A quiz

Hey everyone,

I have a picture for you to guess what it is?

What is this?

Chris

Thank you for all the guesses. I will put the explanation up tomorrow 8/2.

Nsaru Secondary School Conference

This weekend I had the privilege of speaking at the Nsaru conference. Nsaru is a rural area about 1 hour from Lilongwe. It was an amazing and eye opening experience. The conference was held at a private, girls secondary school in the area. (I could go on and on about the amazing boarding school but for the sake of time, let me say that this school is the vision of a young woman and her husband to provide a good education to young girls that wouldn’t be able to go to school otherwise.) The school has nice buildings, but it is very primitive. They don’t have electricity yet, they are still waiting (2 years now) for the electric company to install their transformer. They have a generator that runs 2 hours each night to give some light. Since they don’t have power there is no running water. Toilets consist of a small building with a hole in the cement floor, and showers are a bucket of cold water and a cup. Enough about the conditions, lets get on to the conference.

They have never had a student conference in this area before and this first weekend drew over 80 students. The cost of the conference was 300 Kwatcha or almost $2. Now this was too expensive for some students, so they needed scholarships to allow them to come. These students families are generally make a living through subsistence farming and odd jobs. And many can’t produce enough food to eat well all year long. It is a tough way to grow up and live.

I was asked to speak on “Impacting Society with Christian Values.” I chose to speak from James 1 and 2. I also helped with bible studies each day. These students haven’t ever had anyone teach them how to study the scriptures or any literature. Their schools are very poor. They normally have one textbook per class so the students don’t even get to touch it let alone use it to study. Though English is taught, most had very poor English skills but better than my Chichewa  Since I have such a bad accent for them, I had an interpreter. Thokozani is just finishing high school in Lilongwe at the age of 16. She did a great job. (She is the daughter of one of the SCOM staff. You can see her pictured with me.)

The students couldn’t stop saying how much the conference and God changed their lives. It is amazing how much they improved in their Bible study skills. God is touching lives through his word and his people. These young people really need mature Godly people to model the Christian life, showing them what it means to be a Godly man and woman.

One sad note for me was how the students and staff responded to me. I was a full participant through out the conference eating their food, sleeping on the floor, and all the rest. This was amazing to them! They could not believe a “white person” would choose to live like them. It would happen here is what they kept saying. I was so sad that white privilege meant that we couldn’t/wouldn’t sacrifice to be with them and love them. I was glad I could give them a different picture and enjoy the weekend with them. As is usually the case, I was so much more blessed by them than I could ever be a blessing to them. May God continue to help me and others to make such small sacrifices for His Kingdom’s advance.

Quick sand

I am sorry for the delay in writing. It has been hard to want to write with the difficult news. So here goes! Thank you for your support and prayers. - Chris

We had a great weekend in Salima. Students were taught how to do manuscript study and God spoke to them from Abraham's life. God challenged me again to trust.

Let me tell you a story that illustrates our adoption process to this point.
Have you ever driven in soft sand with a full bus and van? I don't recommend it. Friday night on our way there we drove on a dirt road buy the lake. Well a Sand Dune had covered part of the road and our bus got stuck. we were able to push it out then I drove our little van quickly across the spot but not quick enough and it too got stuck. This time the van got really stuck. We all got around and pushed and it seemed the harder we worked the deeper it went. We were finally able to back it out and then I drove as fast as the van would go careening and narrowly missing a tree but we made it through.

Our adoption process:
While we were stuck in the sand, I got a phone call from the crisis nursery in Mzuzu. They informed me that they had found the mother of the little girl that had been abandoned and that she was arrested for attempted murder. This is a big problem because now we must wait for her to be legally separated from the little girl before our process can begin. We were also told that the little boy was still waiting for the social welfare department to finalize his status as a unattached orphan. So we are stuck in the sand and it seems to be getting deeper with no end in sight.

We hope for a miracle but we must wait and trust in God. Our hearts haven't lost hope but we are still downcast in the waiting process.

Join us to pray for a miracle.

In other news: I am preaching Saturday and Sunday at a student conference on the topic of How it makes a difference being a Christian? Pray for my clarity and for God to speak through me to the hearts of the students.

Team Left for South Africa

We had a great weekend. I will post something in the next day or so about that. Our team left today at 2:55 pm. They will spend some time in South Africa for the next week processing what God has done in their lives and through them to others.

Please pray for them. Pray that God would speak to their hearts and help them process their amazing time in Malawi so they can be prepared to share the ways God has blessed them with their friends and family at home.

Enlightening opportunity

We started of early yesterday morning for the refugee camp. After a long, long rough dirt road, we pulled into a former prision. The buildings were in disarray and everything was very dirty. There are 16,000 refugees in small makeshift mud brick homes. Many of them have been in the interim refugee camp for over ten years. All of us, students and our family were welcomed into a dilapidated church building. We had the opportunity to experience worship with people from seven different countries. One of the most amazing thing in our experience here is how grateful they are for us just showing up. This was a great example of that. One of the students gave a short talk on relying on God’s strength to live godly lives and then Chris spoke about meeting God in our pain and suffering. It seemed your prayers were answered as Chris’s talk seemed to encourage, bless and challenge the congregation. Chris was greeted by everyone in the congregation as a man of God. It was an honoring and encouraging experience for all of us. The students were then able to visit some homes in the community while the church leaders showed Chris and I the different aspects of their ministry. It is amazing to think that a refugee church has a church plant in a neighboring village and an orphan ministry. They are providing care for 50 orphans, giving out of what little they have. It reminded us of the church of Macedonia. It says in 2 Corinthians,” In the midst of severe trial , their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity” One example of that is that they gave out of the 13 kilos of maize flour they receive from UN-Sierra they give 2 kilos to the orphans. Students were disheartened by the lack of opportunity for these people, yet encouraged by God’s work in them and in their midst. The plight of refugees in our world is a grave injustice. Would God help his people to do something about it. Thank you so much for your prayer. We head to a leaders retreat in a little bit. Pray for Chris and Craig as they teach this weekend.

More prayer needed

Malaria is a common illness here in Malawi. 2 of the staff from SCOM have it right now. One of them being the General Secretary and the other the CFO.

The other prayer item is that I have been asked to preach at the refugee camp tomorrow outside of Lilongwe. I will be speaking on trusting God from Mark 9.

Prayer requests:
Please pray for Patrick and Charles to recover quickly.
And pray for this unexpected opportunity that we can be a blessing to those suffering as refugees.

thank you for your partnership
Chris

very busy week

Wow! It has been a full past week. We have been running to different things like student meetings, Teachers conference and doing logistical things here in Lilongwe.

One fun thing is that we played basketball yesterday. It was good to get some exercise but both Dudley and I are a bit sore. We aren't as young as we used to be.
A prayer note: one of the staff for the student team, Bonnie Ward, fell and hit her head and has a good sized not on her head. She isn't feeling great today so we are monitoring her and wondering if we need to take to the clinic to get checked out. We will see after lunch.

Next two weeks will be very full:
I am going to be the main speaker for conferences each weekend. I am almost finished on preparation for this weekend but I need to do a lot of work for next week.
We are heading to Mzuzu to check on a baby for adoption. She was dumped and has been in the hospital there and now is being transferred to the crisis nursery. So we will be there at least Tuesday and Wednesday. (We may come back with a under 3 month old on Wednesday. Very unlikely but possible.)

So please pray:
1. Bonnie to be fine and 100% well tomorrow.
2. My preparation to bring the word of God to them in power and love.
2. Social welfare in Mzuzu to work things out for us to start adoption process for this little girl.

Chutes and ladders

Have you ever played the game Chutes and Ladders? Our social worker in the US, emailed us recently and said that one her clients had used that game as an illustration for adoption. It is a good illustration.

Today was an emotional chute. We both just wanted to cry. First the embassy emailed explaining the process for adopting an HIV positive child here in Malawi. It could take 3 additional months and there is no guarantee that the waiver will be approved even if we are legal parents of a child. The second is that the social welfare department is not being helpful. We have gotten the run around again and again. I will go tomorrow to talk with them again.

Please pray for favor with the woman in charge of the office in Lilongwe. We plan to travel to Mzuzu on Tuesday July 22 to try to jump start the process with the social welfare department there.

Our attorney is also trying to get in touch with people higher up in the social welfare department to talk about the current options.

We need God to come through in a major way. Please pray. We are holding on to hope but it is hard.

Gratitude

What are you thankful for today? Sometimes it is easy to forget all the things that God has provided for us. After a month of being here and having ice cold showers each day, I have had warm showers the past two days. We finally got a fridge on Friday. Several on the team remarked how great it was to have a cold drink.

I am also so thankful to God for our family and friends. We are blessed to have this opportunity to be here to serve and to be on this roller coaster ride as we attempt to adopt. We are definitely going up and down in our emotions. We hold to hope and trust that we are where He wants us. I am also thankful for God’s leading and guidance through our faith journey. I am grateful you are on this journey with us. We have so much to be thankful for today.

So we are thankful for warm showers, cold drinks, friendship and partnership and for our loving, gracious Father. What are you thankful for today?

With His great love,
Chris

Malawi and USA independence

With the 6th of July being Malawi's independence day, Greg one of our students thought it would be great to celebrate with both on the 5th with our Malawi friends. So after church today we had a party at our place for 30 people. It was great fun with great food. It is a blessing to make friends and fellowship together. Here is a picture I took of our crowd. God bless and thank you for your prayers.
Chris

This week

It has been a good week. The team had a good day and a half rest and then has been going this week. They went to a fellowship meeting on Tuesday night, Bible study on Wednesday, Feeding program with Children of the Nations on Thursday and a Bible study at a secondary school today. We will have a barbeque Sunday with some students coming over to our house.

Our hearts rejoice with being able to serve in so many different contexts. Our family has been to a secondary school in the rural area where we will go later this month as the conference speaker. We were able to go to the crisis nursery this week several times and got to help entertain and care for the babies. It was sad though as one of the children died last week. These babies come to the nursery in really rough condition. Many are sick and severely malnourished.

Please pray for my preparation. I will be teaching at conferences two weeks in a row. I long for God’s word to come alive and speak to the students hearts calling them to a deeper sense of his love and call for their lives. I long to see these young men and women become change agents in the church and community God has them in.

Adoption update: Things move slowly here. As I have mentioned before Fuluke (actually spelled Farook I think)is HIV positive. He has been tested and is positive but they do a second test in a month to be sure. His mom died of complications from AIDS. We have learned that the US is allowing adoptions of HIV positive children now but it is unclear if they will from Malawi. We are trying to find that out and are still in process with Farook seeking the Lord’s guidance. We are also looking into another boy, Jackson, who is in the Mzuzu Crisis Nursery. He is 4 months old. We will know more as the social welfare department contacts relatives to see if he is “unattached.”

Please pray for us to clearly hear God’s voice as we continue to follow his leadership. Adopting a boy with HIV will be even more life changing for our whole family, we don’t walk in blinded but also know that without medication Farook will not likely live past the age of two but with medication he can live a healthy life. So we pray and seek the Lord which child He has for us. Please join us.

Thank you for your emails and comments. Please keep them coming. We are encouraged by our friends and family love and support as we try to walk by faith.