Good Dinner Better Friends

Tonight I was able to get together and share dinner with old and new friends. Mawi, Kelsey and Jeremiah went to Malawi with me and were able to join fellow Flood college groupers Rachel, Karin, Leslie and Sarah who will be doing the same internship we got to participate in last summer, this summer. We all got together tonight at my house for vegetarian lasagna, salad, french bread and a yummy ice cream concoction (possible recipes to come like the oh-so-famous recipe mondays/thursdays of Carly Pray and Miss Kate Wright). More importantly we got to chat about Malawi and the internship. Hopefully we didn't confuse them too much. We encouraged them to educate themselves, find and pursue their passions and expand their view of this internship. We want to be a source of information and guidance for them as well as supporters and a cheering section for the girls.

I thought I'd post some pictures, partly for the girls and partly just to remember some of things we chatted about tonight. Here's to Malawi and more conversations, girls!

Here are the girls that worked in the widows program. This is regular "village attire". Unfortunately it's not a shot of Angie's quilt skirt but the picture does feature Funa (to the right of Mawi)'s chitinge, traditional Malawian wrap. Sarah, I'm holding my "nalgene"!

Food. Here we go. Don't be scared. Nsima, the big white blob is pretty much tasteless and feels kind of like playdough. If you're lucky you'll get to taste it at "culture night". You'll also see mini usipa, the tiny whole fish. The rest of the stuff is "relish" there are three kinds on this plate. The cabbage relish (my favorite- cabbage, tomato, oil and onion) is at 12:00, next to that is egg relish and then... well to be quite honest I don't know what the brown one is... it's probably salty though! Yay Rachel!

Here are the widows girls with the widows! Yay! The program is huge so this is just one "class". Chikondi, the girl kneeling furthest to the left is wearing "national wear". Wearing it shows respect and is the nicest dress up outfit Malawians wear. She was wearing it because this was our last day in the village and we had a party. The widows and Funa are all in their chitinges. Please girls, note the babies tied on their backs.This is Jeremiah, wearing his teaching gear with Thoko, the little boy he told you about tonight. He's precious. Jeremiah made him a tie out of the scraps from the widows so they could match. Heart warming, really.Here is church wear! There are many important things in this picture... 1. notice Jeremiahs tie. The cool guys in Malawi wear their ties short like that... who knows why. When in Rome... 2. The girl on the left is Monica- she started the widows program and Rachel, she's from Folsom! Woot Woot! Nor Cal! Church attire might be different if you guys go to Flood Malawi but this is a safe bet you'll always have your jeans if Flood Malawi is more casual.

This is Ruby's, Kelsey's, Angie's and my closet. We each took two shelves, one for clothes and one for stuff. There were shelves in the bathroom for that stuff. Ruby brought a ton of clothes but this is pretty much all we each brought- pretty simple. I kept an extra pillow case for dirty clothes under my bed.This is a Sunday after church. Everyone else went to ABC to play soccer but we stayed at the compound to watch movies and do our nails :) Lovely! This is inside where you'll probably live. Bunk beds! Notice the laundry (socks and unmentionables) drying on our beds, the sheets, and mosquito nets. LAUNDRY! Hand washing with one bucket for everyone! The Malawian girls can teach you how to do it well. We brought the concentrated detergent but you can also bring one for all four of you until you can buy some in town (Malawian detergent is in the yellow bag on the shelf). It's made specifically for hand washing but they both work well. It's up to you! Everything but socks and undeewears go out on the line behind the dorms.

There you go... just to wet your appetites!

VIVA MEXICO!

What an amazing week, as always! The post is a little late, sorry, but better late than never right?!

Here is everyone in front of our fabulous San Diego hosts, Fletcher Hills Pres. This year we took 90+ high school students and adults! Crazy but fun! They were fantastic!

Our group was split into 5 teams... here's mine! They're rad students! The students spend months planning and preparing to put on 4 days of vacation bible school for local church's and their communities. They did a great job preparing a themed vbs called "en sus brazos" and were totally flexible when we arrived at our church for Sunday service and learned they didn't want us to put on a vbs!

We spent two days mixing and pouring concrete where we were standing in the last picture... here's the finished product!

Our Mexican host church, Iglesia de Cristo has AMAZING ministries in place that we got to help support! They have a group of neighborhood kids of about 25 that we hosted a one day of vbs for but in addition Anna runs a program in another neighborhood for 70+ kids! They also have a rad elderly ministry. A group of 100+ seniors meet down at the harbor once a week to pray and fellowship. Anna and her congregation care for these amazing people calling them their adopted abuelitos. We got to spend a beautiful afternoon with them right by the water. The students and adults adopted 4-5 "abuelitos". They learned eachothers names, prayed and sang together in English and Spanish. They will (hopefully) send a card or two throughout the year and lift them up in prayer. It was so exciting to get to forge new territory for FPC and Azusa Pacific as well moving from children's ministries to elderly!

The week was really encouraging for me personally! I was surrounded by people who know me and love me well. As much as I adore San Diego there's something to be said for having history with people. I loved getting to spend time with Mary Sob, Marie, Sarah and some of the other girls/women on the trip but I was especially blessed by my time with Godly men. Scott Battenfield and Senior "Curt" Hobbs are two men I've known for years and years who love well. They, among other men on the trip, exemplify Godly men and fathers. They love their children well, but put their wives before them and most importantly, God first. Thank you guys for your encouragement, character and love. You're the best!