July 19 – 26

For me the past 10 days have been marked primarily by my having to teach in the 1st grade. According to the culture Miriam can be out as long as 2 weeks after the funeral of her mother. We have been blessed with short term mission groups with folks who like to help in schools! That’s another example of God as the awesome chest player! I have learned a lot about teaching in the first grade, and I believe I know now just about enough to be dangerous. We only have 2 weeks left in this school year so I really hope and pray that Miriam will be back in the morning. I have not heard from her which is also cultural custom.

The past two mission groups have been very generous to the school in supplying us with more wonderful books. We are developing a very nice library of books. I have discovered excellent books for each of our classes in the selections given to us. The children are enjoying them tremendously. It has been great to find a number of books that relate to exactly what the classes are studying at the moment. I always get excited to find a fresh approach to a new concept that is being taught to the children.

I was given a lovely pottery bowl full of fresh vegetables and 2 pumpkins. Today I experimented in making Peanut and Pumpkin Soup and Cream of Pumpkin Soup. It’s my first experience with pumpkin soup, so I don’t know what it should taste like. Both soups turned out pretty good. It made a lot of soup. We will have Maralisa and Seon Hee over on Tuesday for a soup and salad supper. Seon Hee will be returning from South Africa that day. The Peanut and Pumpkin idea originated because we have a 50 lb. bag of peanuts. That is one of the main crops for these people and the harvest season has just closed.
Berea, our cook, taught me to make her delicious sugar coated peanuts. We are eating lots of them!

The harvest was celebrated at church on July 18th during the Chichewa service. It was so interesting to see
all the harvest being brought to the church and placed on the front steps to be carried down the isle at a particular point in the service. There were many women carrying their offering on their heads. You don’t see many men carrying anything on their heads. There are plenty of women on the roads at most any time of the day carrying very heavy loads on their heads. More and more of the men are carrying great loads on their bikes. Ten years age they tell me only the missionaries and few others had cars, motorcycles, or bikes. Now there are a great number of them. Africa is making great changes, just like the rest of the world. Some of them are good and some, not so good. Just like the rest of the world.

Rhona and Jessi are settling into their house. I have enjoyed having Kate and Lisa with me since the other two left. We were told that Barbara has e-mailed us that she will be leaving on the 27th and arriving on the 29th, Thursday. I have 2 more days to make more curtains before having to move. I believe I will be in better shape to move then. Folks have been nice to offer to help make the move.