Day 1 of mission week (July 6th)

Today the US group arrived in Embangweni. They pulled up to the guest house in about 5 SUVs, nicer than the majority of vehicles in all of Embangweni I would say, so I don’t think we will be riding the motorbike as much this week : ) There are about 20 people, including some staff from WR Malawi, so it’s nice to see some familiar faces from the office as well. First thing to happen when they arrived was to unload the luggage, but no room for their stuff, soo...my room it was! Seriously, the luggage of 20 people in my room, it was a little overcrowded lol

The people I have gotten to know so far are the 3 that are working with the child development program here, or who I will be around for most of the week. Owen, Deborah, and a couple other WR people are also in the bunch, so we’ll be together for training the caregivers. Today we just observed at the childcare center at Mtuzuzu, one of the nicer and well-equipped centers that WR works with. It was different getting there in a car, a very packed car, than on a motorbike, seemed to go a bit slower, but it was fun to get to know people and spend a little more time looking around : ) but overall I would say I prefer the motorbike out of the two. When we finally arrived at Mtuzuzu class hadn’t started yet, so we spent some time playing with all the kids and talking. After that we observed the class and returned to the guest house with the other group members. This week there are four groups – our childcare group, a group working on building a pig house, a pastor’s training group, and a bible study group. I think our group is one of the best : ) of course. Reflecting on this day, I was a bit skeptical about the week, but through God’s grace it has been absolutely wonderful and a great learning opportunity and time for fellowship. Now onto day 2!