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!