Our Trip to Malawi

Each year the missionaries in our region of Africa gather together for a week in order to fellowship and share our work with one another. This year we were in Malawi. For our family this was super exciting! We were very eager to meet the other families and hear about their lives in Africa. Another bonus was that a team from Judson Baptist Church in Nashville was going to be there to lead us in worship and lead the children in VBS!!!

Thank you Hank and Dawn Garner and FBC Columbia, TN
for the awesome care package!
The treats were perfect timing for our road trip!

The journey was also an exciting part of trip. We love seeing new parts of Africa!

Rainbow nerds.......YUMMY!!

6 hours of the journey was on dirt roads

You can't tell in the picture, but this was a really cool sight!
This is the border town of Milange....our last stop in Mozambique.

After we got into Malawi we drove into the city of Blantyre. We stopped at a guest house for the night. It was a fun time to rest and have fun with Jessica and Sally and the Otters.

Painting nails

Emma and Meghan checking out their mosquito net

Lilly crawled into bed under her mosquito net very early!

Our regional meeting was held at a "resort" on Lake Malawi. (Please do not think of American standards here -- it was beautiful, but not like in the states for sure.) Interestingly, we could not swim in the lake because of a bacteria that lives in the water. There was a huge pool, though. The girls loved swimming with the other kids! Thanks Uncle Frank for the goggles!!!! (Sorry....forgot to get a picture of them swimming!)

Our "cottage" for the week

Rain falling across the lake.  We were in Malawi but that is Mozambique on the other side.

Fisherman in the lake

Beautiful Lake Malawi and mountains on the other side

This picture is not enhanced....the sky was really that blue!

Along with meeting many awesome families, we had a great time as a family! Every meal was provided at the resort and we ate all of them outside! 

Enjoying breakfast together!

Emma and her new friend Anya

We realized when we got to the meeting that we had the only journey-girls!!!
We are so lucky!

The resort had many animal statues. This one Emma played with everyday!
Here Emma and Lilly are with some of their new friends.

Me and my guy!

One of the highlights of the week was a talent show on Thursday! Our girls had several things planned to perform.

Lilly sang a worship song in Mandarin Chinese that her friend 
Hannah taught her at FPO in the fall.
Her new friend Bethany, from JBC,  accompanied her on the violin.

Emma danced to a christian rap song!!! 

The three girls did a scarf dance.

Here the children are performing the songs they learned during their VBS time! The theme this year is Amazing Wonders Aviation.....Awesome God, Amazing Power!

Meghan and Hannah

Hey Lilly!

Before we knew it, it was time to head home! Here are some highlights from our 2-day journey.

Our trip would not be complete without a picture
in front of one of HUGE baobab trees in the area.

You can't tell, but Meghan was totally freaking out
about the gigantic grasshopper/locust things
 that were crawling all over the ground around the tree.
Notice also how much Emma and Meghan have grown!!!
I am getting shorter and shorter!!!!
BTW....you only see 1/2 the width of the tree in this picture.

The basket vendor.....everything made out of grass...by hand

The beautiful mountains 

The beautiful tea fields

My beautiful girls

Love them!!!

Along our journey there were four things that really bothered me....

The 1st thing was the amount of
Islamic Mosques there were.....almost one in every little town
and many in the larger cities.
I never expected there to be the heavy influence of Islam here......it is rampid!

The 2nd big problem I saw.....a 7th Day Adventist church
down the street from every Mosques!

The 3rd thing that bothered me was what I didn't see.....evangelical churches!!!

Lastly, coffin shops were in every town.
How many are dying without the knowledge to the saving power of JESUS!!!
People.....that is a problem......what are we going to do about it!?!

We are home at last and trying to recover from that journey before we leave again for another!!


Tracy