Well, we are in our last 5 days here in Malawi. Can't believe it is already time to go home. We still don't have a court date for the adoption petition, but our attorney has sent an "urgency" letter to the court and is really trying to get us the court date as soon as possible. Right now, it looks like Jeff will have to stay for 1-2 weeks to finish up everything and bring Linda home.

The building construction is still progressing. Jeff is trying to have all the materials bought before he leaves so that it will be easier to get everything done in a timely manner. The board for Noah's Ark Orphan Care Center has also had meetings with the owner of some land adjacent to the building site. There is a possibility that they may be able to buy the land. If they are able to buy the land, then this will give them room to build a Maize Mill, have a chicken farm, a vegetable garden, etc. The Maize Mill will be able to serve the community there as there is not one nearby. The chicken farm and the garden will be to teach the children and also to help support the Center.

The well in Meteketa is close to being finished. We were hoping to have pictures of final product before we go home, but may have to get them from Pastor Chisale a little later.

Pastor Nancy has taken in more kids now and we have 49 children coming to the Center. There are now 8 (I think) pre-school age children. Pastor Nancy met with the City Assembly and the Assoc. of Pre-Schools and there is training for her to complete to start the Pre-school. She will start that training on Monday and it goes for 13-14 days from 8am-4pm. She is in the process of finding someone to be at the house to supervise the children during those days while she is gone. She will take the training and then will be able to train any other teachers or helpers that she will need to have the pre-school running.

We are missing everyone at home and look forward to seeing everyone, but are not enjoying having to say goodbye to the friends here!

The social welfare agent was out all last week at his home village, so the paperwork was not able to be signed last week. We spoke to the attorney last Friday and she had already talked to him about our case and he had agreed to sign the petition when she brings it to him today. We will call later this afternoon to get an update. Otherwise, just waiting...

Last Thursday, we were able to go out to Meteketa (the other Orphan Care Center here in Malawi right now) and take 57 blankets for the kids there. Not all of the kids were able to be there as they are on holiday from school and some go to their home villages to be with family during the holidays. We were able to hand out over 30 blankets, though, when we went. It is a blessing knowing that these kids will be warm at night now.

Yesterday we went back out to Meteketa and Pastor Chisale took us to 2 other churches in the general area to meet the people there. Jeff spoke in each of the churches and the people we met were all very welcoming. There was a raging fire that came within 50 yards of the first church as we started the service, so that was a little distracting. But, they were able to put the fire out and no one got hurt!! At the 2nd village, after the church service, they fed us our lunch (which was very good) and then we went back to Meteketa to pick up the rice bags we had bought for the Orphan Care Center in Blantyre. We took back 10 bags of rice (for a lot cheaper than what they would have cost in Blantyre), so this was a big blessing. We left 3 bags there in Meteketa (approx. 70 kgs/bag). All of the money for this rice was money that was given by the high school students at Faith High School.

Also, yesterday, we were able to see the company drilling the well in Meteketa. They had started drilling on Saturday and had already hit water before we left Meteketa yesterday. Hopefully, the cement and everything will be completed in the next couple of days on the well.

The director wasn't in the Social Welfare office the last 2 days, so our paperwork is supposed to go to their office today for signatures and then hopefully to the court to get a date. Linda is back in school for now and having fun with her friends.

In the last 2 weeks, we have had 7 more children begin coming to the Orphan Care Center for food, so now there are 45 children. Most of the new children are of the Preschool age. Yesterday we had 2 grandmothers (sisters) come for help. They have 8 children whom they are caring for and all of the parents have died from Aids. The grandmothers carry sand and water one bucket at a time for very little money to try to make enough to feed these kids. We are able to help them with 4 of the children right now. 2 of the other children that have come are also being taken care of by their grandmother.

One of the night watchmen at the Orphan Care center just came 2 nights ago and let us know that his 5 year old child had died from Malaria!

We will be signing the affidavits today along with Pastor Nancy at the attorney's office. From there, the paperwork will go to the social welfare office on Monday, hopefully. Then, it will go to court (if needed).

We were able to get each of the children here in Blantyre blankets and we will be buying blankets for all the children in Metaketa hopefully next week to take to them.

Downpayment on the well in Metaketa has been made, so hopefully that will begin soon. We will go out there and get pictures as the work progresses.

We have set up a Paypal account in case anyone would like to use that to donate towards our adoption. You just go to paypal.com and put in our email address (ryaljs@yahoo.com) and then follow the instructions.

Linda's mom came into town yesterday and we all met with the attorney yesterday afternoon. Linda's mom agreed to the adoption and signed the consent form yesterday at the meeting. The next step is for some affidavits to be signed by us, and the directors of the orphan care center that Linda has been staying at. Then, all of the paperwork will go to the Social Welfare agency for approval. After that it will go to court (if it will need to go to court at all). The attorney has agreed to do all they can to try to get this completed so that we can all leave on schedule on August 26th.

Jeff will be going today to get estimates on the supplies for the next step in the building project and from there we will see what we can accomplish on the building while we are here.

Also, we have gotten the quotes for the well in Metaketa, so know we will be scheduling the time for this to be done fairly quickly.

Well we meet with Linda's mother and she agreed adoption was in Linda's best interest!!!! She should come next Monday to meet with our attorney.

This week has been another busy week so far. On Monday we were able to go to Nchala where another Noah's Ark Orphan Care Center will be started. The church there has already started helping 8 orphan children themselves along with others being helped in their homes. It was a blessing to be there. While we were there, we were served lunch - which was a big sacrifice for them as they have very little in that village. On our way home from Nchala, we were able to go on a game preserve that was free for us. We were excited to see 5 giraffes at one point and at least 2-3 others while we were driving.

Some of the team members have been challenged to adopt children. Some have been challenged to sponsor students for the university. Christopher (the pastor's son) was able to visit colleges yesterday with a team member and they are ready to accept him as soon as he brings in his paperwork from his schooling.

Right now, the rest of the team is a Majete Game Preserve. I am sure they are having a wonderful time and being able to see many animals. This is the same preserve where we went last year.

On Monday evening, we had a good meeting with our attorney. Our attorney now has all of our paperwork and we will be meeting with Linda's guardians as soon as possible. That is our next step.

Metaketa

On Wednesday, we were able to go out to a small village about 2 hours from Blantyre. It is called Metaketa in the Zomba district. The pastor there, Pastor Chisale, has started their 2nd Noah's Ark Orphan Care Center there in Malawi. As a group, we were able to play some games with the children. Maggie taught them the Hokey Pokey, and Duck, duck, goose (but it was chicken, chicken, goat), and many other songs and games. The Noah's Ark Orphan Care children performed for us and showed off how much they have learned. A couple children read some speaches and showed off how good their English was. Christopher (the pastor's son) had them sing a few songs and it was beautiful. The people in the church there even performed for us along with people from the surrounding areas that came for our visit. It was very touching that there were so many to come from far places to see us.

Today we have had a full, exciting day so far. This morning we were able to set up the 2 computers that were donated to the Orphan Care Center. Thank you Lewis & Knopf!! They are set up in the sitting room so as soon as the kids came home from school they were so excited. This is the only place anywhere around there with computers for the orphan children, so this is very special. 2 of the older boys who go to school in the afternoon, were there after we set them up and we got a Typing learning CD installed. They worked on that for at least 2-3 hours and are doing very well already. This is going to be a great help for the kids to learn typing skills and much more. One of the team members that came, Brian, brought many phonics, math, and other teaching games for the children. This is so wonderful!

In Malawi

Well, we arrived in Malawi yesterday (Monday) afternoon and were greeted with many people at the airport and the church. We had dinner and then tried to settle in a little. This morning we were able to go to the school with some of the children and see the assembly before they start classes. Then we went into the Preschool room and did the Hokey Pokey with the children. It was a lot of fun to see the kids doing the Hokey Pokey. This afternoon we were able to take everyone to the building site.
Just so that everyone knows, there is another blog that the rest of our team will be posting on. It is giveagoodday.blogspot.com in case you would like to see the posts there as well.

TODAY!!

Well, we leave today. In fact just 2 1/2 more hours and we leave for the airport. We are all very excited and none of us slept very well last night. Hopefully that means we will all be able to sleep on the plane. Detroit to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Johannesburg. We will overnight in Johannesburg and then fly to Malawi on Monday morning.

Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement as we have been preparing for this trip. We appreciate everyone's help. May God bless your summer!

NOT SOON ENOUGH

Just five weeks until we leave!!!! We are so ready to leave now. We have seven other team members going with us to serve : ) They are engineers, pastors, teachers, journalists, and social workers. Anyone can serve and we are so thankful for their willingness to give of themselves. We are still raising funds to build the second phase of the orphan care center so if you are interested in donating please call me at 8109198796. Jeff

Getting Ready to GO

We are going to be back in Malawi July 5th for two months this time. We are very excited to go and serve the beautiful people of Malawi. We will once again be overseeing the second building phase of the orphan care center. We also will be taking funds to dig a well in Zomba district. Sara will be teaching the older girls secretarial skills. We are taking two computers with us. Annamarie will work with the younger students on there reading. We are in the fundraising phase of this endeavor. If you would be interested in investing in our work you can contact me at 810-919-8796

Jeff

The last couple of days have been packed with excitement.

On Saturday, we were able to go to a Game Park Reserve with Pastor Nancy and Brother Chinooka. It was something that Pastor Nancy has not been able to do yet, so it was fun to be able to go. We were able to see Impala, Bush Buck, Water Bucks, a Hippo, Warthogs, Bush Pigs, and Elephant. The guide we were with found out where the elephant were so we went chasing them to see if we could get close enough to see them. We ended spotting one and the guide let us get out of the vehicle for a walk into the bush. We ended up getting within 75 yards of 2 bull elephants. It was very exciting to be able to see them so close.

Yesterday, we were able to go to the village of Metakata in the Zomba district. This is where the 2nd Noah's Ark Orphan Care is located here in Malawi. We arrived there in time for the church service and then they had a special program for us to highlight what the kids there have been able to accomplish. The program there started in January of this year and already has made tremendous progress in the schooling of the kids there. They feed 52 children twice a day.

The building project is coming along great. Most of the brick around the perimeter is up. By Thursday, they should have all of the brick for the first floor (including the interior walls) up.

Evelyn has come out of the coma and is eating, but she is still in a lot of pain and still in the hospital. Jeff and Pastor Chisala are going to try to go up and see her Wednesday or Thursday.

Our flight leaves here on Friday morning, so if we don't get to post any other updates before we leave - We are looking forward to seeing everyone at home very soon.

The building project is still going good. They poured the inside columns and have started the brick work on all of the walls. It is starting to look like a real home.

The little girl that got hit by the minibus is still unconscious. She appeared to be getting better after a couple of days, but has not regained consciousness. She also appears to have a problem with her hip along with the broken leg. Please keep praying for her recovery.

We went to World Vision headquarters last week. Jeff met a lady prior to us coming that sponsors 2 kids here in Malawi. She asked him to take 2 soccer balls to the World Vision office to give to the kids since we were going to be in Malawi.

Tim and Anna sang "How Great is Our God" on Sunday with 2 of the Noah's Ark kids (Adson and Lamek). The people really enjoyed it.

We visited Fresh Water Malawi. This is an organization that digs wells in rural areas. We checked into having a well dug in a village in south Malawi where the 2nd Noah's Ark Orphan Care is located. The well would give fresh water to 350 people who do not currently have fresh water.

Things are going well and everyone is in good health.

The building project is coming along well. 11 more columns are done, so that makes all the outside columns are completed. On Monday, they will start doing the brick work and the inside columns for the walls. They are able to buy the bricks from a deacon in the church, so that is a blessing to his family. He lost his wife about a year ago and he has 5 children.


On Thursday, we had 3 more kids start coming for food every day, two girls and a boy. On Friday, we found out that one of the little girls, Evelyn, was hit by a minibus. The sister had come to the orphan care center to get help. Pastor Chisale and Jeff were able to go to the Hospital and make sure that she was getting the proper care. She ended up with a concussion and a broken leg, but it appears as though she will be okay. Please keep her in your prayers, though.

We have had a very exciting week.
Today they will be framing in the first 7 columns (pillars of Hope) on the building with wood so that tomorrow they can pour the cement into the frames. Then, they will continue on assembling the next 7 columns (they only do one side at a time to make sure they are keeping a straight line).

On Saturday, we took all of the kids from Noah's Ark Orphan Care in Blantyre to the Mirichu Game Preserve. This is the first time any of them had gone to something like this, even though it is only about 1/2 hour away by car (2 1/2 by walking). We were able to see many monkeys, some bushbuck and climbed over a boulder field where hyenas were hiding. That was interesting. We walked on the trails for about 2 hours and the kids enjoyed themselves. They even had a little building with some educational information such as skulls of some of the animals, and different pictures and facts so the kids were able to learn about some of the native animals around them. On the way back, the kids started singing praise songs (some even in English so we could sing along).

We do have electricity and running water in the Orphan Care center where we are staying, but we don't always have them at the same time. We have a lot of candles nearby and buckets of water so that we will never be without light or water.

Well, we have been here for 5 days now. Everything is going very well. Things are going slow on the work, but they had to order the steel on Monday, then it was delivered yesterday, and then it was cut today. Tomorrow they will get the colums done with the steel and wood frames for the first floor. Then they will need to order cement to fill the columns and then will need to set for couple of days. Today we washed our clothes for the first time by hand. Everyone but Anna was involved. It was fun watching the guys help. We had an 8 year old little girl showing us how to do it and helping us and laughing at us. Her name is Linda. She is very cute. The food has been good. They eat a type of porridge in the morning made of maize (corn) and a thick porridge for lunch and dinner of the same maize. Well, the internet is slow, so will need to make this short. Love and blessings to everyone. We will still try to get some pictures on here, but a little hard to get.

We are in Johannesburg on our way to Malawi. Everything is going good. We leave in a couple of hours to go to Blantyre, Malawi. We will hopefully get some pictures of our trip so far on this for all of our support team back at home. God Bless Everyone! Jeff, Sara, Anna and Tim (Rosa).