I don't know where to start.
For 2 weeks I waited on God watching, interviewing and assessing. I had to hear His voice when to speak.
I look out of my windows, with the glass almost falling out,
and silicone needed to hold the glass in, so the little ones will not be hurt
by falling glass. Some windows are broken or gone. I stare out at the boy's
quarters where one side has no steps and there is a 4 foot drop. Anyone could get hurt if they walked to close
to the edge, I see so much need here, needs for the family of Agape, and yet my
heart is blessed as I also see an incredible sunset of red's washing across the
skies painted by the hand of God and I thank my God and King for His incredible
love and protection He has offered to us.
I see some trees outlined in shadow against the darkening skies and I
praise a mighty and wondrous God. Who
would ever have thought a year ago, we would come to Malawi. I asked God a year ago to give me arms to
love the broken-hearted, I asked God to give me feet to spread His truth and
gospel and I asked God to let me see through His eyes my shortcomings (many of
them) and to see what He wants me to see.
I asked for a crop not 30 or 60 fold but 100 fold. And so begins the incredible journey to
Malawi to join with our team here in Malawi.
As president of Agape, one thing became very clear - God kept pressing
on my heart that His hand is on this orphanage and He is the foundation of
Agape, Jesus Christ is our cornerstone and each one of us is the bricks He is moulding
and forming. So how did I get here....
Life and death is a constant here. Dar es Salaam airport was a whole different
world compared to England. Flying through
the night in our van we had all the windows closed. We went through our first red light, and I
was shocked. When we went through the
second and third, I asked our driver if we would be stopped. No he said, if I stop the reality is you will
be robbed with all your luggage. So I
smiled as we went thru every red light at 2 in the morning, and praying Father
please keep us safe as we go thru these red lights. Our driver was nervous and
was so glad to drop us off at Dar es Salaam international airport. This airport
was sketchy to say the least. Walking
thru it airline pilots and stewardesses sit in the same area and security is extremely
minimal. We were supposed to pay $640
for our luggage in Tanzania as we were flying to Nairobi tonight with Kenya Airlines. I asked the officer for a receipt. He asked us to sit by the gate and wait for a
receipt. Michael and I thought we won't
see our money or receipt. Finding our
gate was another matter, no signs, the area is all open and take your chance
which 1 of 2 gates you fly from and almost went to Dubai. We did find our way to the right gate. Our customs officer came to us and offered
a new choice. No receipt and $300 US
cash. We smiled and accepted. In the small strange sitting area, I noticed
a woman moaning and clutching her stomach and crying. Why did I mention
her. She looked like she was in extreme
pain. I thought she might have
tremendous stomach pain. The gate
security came to her and asked her many questions. You cannot fly if you are sick and I thought
she might throw up right there and I kept a safe distance. We flew to Nairobi and got off for our 3 hour
connection flight to Malawi. The plane
that was to take us to Malawi had big maintenance issues and so we were forced
to wait for the 2nd time as one of the planes we were suppose to travel on had
major problems. Having prayed for the planes we were travelling on to have good
maintenance, we knew we were safe in God`s hands. We waited an additional 3 hours as they tried
to find another plane for us. A prayer
chain back home was praying for all of our luggage and us to arrive safely. Thank you board members and family and
friends. As we sat in Nairobi I was able to pray and perform 1st aid for a mom
and her baby. A distracted older mom needing her coffee, had spilled coffee all
over her baby's head. Rushing with a
water bottle, I poured cold water on the burn and we kept patting her head,
neck and shoulders with baby wipes someone had told me was good to take on the
airplane and they sure came in handy. My
heart broke as I saw guilt on her face.
I asked if I could pray, she said YES and we prayed for complete healing
for her baby. Within the hour what
should have been a sever burn because of the scalding coffee slowly got soaked
up in my wet ones and no red marks were left.
As we continued to wait patiently I noticed the same lady from Dar es
Salaam crying and moaning. I couldn't keep
a distance any longer. I asked her if I
could offer some pain meds for her (I carried some T3's). Crying and wailing she told me God had
forsaken her. She had just lost her 19
year old son. He had drowned in a friends swimming pool. My heart and soul cried with her as I thought
of one of my precious children the same age.
Praying with her and holding her for the next several hours my heart
broke. Her pain was almost
unbearable. The pain to lose a loved
one. Again asking if I could pray, she
said yes. Soon we had other Godly people
comforting and praying with her. We held
her, we prayed, we cried and I prayed for my children and their safety.
Finally a plane was located.
YIKES. Oh I knew God was with us,
but when I saw the line of rusty bolts on the wings I really wondered. I was being challenged on every flight more
and more. As we lifted in this plane
every section shook and everyone was tense, but there was joy and a smile for
me. I knew God had a purpose and a plane
(plan, sorry my sad humour) I don`t
think I have ever seen such a bucket of rust.
Landing in Malawi my feet were filled with excitement. Coming thru customs was a moment from God.
The love in our hearts as we met Rio was incredible. Holding my new precious son, I was filled
with joy. We had prayed for this moment
and The God of Love was there with us.
Pure joy. Only God can produce a
bonding like this so fast. We have come
to know this little bundle of joy. He is
very confident already of our love. Rio
loves the camera and loves to sing and dance.
Rio saw Stephanie making face on Skype and is practicing hard to do the
same faces. This morning I saw him
looking in the mirror and practicing and couldn't stop laughing. He shares cuddle time every morning with Mama
and Papa. What a joy. I cannot describe how I feel. I have prayed that God who is the Father of
Love, whose character is love, that He would create in our hearts a love for Rio
as if he was our very own flesh and blood. God has done this. My doubts and fears try to sometimes jump up
and say "what if" the adoption doesn't come thru. But then I claim my confidence in God and am
confident of my God and have to say He is faithful, when He plants this love,
He will complete His work. Thank you so
much Father. Some may think
"why" would you do this? You
can sit back, travel, enjoy life, enjoy grandchildren (which we will do also).
But why at 51 would you start over. I
cannot explain it. We have prayed to
never retire, to grow as His children, to serve His purpose, to give more love,
and God has done that. Thank you Father, because the rewards are incredible
blessings. What joy to hear his little
voice sing "mama "papa"
A day at Agape or a week.
For the past 2 weeks we have had water issues on or off due to a broken
line down the road. Yesterday we were faced with water cut-off due
to lack of funds. The problems: supporting just under a 100 people with no
water for toilets, baby bottles, cooking the majority of our food with water
such as nsemia and beans and rice, water for laundry, cleaning and let me say
again toilets. We have several washrooms
inside the home and 2 outhouses. These
outhouses are not set up like Canadian outhouses that we use for camp-sites.
These have the opening at ground level.
Agape Home: We house
14 staff, and approx. 69 children give or take.
In Malawi we have Primary School - Standards 1-8, Secondary Form 1-4
(high school), and college or university. Each child here knows that there hope
is with God and His provision and secondly in education. Our children in
secondary school all aspire to be doctors, lawyers, social workers, accountants
and teachers and one stewardess. As I interviewed each one individually I saw a
future for Agape as well. What God will
use this generation for, will be amazing. Children who are single or double
orphans, whose parents are so poor that they give them up because they cannot
feed or maintain them. We are in a 3rd world country still where your gas for
car or bus rides can eat up your earnings very quickly as you travel back and
forth to work.
Our grades 1-6 we switched into a local school, Katola, that
has over 800 students and no desks. We
did this because the walk to the other school was too much for our young
children. They get up early from 6:00
and eat breakfast and start the walk to school at 6:30. They have a 20-30 minute walk.
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| The long road to school |
Our grade 7-8 have just under a 1 hour walk to Magwero
Primary School. They are tired often by
the time they get to school.
Nothing is wasted here. Used tires are for sale on the side
of the road. The truth of Malawi is that
things are very expensive here. The
basic necessities for an orphanage are hard to provide. Shampoo, cream rinse, deodorant and soap are
luxuries. Vaseline for skin is a
necessity. We would be blessed to have
some cupboards. The few we have are made from rough lumber. We share our kitchen with 8-9 small beds of
which 2 little heads sleep in each bed. Our young pre-teen girls sleep packed
in a room. Nannies share rooms also with the littlest ones they are in charge
of. The boys quarters has no power or
plumbing and they are packed in their rooms, sharing a bed. This is another change I want to make very
quickly. One night this past week someone from one of the villages was throwing
stones at the boys quarters, scaring them. With no lights, no power, they sit in
darkness, thinking who is it? The boys
quarters are separated from the main house, and the main house has a inner bar
in front of the door for the protection of the girls. So if they are scared they suffer thru it,
without power and water. We do have 3 older staff members there, so hopefully
that gives a little comfort that an adult is there. With teenage boys and girls
we have to keep their quarters separated.
Thinking of my children
and when they got scared at nights, they had their parents presence in the
house, they had power to turn a light on.
Would we have rooms without power and electricity for our children and
would we keep our boys outside with no lights, electricity or bathrooms. I wish I could open eyes for this orphanage
here. I am asking God for the words to
share with you.
We have no hot water at all at Agape and if you wish to have
a mini bath you boil 2 buckets of water for 2 inches in a tub to wash and clean
your body and hair. We share our rooms
with geckos and other small friendly and not so lovely bugs. Michael has named
our gecko friends Fred and Barney and now we also have a Pebbles. We feel very privileged
that the room we share is a good size room which we share with Rio and my
office. Our future plan is to determine
how this could be better used for the orphanage with maybe a office, the
matron`s room and possible future library.
We have a ugly shower which doesn't work, (No showers work here)
unpainted walls, a nice bathtub, which we cannot fill, because of no hot water
or water pressure and a toilet with 1 plug on the seat that comes undone all
the time and you get to slide, every time you go to the bathroom. I finally on my 5th week here bought a new
toilet seat, as you cannot just buy the plugs for the seat. In the rest of the orphanage there is no plugs
at all for any toilet seats, so most are used without toilet seats or
lids. There are no bathrooms in the boys
quarters. It would be lovely to have a
hot water tank here. We have 2 outhouses
outside (unlike Canadian camping outhouses) where the hole or opening is at
ground level.
Serving so many people the challenges become water, food, education,
personal hygiene such as shampoo, deodorants, soap, laundry soap, pots &
pans, and dishes and utensils for the kids and staff.
Riding the buses: For
a cheap ride into town you get to squeeze into a van with roughly 20 others. Single
mini bus ride into town are 300 Kwacha's each. Ride back in taxi with supplies
7000-15000 kwacha's dependent on gas availability and price. These are the
mini-buses. Gas is at a premium so for
supplies you take a life or death ride on the mini-bus and catch a cab back if
you have supplies. It has become of
prime importance to get our van fixed.
Our van is a whole other story but maybe a picture will better describe
it. A very kind pastor from the village
has helped us with the mechanical end. Coming on Saturday we had the privilege
of seeing our very practical Pastor Fraser helping us. What a wonderful man. I have grown to love this humble and kind
pastor. He spent a day with us looking
in "Indian Town" (don't know why they call it this name) We went to many stores getting quotes. He was very careful with our kwacha's. We stayed outside of the shops (shanties)
because otherwise the prices became white man's prices. The price range for the carburetor ranged
from 92000 kwacha's down to 32000. Fuel
pump and oil and other parts all ranged in different prices. We now have a van up and running. Then we had
to spend another 76000 kwacha's on 2 new tires, and just got a ticket the other
day because we need to get one more tire.
Prejudice is alive in Malawi. A crazy man saw me sitting with Rio on my lap
and came screaming "no black and white" "no black and
white". Michael experienced this as
well at our soccer match when a drunk was walking by saying the same
thing.
In Malawi the majority of homes have fences and wire on top
of the fences. Security is
everywhere. Parking lots of malls and
almost every home has several security guards. We are use to our freedom and so
seeing so many security guards everywhere is something else. But Malawi is
known as the `warm heart of Africa' and it truly is warm. I love the people here and the warm climate.
Some of the children here do not feel safe because Agape is
out in the country with no fence. The
children in standard 7 & 8 have a long walk to school every day. Crazy men who hide in the cornfields and have
killed passerby's before have made our children very nervous to walk every day
here. They have a 45 minute walk their
and another 45 minute walk back. They
tell me of their very tired legs. The younger children we have changed to a
more local school in the village. This
is about a 20 minute walk their and back.
This school has no desks and has around 882 students. Michael went to meet the principal on Tuesday
and I went to meet him on Thursday. Our children
at Agape know God is with them. This
school houses primary students from Standard 1-8, but we have kept our grade
7`s and 8`s in Magwero School which is a 45 minute walk every day there and
then back again. I feel for the sake of
safety for our younger children, we have stepped back in education for these
younger children, but they can still learn to the best of their abilities.
All our teens go to boarding school. If you do well in school the government tells
you which secondary school to go to. The
highest marks hopefully selected to the better schools. School fees can change very quickly as
well. To send our girls with one small
package of pads for 3 months. This is
not fair. My heart breaks for these very
small things we take for granted.
We have 2 guards at night patrolling our orphanage. Security means a presence, not guns. We had to go and buy flashlights. We didn't
have much money left so 1 flashlight each for them. Security is at stores as
well so show your receipts as you leave.
Cooking Food: our
cook Nelson is incredible. He wakes up
and his job starts at 3 in the morning if he is cooking with charcoal. Due to environmental concerns with all the
charcoal, we now cook with wood. When
cooking with wood, Nelson gets up at 4 instead of 3. Charcoal takes much longer to burn. He gets
the fire ready and starts making the porridge for the children. Vita meal is their breakfast meal and he
starts cooking. The children are up and
eating from 6-6:30 depending on the school they go to and are gone between 6:30
- 7. A new custom will start now with
tea served at 9:30 for the staff. Nelson then starts preparing the next batch
of food for lunchtime. The children get
home from school at different times starting at 11:00-12:00 and lunch is served
at 1:30. Then tea for the staff again at 2:30 and then supper preparation
starts between 3:00-4:00. Our children
then eat at 6:00. Bed time on school days ranges from 8:00-8:30. On Saturdays our children get a sleep in and
are eating at 8:00 in the morning. The
amount of time consumption for food preparation for 80+ people is huge and
Nelson and his wife do a good job.
I wondered if much has been done during the time I have been
here, but then changing routines and retraining staff has its own incredible
challenges. Some of the great changes is
seeing the children getting hugs. There is much joy, here but an underlying
need for hugs and affection. In each orphaned child's heart is the need to be
loved and affirmed. Now after worship
and praise, I tell the children to find 3 people to hug and tell them you love
them. With such joy in my heart, the first time this was done, each child could
not stop the hugs. The children started singing with pure joy and we started
the train of love that night. The need for
love and hugs is huge here and they do not stop with 3 people knowing they are
loved, but everyone. The room is pure chaos, but a very good chaos.
Another big break-thru is seeing the children tables all set
up in the house instead of the garage. This change took place last Saturday and each house mom now
sits with her children at a table conversing with them and asking how their day
is going. Much more work needs to be
done in this area, but we are on Malawi time and everything takes time to
change. I love seeing the children now eating as a family instead of a
free-for-all. We then end the day with
praise and worship.  |
| Now eating inside and the kids love it |
Today they got to sing for Canada and some of the students
at Devon Christian School. I think they
were in shock when they saw the rich classroom(this not rich according to
Canadian standards) They saw bookshelves in a library and desks, blackboards and
lockers outside in the hallway. It was a
joy for them to sing to their Canadian new friends and they love to show their
singing abilities.
Today being another holiday the kids got to follow Gertrude
in one of her activities calling out follow the leader. Many happy faces complied. Then came time to do a short page of activity
and rounding off with teaching the Lord's prayer in English. We don't have many toys here so we entertain ourselves with games that are simple.
Nsema is a bland food made from crushed corn maize
flour. It is a thick white paste like
glue and has no taste. This is a staple food they eat and is eaten with your
hands.
Red beans is cooked for a variety change from maze as well
as rice.
Vita meal is a vitamin supplemented porridge they receive
from a company who is caring for the orphans and poor in Malawi to sustain them
with a vitamin enriched porridge and they eat this every morning with tons of
sugar (which is also in high demand here in Malawi.
Soya pieces for meat a few times during the month is a necessary
break with fish once in a while as well.
Everything is spiced up with salt, tomatoes, and
unions. They do not understand me not
wanting salt in our food, or nsema or sugar in my porridge. For fresh fruit we
buy bananas in front of our orphanage
from the ladies, the trouble is to be far to all, we have to buy equal amounts
from each lady. 5 kwacha's each and we
buy for a 100 so we usually buy for 1000 kwacha's - 200 bananas (twice we have
bought for a treat)
Every day is an incredible life changing event. We had to hire an exterminator because the attic had many bees coming out of it. Some girls were getting bee stings. The exterminator pulled out 2 massive pails full of bee hives.
Last night I was on my knees praying for encouragement. Asking Father please help with the finances
here for these children. Today I went
about our day, as it was a national holiday here in Malawi. We walked to the front of our driveway and as
we were almost out of food, and decided to treat the kids to bananas for a
snack. The ladies sell their bananas in
front of the Agape sign. Buying 200
bananas, I returned home. Looking up a short
while later, I see 5 or 6 Caucasian men walking towards me. Mam, we are from Louisiana
and we stopped to buy bananas in front of your place. Can we come and preach to the kids for a
short minute. I asked what denomination
they were and they said Mam we are from Louisiana Baptist Church. May we pray with you. I would say that was encouragement. I am always surprised at how and who God uses to give encouragment.
I love the subtropical climate we experience here in Malawi. The weather has been wonderful. We sit in our short sleeve tops. The sunsets
are amazing.
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| magazine left over from someone is used over and over |
Today skinned by an inch, God has His hand of protection on
us as we nearly had a head on collision.
Out here I have learned to close my eyes and just trust that God will
take care of us.
Yesterday I asked God to help me assess whether we should
stay at a location just outside of Lilongwe or move once again with all these
children. Still waiting on God for the
answers.
After waiting on God and cleaning up some issues, today was
the day. I woke up, and where there was no plan, all of a sudden it was God`s
push. Have a staff meeting. Today again
started a new day for Agape. The
foundation of God`s ownership and protection and blessings and obedience to Him
was once again stressed. Today we all
reviewed the covenant of working together as God`s family. This was discussed
in great detail. There was much joy and
praise. WE lift up this orphanage to God
and how He has watched over every person. There is much thankfulness and hugs
as they have been praying for this day.
So much has happened from this day on as well, but I will
leave those thoughts for another day. God bless and thank you Jesus for this
day of life you give. May your name be exalted. Love and hugs Ingrid
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| brooms |
