Happy Birthday, Tawina!

Yesterday was Monica's birthday and, boy, did we pull one over on her! We arranged to have about 50 of her friends and family from Malawi come over to our village and we had a party! There was a beautiful homemade birthday cake, ice cream, music and lots of speeches. It was a blast and Monica sure was surprised! Her new Malawian name is "Tawina." It was such a blessing for all of us!

We went to Chitipi, which is a farm and group home that COTN supports. It was wonderful to get to hang out with the kids there. They sang us some songs too, which was a huge blessing to us. After that, we did crafts of bracelets and keychains (thanks, Raim!). They had a lot of fun, and we did too. :o)


Today, we are going up to Chiwengo. That is a village a couple hours away from here, which has several group homes that COTN supports. It is so beautiful and peaceful there, and we are ready for another amazing day.

We got to have tea with Mr. Yobbe Lungu yesterday. He is the Country Director for COTN. He had us to his beautiful house for tea and lots of great snacks. What a blessing to get to hang out with him and meet his family.

We have been to the crisis nursery twice now, and have gotten to hold and pray for lots of babies. Some are just a couple weeks old. The time with them flew way too quickly though!

Probably the most interesting thing we have done is prepare a meal with some of the widows. We got split up and went to one of their homes. There, we swept (dirt) floors, carried water from the wells, prepared vegetables, made a fire and cooked nsima over the fire. It was hard work - and smoky - but we all made it through! Then we got to go shopping for them at the open market, which was really cool! Lots of goodies out to choose from. Very exciting and lots of people at the market.

Overall, we are having an amazing time. It is crazy how quickly the days are passing! And there are so many more adventures we have been through, we just don't have time to put them all here.

Know that we think of you all daily and are so thankful for your support and your prayers.

Lots of love,

~ Pam, Cindy, Pegi and Tawina :o)