week 4

After such a great weekend I was ready to go and get more Chichewa and just not stop. Then came Monday night and the Youth meeting with the abusa’s from the different presbyteries who were the Youth Delegates…it didn’t start until 6 pm in Lilongwe and often James said he didn’t get back until 2am. most of the abusas stay overnight but we would go home which was preferable…but really a meeting that lasts from 6 to 1 is not something I’m going to look forward to…this one lasted only until 11 but still—that’s 5 hours of meeting…sitting on pew benches (no back). The meeting started in english for about the first 2 hours and some of it was interesting—there will be a synod youth meeting in august (that they were trying to make a budget for—not practical for 15 people to sit and discuss/argue about making a budget which is where we finally got to—there needs to be a proposed budget that they can then make suggestions or accept). They talked about the girls ministry and I was introduced but that was the extent of my needing to be there…it was seen as a great thing that we would be looking into the activities of the girls and how to improve and strengthen the program but no more ideas as to how to go about it. Then the meeting moved into mostly Chichewa and it seemed like everyone was saying and resaying the same things over and over (though I didn’t know what they were saying)…finally at 11ish they closed with a prayer…I was ready to fall over. I climbed into the truck and dozed all the way back…
I turned 30 this year and didn’t have the big cake party this year unlike last year. But it was a great day. I took it easy—did some Chichewa study and then went for a walk…I decided to get the picture that rhona and I talked so much about last year from the top of the hill at the nkhoma turnoff. Followed by a group of kids who were fascinated and scared of me and the camera was pretty entertaining. And then I climbed another hill for a great lookout over nkhoma and the surroundings. Dinner at the Veitch house was set up restaurant style with breadsticks and pita pieces with marinara sauce and then heaping bowls of pasta and then banoffee pie. Beautiful. And then on Sunday I had a joint birthday cake party with Happy Nagy though not many knew it was also for me until Barbara brought out a cake with my name on it and we both blew out candles…
I helped more with ceiling installation—this time up at the guesthouse. The room has 12 foot ceilings so we were climbing around on wardrobes so that we could reach. I was warned that I would have to wear pants as we would be climbing on furniture…I think james was a bit surprised that I’d shown up last week in a skirt…but then it had not been such a tall ceiling. No problem…only thing was he’d only brought one hammer—not really bad…I just held the boards up and he did all the hammering.
Friday there was a Primary school teachers mtg. it was a follow-up for a previous meeting so this one was for feedback and a little more sharing of ideas. We started with a reading from 1 Samuel 2&3 about the boy (Samuel) being the Lord’s helper by helping Eli the priest even when Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord. We can help even when we don’t know it yet…15 schools represented and each gave a report as to their assemblies and how they were going with prayers and messages and whether or not they were using the resources that had been given to them or if they think they need more or different sources. Then there was a talk about how to keep the programs they have at their school self-sustaining because while they have sponsor help now they can’t rely on that because there is no telling when donors will pull out. This is the first time I’ve heard of this coming from a Malawian. They had some good ideas as well—teaching the kids pottery, growing gardens for selling vegetables (though space is a problem). They also talked about sports competition that will be put together for Aug or Sept and how to put it together. It was a pretty good meeting and of course there was nsima afterwards!