A New Church Building for Mphanda!

The men at the Mphanda Christian Church began work on the foundation for the new church building this week. It is an all-church operation as the ladies gather food to cook for the men each day. What an exciting thing to see as they work together for this goal that they have only dreamed about! The grass structure that they have been meeting in is about to fall down. The heavy rains that will be starting soon will surely weeken the already fragil walls. It is estimated that the heavy rains will begin in late November or early December, so there isn't really much time.

Bricks were provided by the men of the church and our ministry is providing the cement and the roofing. The building will be small, but can be added on to later. The people will be so proud when they have a church building of any size. Our builder, Wilson is guiding them in the process.

The Container Arrives!!

FINALLY! The container arrived in Lilongwe about 2 months late. It was due to arrive on August 19th, but arrived on the 15th of October. We had anxiously been waiting with Pat and Gary Ouverson who came from Tennessee to stay with us for two months. Gary had planned to be drilling wells with the well-drilling machine that was on the container. Many things happened to detain the container during that time. Since we had cleared our schedule to drill the wells, we struggled to find things to do. Fortunately we did have a trip to South Africa (the two of us) for a conference with NMSI for 10 days. Then Gary and Pat went on a 9-day trip to Zambia to the game park and Victoria Falls. So finally, with two days to spare, (Gary and Pat were due to fly out on the 17th of Oct.) the container arrived and we unloaded it before Gary and Pat had to leave. Gary gave Larry some instructions about well-drilling and lots of stuff to read.

Even though it was a long waiting period and a bit frustrating, we were thankful for the time we had with Gary and Pat and we did get a few things done, like a security system was installed in the house, forms were finished to put the container on, and some other things that really helped us a lot. They learned a lot about Malawi and will surely have lots to tell when they do a presentation for their church in Crossville, Tennessee.

We can finally breathe a "sigh of relief" that the well-driller is now in our driveway waiting, like us, to be used. Please pray that we can do all the necessary "red tape" to get it registered, licensed, etc. so we can begin to give life-giving water to the people of Malawi. Also pray that the message of Living Water will be loud and clear.