Rainy Season

Malawi is officially in rainy season from November through April.  This has been a very good year for the maize, tobacco, ground nuts, and food crops because of the good rains that we have received.  It is not always good for travel to villages, but nasty, muddy roads are what Speed-the-Light vehicles navigate best!

    

     

Tobacco

   

 Peanuts or Ground Nuts

 

Maize

All around there are reminders that every harvest needs workers and nourishment.  It may be said of the spiritual as well as the natural.  May we be faithful to work and nourish our corner of the Master's harvest field as we pray for a mighty harvest of souls.  That is what the work of missions around the world is all about.

 

Busy, Busy

Wow!  The past few weeks have been very busy around our place.  I am going to try to blog some of the exciting things that have been happening, so stay tuned.

Today we ministered in the village of Ukwe in Lilongwe District.  The journey was very long, and the roads were very  bumpy, but after about two hours of driving we arrived at the primary school where the church meets for service.

    

We were greeted by many children and adults, ready to worship and learn from the word of God.

We had a great morning of ministry and were so blessed to be invited to speak and be a part of this body of believers.  As I looked around the room, I had to appreciate the fact that these Christians gather and sit on the floor for hours to hear the Word of God and to so attentively listen to the teaching and preaching.  Even the children are quiet and attentive.

        

The pastor and his wife had us over for a wonderful dinner of chicken, rice, rape, tomato stew, and juice.

These photos show one of the ladies cooking and me with the ladies who prepared the meal and their children.

Thank you, Pastor and Mai Namaan, for allowing us to share this day with your beautiful family.

Not for the Faint of Heart...

Those of you have followed my blog, know that we bought two live turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.  It seems that at that time, Gaylord was enjoying them as semi-pets and did not want to kill them.  Well, that has now changed.  We gave the hen to a needy family for Christmas dinner, and we decided to have turkey for dinner ourselves.  So you know what that means....goodbye bird.

I am 52 years old, and this is the first time that I have ever seen a turkey prepared for cooking from beginning to end.  You know that I am trying to document this journey with photos of EVERYTHING, so this experience is no exception.  If you are squeamish or have an aversion to killing your own food, stop reading now.  That is my disclaimer for the following photos.

(1) Our security guards killed, soaked in hot water, and plucked the feathers from the turkey.

 

 

(2) Once the bird was clean on the outside, Watson went to work on cleaning out the inside.

 

This may look like a bucket full of disposable parts to you, but it actually holds the parts that our workers think are very delicious: the intestines, feet, neck, organs...everything except the stomach...nothing went to waste.

 

(3) After Gaylord ensured that the inside was clean enough, he trussed the bird, and it was ready to cook.

We looked so forward to eating our own turkey.  I even finished out the meal with sweet potato casserole, green beans, and rolls.  I would like to say that it was delicious....but that would not be exactly accurate.  Though the taste was good, the meat was as tough as leather....seems Tom Turkey was not so young!

AWA - Africa wins again!