everything all worth it!  Praise God for His provisions!

The children of Chiseka all excited about the well....and about getting their picture taken!

Agogo starting her work!

After the repair of the well the two leaders of the Clean Water teams (Hillary and Pastor Malua) spoke with the well committee teaching them about taking care of and maintaining the water well.  

The Mzuzu Clean Water team!

Teaching about well maintenance.

The joy on her face was contagious!  All of the Clean Water workers were grinning from ear to ear!

These ladies were singing a chorus of thanksgiving!

Men at work...

Praise God for His work!  The gift of water, the promise of a future!  

Clean Water and Chiseka Village

Clean Water for Malawi had a training exercise this week with the Mzuzu and Blantyre teams.  They met here in Lilongwe.  They began drilling a well but had to stop due to broken rods and loosing their drill bit down the hole.  We're hoping for replacement parts to come in soon so that their drilling can continue.  

Meanwhile there was much to teach and learn.  

The team came here to our village (Chiseka) to repair a broken well behind the school.  

Even though for the teams this was a training exercise it was a vital and very important improvement to the village of Chiseka.  The Clean Water teams understood this and were very excited to help this village.  What an amazing group of men!

The first water from the repaired well!

This lady was so very excited!  Actually the entire community was on hand to watch the repair!

As the water began flowing there was much singing and rejoicing in the village!  Those pictures are coming in the next blog post!  

Praise God for His provisions, His work, His workers, and His harvest!

Birthdays! Rainbow Style!

At Rainbow we love celebrating birthdays!  We also love eating special foods!  So we try to make sure every child feels special on his or her chosen birthday month.  (Most of the kids don't know when their birthday is so we had them choose any month they wanted.)  Since our family was on furlough for five months we ended up celebrating 6 months worth of birthdays at one time!  What fun!  Here are pictures from Dec-May birthdays at Rainbow!  23 kids/staff members were honored with their very own cupcake made for them by the older girls and AJ.  We are teaching the older girls to cook so they come to our house to prepare the birthday cupcakes.  The rest of the children/staff not celebrating birthdays get to share a piece of the sheet cake that we make them.  We didn't have powdered sugar to make icing for these cakes but the kids loved them just the same!  We usually have  a birthday celebration every month.  I'll post more pictures after this month's party!

Into Our Life

Here are a few pictures taken this past weekend.  Strawberry season is in full bloom here in Malawi.  And the Kyser family could not be happier!  The strawberries in Malawi are the softest, sweetest, most delicious thing you've ever tasted.  Actually all of the fruit that we eat here is a million times more delicious than what we eat in the States.  Just sayin'!  

Lucas and Tiya have a strawberry garden this year and we've been purchasing their strawberries.  What a joy to have an unlimited supply of these heavenly fruits!  Tiya and AJ decided to learn how to make a strawberry pie from scratch. There is no pie filling here...and although I've never made a strawberry pie before I'm wondering why in the world one would want to use a pre-made, canned, processed pie filling when it's so easy and delicious to make strawberry pie from scratch! 

Here are a few pictures of our cooking! 

Jeremy and SM decided that (as usual) licking the bowl was the best part!

I think the pie was a hit!

Meanwhile, on the front porch J-man was protecting his family from the evil Dr. Porkchop (if you have to ask then you haven't had to watch J-man's favorite movie, Toy Story, a million times!!!!)

Here is baby Mercy (Martin's baby girl).  Isn't she beautiful!  She's 10 months old!

Yes, he is posing for the camera!

He is such a mess!

Pushing Mercy in the swing!  J-man loves loves loves his swing.  He will swing on our front porch for hours!  The Rainbow kids love to come push him!  But here he is getting to push Mercy!  What a big boy!

AJ and Mercy

When it was time for Mercy to go home SM wanted to take her on her back.

Mercy just wondering what this mzungu child is doing!

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I love SM's face here!  She loves Ida!  The two of them are inseparable!

And about half way home SM was thinking Mercy was a little too heavy!

AJ gladly took over the baby responsibilities!

Until next time!  Mulungu akudalitseni!