Robby and Naty’s Africa Weblog

Hello all.  First off, I want to say that if you have received/ receive an email from me that says, “Dear sir/madam” it is NOT from me, so do not open it.

This week was the Fresh Fire conference at Kairos.  It was supposed to start Wednesday night, but the son of the headmaster of the school where we have the church passed away and we were not able to start that night because of the funeral.  So we started Thurday night, and had meetings Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning and afternoon.  The highlight, I would say, was the meeting Saturday afternoon, which was a show put together by some of the youth in the church.  It was hip hop show, and then Pastor Felix spoke.  There were probably around 175 young people, and most of them were impacted alot by the show.

Some of the guys from the church are pretty good; they have just come out with a new Christian hip hop cd.  One of them, David, was actually a recording artist before becoming a Christian, and had recorded and written songs with 50 Cent and for Playstation video games.   I played guitar with the Kairos Praize team, and also gave a short message on Friday night. Naty was in charge of the kids.

This coming week, Naty and I will be heading to Blantyre to be with Pastor Willie Chaponda of Mustard Seed Ministries.  One of the things we will be doing is working in the villages in a predominately Muslim part of Malawi.  We will need your prayers for protection, both physical and spiritual.  Pastor Chaponda has told us that witchcraft is very present in these villages, so I’m sure we will have some interesting experiences to share afterwards.

This week we were finally able to purchase the plates for Ministry of Hope.  Thanks to all the generous contributions, we were able to buy 700 plates!! Praise God!  On Wednesday morning, Naty was able to go and buy the plates, and Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, we were able to pass them out to 6 different centers.  They gave 116 new plates to each center…after 8 YEARS of using the same ones.  They were very thankful for 2 reasons: the new CLEAN plates, and also some of the centers did not have enough for all the kids, so some of the kids would have to wait for others to finish.

Most of my week was spent helping prepare for  the “Fresh Fire” conference coming up this week, and going to the feeding centers with Naty.  Saturday, I finished teaching the English class.  It went well, and we were able to get through the 600 page book in the 2 days that we were given.  I did not lose my voice this week! Sunday, we went to church, and I was able to play guitar in the afternoon service.

Thursday, Naty finished up her last Nutrition session with the cooks from the last center.  On Saturday, Naty was able to give a women’s bible study at the church.  About a week ago, we met another Tica (Costa Rican) on the street here, and she and Naty spent time together Saturday, including going to the Bible study.  Sunday, Naty again did Sunday School for the kids and 17 kids came…about double the normal attendance!

This coming week Kairos Ministries will need your prayers as they are having a conference from Wednesday through Sunday.  The “Fresh Fire” conference is being held to empower the people to be a witness here in Lilongwe.  There will be 5 or 6 different praise teams and speakers and we need your prayers that the people who go will really be encouraged to be bold witnesses in their different spheres of influence in this part of the world.  After the conference, Naty and I will be returning with one of the speakers, Pastor Willie Choponda, to spend a week in Blantyre, a city about 4 hours south of Lilongwe.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support! God bless!

It’s amazing to think that we left the States 2 months ago, and even more amazing to think that we left our home in Santa Cruz almost 4 months ago!!  We thank God for this time, and all of you who have made it possible for us to do this.

This past week has been a week of firsts.

Tuesday, I attended a typical Malawian funeral.  It was held first at the house of the person who had passed away, then moved to an Anglican church.  It’s interesting that death is much more evident here than anywhere else we’ve been.  Everyday, we hear that so and so’s relative has died, or that there is a funeral that needs to be attended.  When someone passes away, it is normal for the whole community to come out, especially in the villages.  If someone does not attend who expected to attend, it is seen as though that person had something to do with the death (it has to do alot with witchcraft etc.).

This week Amibilike, Pastor Felix 6 week old son, had to have an emergency hernia surgery.  We praise God that all went well and he is back in the house.  Ambilike was born about 5 weeks early, and had been doing well. Last week, however, he started crying and didn’t stop for almost a day and a half.  When they took him to the doctor, they diagnosed it as a hernia, and he went into surgery that night.  We thank everybody for their prayers this week.

Another first for me was teaching a class at Kairos Leadership Institute and Theological Seminary (KLITS).  It was the English class, which I’m not too passionate about, but it is needed for these guys to be able to write papers that make sense to the reader as well as the writer.  It seemed to go well, and we had fun.  However, my voice is not used to speaking for 8 hours straight, and when Sunday came around it was completely gone.  This morning (Monday) it still hasn’t come back.  As Pastor Felix put it, “You’re getting your preacher’s voice”.  Anyways, this next Saturday we will be having English class again, then I will have a break for about 3 weeks before starting the Foundation of Missions course.  Please pray that my voice will come back and we will be able to continue with the classes.

Naty was able to continue writing her menus for Ministry of Hope, and once again was teaching the children in Kairos Christian Center (the church we are working with).  We praise God that we have been healthy and have been able to keep busy.  We are both learning so much about ministry and it has been a great experience, as well as growing closer to each other and to God.  Thank you all for giving so generously in God’s work through us!

Before coming, one of the things we wanted to do, since we were going to be in Africa, was go on safari.  So, with some of the money we had saved up from the sale of our car, we decided to go to Mvuu Camp, which is in Liwonde National Park here in Malawi.  It sits right on the Shire River, which is the only river that drains out of Lake Malawi, eventually reaching the Zambezi.  It was one of the most amazing experiences that we’ve had in our lives.

We probably saw around 50 different species of animal.  It is know as the only Game Park that you can see the Big 5 (Elephan, leopard, lion, buffalo, and rhino).  Unfortunately, we were only have to see two: the elephant and the buffalo.  The last time the saw a lion was about a year ago, but they do still hear them roar every once in a while.

Highlights:  I have never seen so many animals in one place.  You could look around and at the same time see elephants, impala, warthogs, bushbuck, waterbuck, crocodiles, hippos, and all kinds of different birds!  It was obvious there is a lack of predators in the park, just because there are so many other animals.

The first night, one of the other guests came running in saying that there was a huge snake not letting her husband cross the path.  The guides were hesitant (no one likes snakes here), so I went to check it out.  It was a baby African Rock Python, non-venomous, and about 5-6 feet long.  He was not very happy, but I was able to catch him and move him out of the way.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any pictures.

Two different times we had an elephant mock charge us.  The first time it stopped about 6 feet (2 m) in front of the boat, and was one of the most amazing things that we have seen.  Also, the second night we were there, the elephants came into the camp and were right outside the bedrooms.  We were hoping they wouldn’t smell our apples and knock down our chalet (which they do in the villages when there is food inside).  Thank God, they didn’t do anything, and the next morning the guides said they would only do something like that if they had smelled oranges!

We had a great time, and besides a run in with some corrupt cops that wanted money from us “azungu” (white person) and a flat tire, it went really well.  We were back by thursday night, when I was able to play with the sports ministry bball team against a team called the Veterans.  We were winning the first three quarters, but lost in the end. It was a close game, but we only had 5 players against their whole team.

Sunday, Naty was in charge of the kids again, and it went really well.  She taught about the Good Samaritan and did several activities with them.  I also played guitar in the afternoon worship service.

This week we will need your prayers as we continue to do ministry and get back into the swing of things after the safari.  I start giving a two week English class this Saturday, and Nathalie will be putting together a menu for Ministry of Hope.  God bless and enjoy the pictures!

Well, today is our 1 year anniversary, and a year ago, we never thought we’d be here in Malawi. And even if we knew there was a country called Malawi, we had no clue where it was. So God is great! He has given us a great year, and given us the chance to live in many different places and situations all over the globe. We’ve experienced many different things, and learned even more. We thank God for giving us His grace and mercy in helping us grow closer together throughout the year. To celebrate, from the 2nd to the 4th of September, we will be going on safari to Mvuu Camp at Liwonde National Park. God willing, we will have lots of great pics to put up next week.

The last two weeks have been quite full. Naty had been sick for most of the two weeks with worms, and after a doctor gave her some medicine, it turned out that it was either past date or Nat had an allergic reaction to it. However, after it was out of her system, we were able to get some good medicine and it seems to have helped a lot.

Nat is now in charge of the children’s ministry at church. She has been put in charge of putting together the classes for the kids through October, and will also be teaching at least two Sundays a month. Her classes with the cooks have gone quite well. This past Saturday, she went to two new feeding centers, about an hour and a half from Lilongwe, was able to teach the 15 cooks from the centers. It went very well, and everyone had a great time. By the way, people have been very generous in giving towards the new clean plates for the kids!!! So far, we have received $250, which will get us around 500 plates. If you would like to give, please let us know. Also, please let us know specifically that it is for the plates!

My time has been taken up by studying. We started KLITS (the seminary), on Saturday, Aug. 23rd, opening up with probably the toughest class, Intro to Greek. I’m taking the course also. It has been good, and the grammar is similar to Spanish grammar, so I have a slight advantage. The class ends next Saturday, and then I will be teaching English Grammar Review class the Saturday after that. It is one of the two classes that I will be teaching, along with Foundations of Missions, which will be given the last 3 weeks of October. This Sunday, because of certain circumstances, I was chosen to speak in the afternoon service at church. Unfortunately, they only let me know about an hour before the service, but considering this, I think it went pretty well. The Bible says we are to be ready to preach in season and out of season, and this was definitely out of season! We have also started a sports ministry and have an outreach and basketball game against a local team this Thursday night.

God has been so good to us by providing through you all, and we ask that you would continue praying for us. The time is going by quickly and we are still waiting on God to guide us on what is going to happen next. Please pray for our continual involvement here, that God will continue to strengthen us with his grace and mercy, and to take full advantage of the privilege He has given us in serving Him here in Malawi. Thanks to all who have commented on the blog and encouraged us so much also! We always look forward to your comments.