A Pulpit Made of Mud

The people of the church at Mphanda are taking pride in their church. They crafted this pulpit made of mud which is what the entire floor and seats inside of the "building" are made of. It is actually quite nice when the mud is dry. We are so proud of them and think this pulpit is one of the most wonderful places to teach in the world.

Sources of drinking water in Mphanda

This shallow well has only about a foot or so of water in it for an entire village. Some water is trickling in to fill it, but there is no way it provides enough good drinking water for the entire village. We hope to make it deeper and put a pump so they can have lots of fresh clean drinking water.






This is another water source that is approximately 1 km from the church building. There are people who live very far on the other side of the church who also walk to get water for washing and drinking. The water hole is very shallow. There is water trickling out of the rocks above that replenishes enough water for some of the families.

Molly's favorite place to relax

Relaxing with our cat, Molly. Her favorite place to sleep is on Larry's lap. He tolerates her and she appreciates it.

NMSI Triennial Retreat and Conference

We really enjoyed our time recently at the NMSI Conference and Retreat from Oct. 1-15. Every three years NMSI gathers all the affiliated missionaries together somewhere in the world. It is a time of learning and spiritual renewal. For us the conference and retreat really exceeded our expectations and we were greatly encouraged and refreshed. When we returned to Malawi, we had some exciting new visions to pray for and goals to work towards.

One of the most amazing things we learned during the conference is how living in a fallen world and our sinful nature really affects everything we do and think. We got some great insights on how much God really does love us and wants to lavish us with good things, but sometimes suffering comes with it. So, we now look at suffering differently - as sharing in Christ's suffering. A new definition for worship (from Andrew Olsen, our devos facilitator) is, "...tell God how beautiful he is because of pleasure over how he has satisfied and will satisfy our heart's deepest needs and longings." We made some great new relationships and renewed old friendships. It is just what we needed.

Bulgaria

The first week was spent in Hissar Bulgaria. The countryside was breathtaking and the conference was very inspiring. We attended workshops on missionary issues all week and had a few days to do some sight-seeing. The little town where we stayed has a natural spring under it and we enjoyed really nice tasting water from the spring. Bulgaria has lots of beautiful church buildings.

The striped building is the church at Rila Monestary - really awesome with immaculate artwork on the interior walls and ceilings and exterior walls.

It was very interesting how Christianity was brought into Bulgaria and received so easily hundreds of years ago.

Greece

The second week of our trip, we traveled by bus to Greece - the Halkidiki peninsula. It was so beautiful there. We also took a bus trip to nearby Thessaloniki (not a misspelling) as the Greeks call it. Our week in Bulgaria had been a preparation for being in Greece as we studied Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. It was very insightful and inspiring. Modern day Thessaloniki is very densely populated with many tall apartment buildings in a small geographical area....talk about traffic! We are now more appreciative of Malawian traffic and see it is not really that bad.





We also saw a few beautiful sunsets on the Aegean Sea. The weather was nice and cool. It was considered the off-season so there weren't any water activities, but that was fine, because we were enjoying the coolness. It is very warm in Malawi right now.