Sing It . . .

Here is a little video of the children's choir at the church we attend in Lichinga. We thought everyone would like a little taste of church in Africa.

New Friends in Muembe...

Well our second week in Muembe went much better than the first. We at least had silverware and we arrived in the morning rather than late afternoon and we even remembered a broom, so things went smoother. It is still hard getting used to cooking everything over a fire and hauling water from the well, but we are starting to get things figured out. I know we need to start lunch by 10 am and dinner by 3pm and we need to have the kids bathed by 5pm, so everything is on a tight schedule ruled by the light of day. We are in the shortest days of the year here now, so it is dark by 5:30pm.

We are really starting to see the benefits of learning Chiyao there. We had some great talks with Mateus and just having his kids around all the time, we hear a lot of Chiyao. Even if a lot of people know Portuguese, you never hear it, so it is a good setting to learn in. The kids spent a lot of time with Mateus' kids this last week and have become great friends with them. I have included a bunch of pictures of them. We are now home for the weekend to do laundry and buy some more supplies to take out with us and we will be returning sunday or monday.

Tim is going to be leading the evangelism/discipleship group out in Caia today, so please be praying for him. Hopefully we will also be setting up a date for the baptism of the new 5 believers there! He will also be leading a Bible study in Muembe in the next few weeks.

Here is Kallen getting a bath. She loves her baths!

At one point we about 20 kids in our quintal(fenced in area). They all stand outside our gate and watch us all day, but we hung up a hammock and everyone wanted to try it out. We let a few kids in and within a few minutes, we had almost the entire village(of kids) waiting for a turn. We eventually had to send them home, because it was a little bit crazy and I was afraid someone was going to get hurt. Of course everyday after that they all wanted to come in again. It is hard to know how to set limits and boundaries, because if you allow too much freedom, we could really be taken advantage of, but we also want to be friendly. We have decided that Mateus' kids are allowed in at anytime and they can bring over one or two friends if they want, but we can't do the whole village again:)

Here is Traeger playing ball with Rosa, Graca, Linda, Miseria, and a couple other kids. Mateus has 8 children, so there are always plenty of kids to play with.

Here is Traeger play fighting with a neighbor kid.

Karis coloring with "the girls". Rosa and Linda are in the green and tan, they are Mateus' daughters. Miseria is in the Maroon and she is a neighbor girl and her sister is the baby named Sheylah. Miseria has the baby all day while her mom is busy working in the fields or pounding corn. It amazing the responsibility these kids have at such a young age.

Traeger and Karis with Graca. Graca is Mateus' 7 year old daughter.

Traeger and Graca just sitting in a tree, playing house.

Karis even ventured out on her own and made some friends. It's harder for her, because she doesn't speak Portuguese like Traeger does. But I have been impressed with her courage to talk to some kids on her own.

We even watched a little veggie tales in Portuguese one day.

Playing Futebol in the campo (field).

Malawi...

Hard to believe we have been in Mozambique for over 3 months now. We have all been missing home lately. We've heard the three month mark is when homesickness hits. So it was nice to have a change of senery and visit Malawi for a week. We had to get Kallen's 9 month vaccinations and wanted to do a little shopping for things we cannot purchase in Mozambique, so we took a trip to Malawi. We had a great time and Kallen is now all caught up on her vaccinations, so it was profitable. We are now here in Lichinga for a few days and then Saturday we head back out to Muembe.

This picture is actually of a princess birthday party Karis attended before we left for Malawi. There are a lot of little girls here, unfortunately for Traeger, there are very few boys.
Here a picture of one of our first views of Malawi. It has so much more infostructure than Mozambique. It is amazing the difference as you cross the boarder, all the streets are paved, houses made of bricks instead of mud and a lot more tin roofs and buildings. The minimum wage in Mozambique is actually higher than Malawi and the cost of living is higher in Mozambique, but because of the war, there is so little infostructure in Mozambique, so Malawi seems so much richer.

Karis got bit by a dog(the gash under her eye) on our first stop in Malawi, luckily the dog was owned by some missionaries and has had all it's shots, so we didn't need to worry about rabies or anything.

Here is Kallen at exactly 9 months old, enjoying the beach in Malawi.

There were monkeys that roamed all throughout the property where we stayed. They often would come and play right in front of our room.

The kids throwing the monkeys bread.

Here we are in front of our room.

Kallen's first swimming experience. She really did enjoy the water, once she got used to it.