Day 6 & 7 (Thursday & Friday)

Every day we try to learn more and more Chichewa words, so our Thursday morning ride to the center was spent memorizing a Chichewa song to sing with the children. Our driver Mr. Peter said it made us "real Malawians". The children loved it. (Some of them already knew it, and the others seem to catch on quickly.)

Thursday's parable was about the prayers of the publican and pharisee. The children seemed to understand the concept and, as always, loved doing the coloring page that went along with it. The older ones enjoyed the word search on the back as an extra challenge.

Also on Thursday, we had the privilege of walking into the village with the pastor and matron and visiting two houses of Timotheos sponsor students. It was eye opening to walk among the poverty and see first-hand where the students live. The houses were small, one-room brick buildings about the size of a single bedroom in North America. Both houses, however, the pastor pointed out, were able to stay standing despite the cyclones thanks to a Timotheos-made cement foundation. We were also very humbled with the honor the people showed to us. Laying out their best mat for us to sit on or gathering up stools from multiple neighbors for us. We spoke to them about the verse we are teaching the children from Matthew 25:13, that all of us, no matter where we are from, need to be prepared to meet God. We were happy to see some of the children's coloring pages from our parables with Chichewa Bible verses hung up in a window, and the families listened attentively as the Pastor translated for us and spoke to them.

It was another good, busy day filled with lots of interaction with the children. It has also been a bit of an adventure cooking dinner with the food we bought at the grocery store here, but even if it looks different from what we are used to, we have been eating well, thanks Kendra!

Friday's parable was about the Prodigal Son. The translator asked the children some good questions after the story to make sure they understood the meaning. We feel we have found a good method for organizing the large numbers of children. The reason for the unpredictable and often unexpected large number of children is that, not only the Timotheos students, but also all their siblings and all the other children in the surrounding area are invited. Some children come from 5 - 6km away! We have seen them in the village as we drive towards the center.

We spent time teaching the children an English Psalter all week… by the end of the week most of the children could sing it well… here is Psalter 290:1 as sung by the Malawian children.

At the end of the day, we had a short meeting to close the week with the Timotheos staff. We were able to express our appreciation for their invaluable help over the week and for all the work they do for the children. They heartily thanked us for spending time with them and for being so engaging with the children. The pastor asked that we remember them in prayer and said they will pray for us in Canada and America as well. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, and we will definitely treasure the time we spent in Mulinga!