Our trip to Malawi

After 2,375 km (1500 miles) and a total of 31 hours of driving like we were on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland and 36 mosquito bites (32 on Jenni and 4 on Corey), we are back from Malawi! What a trip! We had a great time in Malawi, but we’re happy to finally be back “home”. Before we made it to the meeting at Lake Malawi, we got to stay at a Tea Estate. It was so wonderful! It was so beautiful and peaceful there. We had a relaxing time there just enjoying the tranquility of the place. Here are a couple of pictures of what it looked like there. It is not your typical Africa scenery!
After 2 days at the tea estates, we headed to the hotel where we would be attending our meeting. The hotel where we stayed was beautiful and we felt so blessed to be able to stay at such a nice hotel. We weren’t roughing it by any means. However, we didn’t really get to enjoy the scenery to much since we were in meetings all day, but it was still nice to stay there. Our meeting was about the persecuted church and it was very meaningful to us (while we were in Virginia we had the same training and this time it was even better). It was a good reminder of what our brothers and sisters in Christ go through around the world. We really loved hearing all the stories about how God is working all over the world. It reminded us of John 3:8 when Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to the wind and how you see its effects but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. We don’t know why or when or even how God works sometimes, but we definitely can see the effects of His working in the world and in His Church. We were so blessed and encouraged to hear story after story about how God is working around the world and in places that seem hopeless. He is so much greater than we can ever imagine!

In the little free time that we had, we got to enjoy some kayaking on the lake. This was so much fun until someone told us about a story of how a hippo tipped over a boat while on a river that flowed from Lake Malawi. After this story, we watched something similar on National Geographic and let’s just say the rest of our kayaking time we were a little tense from thinking there were crocs or hippos under us! Here is a picture of us next to the kayaks.

Overall, we really enjoyed our trip. The end of our week was sad, as we said goodbye to some fellow Mozambican missionaries, Harvey and Jen. They went back home to the USA after serving here for 2 years in a city called Angoche. We were so blessed to spend some time with them while they were here and it was amazing to hear about how God worked in their lives and used them mightily. We miss and love you Harvey and Jen!

Thank you for your prayers while we were gone. God definitely was merciful to us as we drove! Thank you God! Anytime you go on a trip with these types of roads, it’s a miracle that your vehicle is still in one piece.(and us too!)

Here are some prayer requests for this week. Please pray for: 1) Protection against Malaria (since our chance of getting it is increased from all the bites we got in Malawi.) 2) Continued patience and endurance with the language. We realized we took some steps backwards by not using the language for 10 days. 3) Clarity for the ministries that await us!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

We have learned that chickens, people, and many other living things cross the road not only to get to the other side, but for a pure adrenaline rush! This adrenaline rush comes from running as fast as possible in a last minute decision to get to the other side. It is amazing that we haven’t hit anything! Besides avoiding chickens crossing the road, we are continuing to learn Portuguese every day. It seems like we will never be able to communicate effectively although it’s encouraging to look back a month ago and to see how much we have learned.

One thing we were able to do this past week was attend a 4th of July BBQ with the American missionary community in Nampula. It was so much fun! We got to eat some grilled pork chops that were amazing! Pork is very rare here. Tender, juicy, yummy meat is a very rare thing to come by. We also played volleyball. Basketball would have been better (except for those who would have experienced the Corey Crossover), but volleyball was still a lot of fun.

We also received our first package from the Krafts, which was an awesome blessing! It was so exciting to receive a package! We didn’t even have to pay duty on it and it was in one piece (normally they open the package to see the contents and charge you for it.) Thanks again Kraft Family!!

Another thing that was really cool this past week was that we learned a new song. Our house worker taught us a song in the Makhuwa language. This song is about searching the whole world over and discovering that there is no one like Jesus. We really love this song! Once we got the tune down we tried it out on the guitar and sounded out some chords. We hope to someday sing this song with the Makuwa people at the church we are attending (pictured here). We have been attending Nampula Baptist Church. We like it there and we think we will like it even more when we know what they are saying!!!!

This will be our last post for about a week and a half as we are heading to Malawi to attend an annual meeting with other team members. We are excited to be able to see another country, but the downside is a full 24 hours of driving on awful roads. It will be an adventure!

Here are some prayer requests for this week. Please pray for: 1) Traveling mercies on our trip to and from Malawi, 2) That we will retain everything that we learned so far in Portuguese and that this 10 day trip will not set us back in our learning, 3) Clarity for the ministries that God has called us to in Mozambique.

Fala Portugues?

“What do the Duncan’s do everyday?”is probably a question most of you ask, right? Well, we are in language 3 hours a day/5 days a week and the other hours are spent cooking meals or still unpacking our bags. We have now realized that learning a language isn’t as easy or fun as we hoped for! It takes soooo much patience and perseverance. We do try to make it as fun as possible by learning numbers with Monopoly money or labeling everything in our house! We have a personal tutor named Luis (he is 4 feet tall and very funny!). He has taken us out to the market to help us learn our fruits and veggies. So it isn’t too bad, but our brains hurt everyday as we are now trying to form real sentences. aka “The book is on the table”…we are really expanding our vocabulary!! However, this past weekend we were also able to sit in on a True Love Waits session. This took place at a local school and involved about 40 youth from different areas of the city. As the youth were asked about cultural practices regarding premarital sex, our hearts were broken with the sad response of “kids start having sex at age 10.” It was good for us to gain a Mozambiquan perspective as we are still forming ideas regarding the True Love Waits program. Our goal is for these children to commit first to a relationship with Jesus Christ and then a commitment to abstinence. Please pray for this ministry as we are taking it into the school system and that we will declare the truth of the gospel boldly at these meetings.

We were also able to go to the coast for some downtime. Here are some pictures of our little weekend getaway we had with the rest of our team. We went to the beach and had so much fun! Our days consisted of snorkeling, eating, and relaxing on the beach. The beaches are beautiful and the water is so clear. The star fishes are gigantic and colorful. It was amazing to see the many different creatures of the sea that the Lord has created! This is definitely a place we plan on visiting again! Also, whenever any of you come and visit, we will take you to this place.

Here are some more prayer requests we have for this week. 1)Pray for the meeting we will have with our True Love Waits team as many changes are needed in this established ministry 2)The hearts of the children we minister to…that God will change their hearts to seek Him through the True Love Waits program. 3) Minds that absorb Portuguese and good memories, 4) Patience and endurance as we study the language 5) Safety as we are now driving in absolute chaos, and 6) Protection against Malaria and all other water/food borne illnesses…we have experienced some pretty bad GI problems lately.