Cape Town to Blantyre, Malawi

Sweet, earnest little faces listening to Timothy.  

At this school, Paul was only scheduled to speak to the big kids, but he sneaked in two short messages to the little guys while he waited for the big ones.  

I don't know what this flowering plant is, but it looks like a set of miniature watermelons.  

I think this is the smallest church we went to, meeting in a classroom.  

 Apparently I've got nothing to say about life in Cape Town, because I've posted nothing since our last trip.  Or maybe it's just that I've been using my Instagram account a lot more than this blog.  I think it's that, because Cape Town life is definitely interesting. 

This trip deserves to be immortalized on the blog though.  It's supposed to be LONG!  (2 1/2 months!) and already we've been having adventures.

Four or five countries are to be visited.  The first country and the last country are South Africa. I wouldn't count it if we were just driving through, but we have meetings scheduled on the way back, long before we get home, so it counts. Next is Botswana, then Zambia, and for sure Malawi.  Mozambique is the one we're wondering about.  It depends on the visas.  

Paul and I left Cape Town and buzzed right through to Kimberly the first day.  One memorable thing was that we prayed we'd find a place to stay that night without a long search.  The Lord granted us that request in that it was one of the fastest we've ever found a place.  We just pulled off the road, saw a place around the corner, went and asked the price, and settled in, just as the sun was setting!  We were able to take a little walk to Pick N Pay for a few groceries we needed, and do a few other jobs before we just went to bed early.  (That has become a theme for this trip:  Just get to bed early! 😁)

Another thing I hope I remember about this trip is our audio books.  It was coming down to the wire, time was running out, and I hadn't rustled up much to read in the car.  When you're going to be putting in 12 hrs. of driving in a day, audio books are such a wonderful help to pass the time.  

I prayed that I'd find something.  the Jeep only has a CD player, as it's a 2006, and CD's are not just everywhere around.  On Friday morning, I had to go get it registered as July is the month to renew.  That was amazing. I was in and out in 8 minutes!!!  I was so excited about the efficiency I was texting local friends to exalt about that!  Other years I have spent hours, and made multiple trips to accomplish the same thing.  I couldn't believe I was still in Africa!  

I had the whole morning blocked off for that, so suddenly I had free hours!  I headed for Midas and get them to change those little lifts that hold the glass half of the rear door up...we were tired of getting hit in the head by that thing.  And we're all so glad it stays up now.  (Going to do the same to the hood when we get home!  It's now falling too.)

Midas is only a block away from my FAVORITE second hand  bookstore, so when they were quick at Midas too, I stopped in to see if the Lord would favor me with audio books.  It seemed it had to be an answer to prayer because I always check for audio books and it has been months (years, maybe?) since I found one to buy.  That day, I went to 2 second hand bookstores and found SEVEN!!!  I felt (and feel!) blessed!  They are on all different topics, even one on math or finances, but, so far, they have done the job of making the miles go by faster. 

Day two we crossed into Botswana with a bit of irritation at the border crossing.  They make you have a PCR test, plus a second "rapid test" at the border, and you get to pay for the treat.  And we had to start wearing masks again.  South Africa was recently liberated of masks, so this felt like a step back into the dark ages.  On the other hand, border crossings are the excitement in the journey, and a nice break from the car where we can pass out tracts while we get our kinks out.  

Other than that, Botswana was a treat.  We found a place to sleep in Gabarone and stayed put for the whole week, from the 4th-9th.  We went prospecting for schools on the 5th, and got 6 schools, though Paul had to speak about 15 times because some of them divided into smaller groups because of Covid. 

On Saturday we headed straight north through Northern Botswana, finally crossing into Zambia around 8pm, just wanting to get to bed.  We didn't see as many animals as usual, I suppose because of the time of day, but we did see one elephant shortly before the border.  We found a place to stay quite late, but were pleased.  We had been there before.

Sunday we made a leisurely start, thinking we only had about 3 hours of driving.  Imagine our shock when we discovered it was more like 8 hours to go!  We were going to visit some new friends, the Myburgh family.  We met them the last time we were in Lusaka, Zambia, and they invited us to visit their  home on the Zambezi River.  

That visit was memorable!  Garden of Eden comes to mind when I think of what they have done with that wilderness area.  We could hear hippos splashing and grunting in the river from our cottage they gave us to sleep in.  We saw herds of elephants across the river on the Zimbabwe side.  I kept scanning for crocs, but was OK with never seeing any.  

The Myburghs are delightful, and we especially love their 2 little girls and baby.  Their girls wrote me more than 70 notes/pictures during the week we first met them in Lusaka.  We left there after 2 nights, refreshed and ready to head into Lusaka, which really was only a 3 hour drive away.  

In Lusaka we stayed at the Brethren missionary guest house.  I love missionary guest houses.  You meet the neatest people!  And they have all had good libraries where I can find my favorite genre of books:  missionary stories!  And they tend to have NICE washing machines!!!  This one did.  

We had a day to regroup, and then the week began with FOUR churches on Sunday!  We'd drive in, listen to a song or two, and then Paul was on.  He'd speak and draw about 15 minutes or 20, and then we went on to another one.  None of these were big, mainstream churches, but "AIC" churches which means African Initiated Churches, of various sizes.  

At one church, a pastor greeted me (teasingly, I assume) by saying, "You are a professional driver."  Wouldn't you know, that's the church where I drove into a foundation trench and got the Jeep stuck and had to be pushed out by 5 guys.  So professional.  😆

Pastor Joseph Phiri was our guide, planner, and translator for the time in Lusaka, and he kept us hopping!  I think we averaged 5 schools a day, which is remarkable as most schools were having exams of some sorts.  The smallest one was about 50 people, and the largest had 3000, though I think we may have "only" seen 2000 of them.  

On Wednesday of that week, Tim flew in from the States!  Yippee!  He'd been gone a month.  We were at schools when his flight came so we sent a taxi after him.  We gave him the whole day off to recuperate (so generous), then Thursday he had to begin taking meetings.  Paul was really tired, and beginning to have symptoms that were scaring me.  

Tim took more than half the load for Thursday and Friday.  Paul got dizzy and almost fell during one meeting, and then was even more willing to let Tim preach.  Thankfully, he could rest all day Saturday and was raring to go again Sunday.  

Monday we left Lusaka and drove about 6 hours to the first pastors' conference in Sinda, which is on the way to Malawi.  Sinda was a first.  In the morning session, Paul preached to the pastors, while Tim and I were sent out to 3 schools, all arranged within the last 24 hours, or maybe within the last 24 minutes in some cases.  Rather impromptu.  At the second one, we were told we could only have the little guys as the big ones were in exams, but the big ones came anyway.  I'm not sure how they escaped, or maybe had a break.  Whatever, we were glad to see them.  

Paul loved his pastors group.  They seemed to delight in his drawings and the object lessons he taught them.  Some of his object lessons don't use objects, they use people and anyone could do them.  The pastors entered in enthusiastically.  

We had a 2 hour drive from Sinda to the border, so we spent the first few minutes telling each other about our meetings.  We were all enthused.  We ate lunch in the car, Tim making the sandwiches, I drove, and Paul managed the audio books.  

The border crossing was not that happy.  It took about three hours.  We got lectured three times by the visa people for not doing our visas before we came (they have changed policy since we were here last.) The boss called me a liar when I said I hadn't seen that requirement.  In truth, I had just checked Covid requirements, so we had our fresh PCR tests in hand and thought we were good to go.  I was close to tears, angry tears, not sad.  Lines were long and some people had neglected to learn how to wait properly in a line, when they were in kindergarten.  It was a frustrating interruption to our journey, but finally we were allowed inside Malawi after paying carbon tax, immigration fees, toll fee, TIP, and insurance and maybe some other stuff.  

We had hoped to get to Lilongwe, but we were too tired.  We took the first decent place we saw to sleep, and pulled in.  When the electricity went off at 7:30 pm, we took that as guidance and went to sleep, no complaints from us.  

The next day, we thought we'd be in Blantyre, Malawi, by about 2:30 in the afternoon, or maybe 3:00.  Not so!  We got involved in a protest in a town on a mountain pass and had to pull over to wait it out while they burned things and blocked the road and threw stones and bricks.  The army was shooting into the air, at least as far as we saw.

During the waiting time, Paul went into action passing out tracts.  No one else seemed too fussed to be waiting, but after over an hour, we tried going a back way through dirt roads. It worked, but took us an hour and a half, and after that the Jeep kept overheating.  We had to put many gallons of water into it to nurse it along the last hour to Blantyre, and finally arrived around 6:30 pm, with a fresh new dent in the Jeep from where we had a rock or brick thrown at us.  

Sweet relief!  We were tired from the drive, the excitement of the rock throwing incident, and the hard driving.  We are so thankful to have made it this far, and thankful to the McGrath family for letting us stay in their cottage behind their house.  Again, we had a day to regroup, get our phones working again in a new country, buy food (!), and wash clothes.  

Today, Friday, is the first pastor's conference, and 7 more are scheduled after this.  We're loving the people we meet.  

This man was taking a picture of us and church leaders, so I snapped a picture of him and his wondering little buddies.  

Paul and Tim were with this group in March or April too.  They are at least partially orphans.  

This small Christian school was a thankfully tranquil group at the end of a long day when we were tired.  

About 120 very well behaved children...

and perhaps the secret is here.  

This group had the sun in their eyes, but they listened pretty well and many prayed at the end.  

What an opportunity!  Loving my guy's go-get-'em attitude!  

I attracted my own crowd while waiting in the Jeep before a service in the school with 3000.  The kids were ultra friendly.  

The Headmaster's Office

Maybe 1000 students here.  I couldn't back up to get everyone into the picture.  

This school was so friendly.  It was Tim's first one back, and he loved that they gave us fizzy drinks at the end.  

King's Sparkle School had an indoor assembly!  They were super friendly and invited us to come again whenever we can.  

Notice the winter hats and  Paul's got a jacket on.  It's winter here now, and it gets colder than you might think in the tropics.  

Please pray for us!  We're loving this opportunity, but we feel our frailty of body and moods and our car too.  We know we need the Holy Spirit to use us, and we are thankful for how He has guided.  
It doesn't look like we'll be able to get into Mozambique without some kind of miracle, yet Pastor Matthias has a pastor's conference scheduled there, so we ask for prayer.  

Any questions?  We've been in Africa now for 20 years, and I'm forgetting what is worth sharing with others as I get so used to some of it.