Tea time

We like to go to this tea garden every now and then. It's not far from where we live and mom can enjoy a cup of tea while the kids play on the jungle gyms.

Soccer in our ceiling...

That's what it sounds like, anyway. We have zapped 5 rats so far with the amazing Leboffe Rat Zapper. When they're up there scurrying around, it sounds like they're kicking a ball to each other. Fun for them, but not for us, keeps us awake and we don't know if they're carrying disease as well. We still have at least one of them up there, who we think is not taking the bait since he's seen all his buddies get electrocuted on the zap mat.

Chitenje

A chitenje is the multi-purpose, can't do without, colourful piece of material every Malawian woman has got!

It's a rectangular piece of fabric about 2m by 3m. It is used as a wrap over a skirt, to carry children, as a shawl in the cold or rain, and as a head wrapping. All the village women wear them. They are less common in the city, as professional women wear uniforms or current western fashions.

Some of the girls on the Ahtanum team brought their own pieces of fabric from the US with them. Before they returned home they sorted through their things and decided to leave their US chitenjes behind. None of the locals claimed them and so some cute girls asked if they may have them and have worn them on more than one occasion already:)

Go Holland

Bradley loves his hand-me downs matching Holland shorts and t-shirt. Maybe he'll play for Holland one day, you never know...

We still play tennis every Sat morning and the older two are getting better slowly.

Sand and sun

We went with the Ahtanum team to the lake for their debrief. We had a super time. The food was great and the weather was gorgeous. You'd never say we were in the middle of winter.

Ben playing in the sand.

Allison's attempt at a sand angel.

Moping Bradley who has stitches in his toe! He was not supposed to be on the sand :( He split his toe open when a chair fell on top of it. Ouch!

Blue-eyed baby!

My beau on the beach.

Ahtanum

The day after the high school team left we had another team arrive. They are from Ahtanum in Washington. They did a VBS for the children from our church and it went well in spite of the fact that the country was experiencing riots in all the major cities. The team was kept safe and even though they had to cancel some of their work with the village church they still managed to share the gospel with many folk. We enjoyed having them with us.

Having lunch together on the day before they left to go home.

The whole team from Ahtanum Pioneer Church.

Mice cream

Remove one already prepared mouse for eating from his line of friends.

Place already prepared mouse in a cone and cover completely with vanilla ice cream so as to deceive the partaker aka the team leader.

Have partaker in a good position so all can see as he licks away.

When partaker realizes he is going for a mouse, everyone laughs uncontrollably.

Partaker passes on the challenge to a team member. Daniel ate the entire mice cream and was awarded a second helping at dinnertime and first in line to dish up.

The only daring damsel to eat a furry rodent.

A great try. I like Emily's expression in the background.

Jake peeled off the fur and managed a couple bites.

Taylor had some fur left on his tongue.

Those who eat an entire mouse are rewarded with another cone.

Team Work

Cousin Jake and Matt painting beams for the roof.

Daniel, Ashlynn and Tanner working too.

Jessica washing my dishes.

Grant helping Ami with her piano practise.

July 4th

We celebrated together with the high school team and the residents of ABC campus. The high school team especially enjoyed the fireworks. They bought some in town and were just thrilled at the thought of setting them off themselves. It is against the law in California to set off your own fireworks. Some fireworks pretty good and the team got a kick out of putting one or two little fires out which started as well...oops!

Uncle Sam's hats for dessert with ice cream

Fireworks and sparklers for the kids. They loved this.

Jenny, a high school team member with her very first sparkler. She was really happy:)

Our matching t-shirts sponsored by aunt Lisa.

GCC High School Team

Grace Community Church in Sun Valley sent a high school team of 22 kids with 4 leaders to support the ministry here in Lilongwe. For about two weeks, they worked on various projects like revamping bathrooms on the ABC campus, adding a roof onto the back porch of our house and church office and building a wall around the church plant in the Mtsiliza village. What a delightful group of young people! They were such an encouragement and a blessing. Our nephew, Jake Biedebach from Texas joined the team on their flights and stayed with us for the time they were here too. The kids don't really know their cousin and so it was great that he could spend time with us and get to see what life is like here in Malawi.

Jared, Sheller, Robert,Brooke, Katelynn and Erin.

Katelynn and Brooke. I watched both these girls work really hard!

The team singing at church during the offering. They sounded heavenly!