June 21-26
The date for the dedication finally arrived. We had made so many references to it for such a long time. It was kind of like waiting for a wedding to take place. Speaking of weddings Jessie, Rhonda and I have been invited by one of the hospital nurses to attend her wedding early in December. She plans to go with us to the market to choose our material and have the tailor to measure us for our outfits for the wedding. The wedding should be most interesting. The ceremony will be at 9am and the celebration will begin at 1pm. It will take place in Lilongwe.
Back to the dedication, Mr. Kim arrived on Sunday evening and came to my house for dinner with Seon Hee Lee (our Korean missionary who works with the elderly and disabled) and her two sons. I had asked Seon Hee who was going into Lilongwe to buy me some chicken breast. She didn’t get to Lilongwe and asked another person to get the chicken breast. Something happened there, and I ended up with a local chicken. I had had two meals of local chicken. The chickens roam freely around Nkhoma and are very undernourished. The chickens I had eaten was so tough one could not chew them. You either swallowed it whole or you made it disappear by other means. I boiled the pitiful chicken until it fell off the bones. Then I was surprised to find it was tough to cut with a sharp knife! Never-the-less, I cut that chicken up in such fine pieces it was almost the consistency of meal. It was absorbed completely in the making of the chicken dish with rice made with chicken broth. With a mushroom sauce, spices, crumbs and cheese on top of the casserole it was acceptable or at least you could chew and swallow.
At dinner we had a delightful time learning about Raymond and Mariella Provost. They were the missionaries in Korea who started Moon Wha School. Mariella got in contact with some of the alumni of Moon Wha and told them that Moon Wha School had made their education possible now it was time for them to give Malawian children the same opportunity to attend a Christian School.
Mariella (now living in Black Mountain, NC) is in her 80’s and knits every day balls and dolls to send to missionaries. In our classroom I have had to make skirt length pieces of material for the girls to carry around Mariella’s dolls on their backs like their mothers carry their babies. Our class uses the balls to toss at an African basket on the floor, kind of like ringing a basketball net. Mariella told the committee of fund raisers that she makes about $1000.00 a year with her knitting and if they didn’t help her raise the money she would have to knit for another 20 years to raise the funds. Mr. Kim said that convinced the alumni committee to raise the money, and each gave $1000.00 to start the fund. They contacted the alumni and were most successful in raising the funds.
Mr. Kim arrived at school the next morning with 5 gifts each for the students and gifts for the teachers. I was so pleased with his response to our school. We had a nice program. Hussein Latif, our committee chair, told a little about our 2 year history. Mr. Kim told how important the Moon Wha School was in helping him to become a successful business person and how pleased the Moon Wha alumni were to be able to help Malawian children with the same opportunity. H presented the school a lovely plaque in memory of Raymond Provost which we will mount on the front of the Raymond Provost Memorial Hall.
I introduced the children and staff and told how pleased we were to be a part of helping to establish the much needed school. Our children offered a prayer of thanksgiving and sang the Malawian national anthem. Then I presented to Mr. Kim a banner which we had made with all the children’s hand prints and their names. He was touched by the banner and will hang it in the Moon Wha School. Our audience consisted of people from Europe, Asia, Africa and the USA plus the dignitaries from the Malawian Synod office. I told how miraculous I thought it was that the worldwide family of God was represented here in this place at this time working together through love to educate young children in Christians school. By the enthusiasm you could tell some good international relationships developed through the interchange with each other at the program and during the luncheon which followed.
The next morning Mr. Kim returned to our school still bearing gifts for children and teachers as he bid us goodbyes. He was a most gracious visitor and a great benefactor in leaving us with large donation for scholarships for needy children.