My First Days in Chiwengo

“Auntie Abanda!” the kids yell and run into my arms now... Christy was a bit hard and luckily I was given a Malawian name by one of the house mothers, Abanda, which means ‘near the waters’ – I like it. You should see this little village tucked away in the middle of nowhere, a small “ gated community” surrounded by miles of maiz fields.

On my morning run, I found a beautiful path through the outer fields, there are the occasional farmers which can be seen half a mile away, otherwise it is just me, God, and the sunrise. It is my only time alone and thus I crave it.

Our days consist of getting to kids ready for school (5:55am!), helping cooking lunch for the houses (grinding flour, etc.), teaching and tutoring the children in the afternoons (I judged the debate teams today!), sports and then devotionals at night, and my favorite….bedtime stories and bedtime songs!

So picture this, kids everywhere, every time I walk out my door they are standing there, they come into our house, we have community wash day with huge buckets near the boar hole (the manual water well pump) and the kids help us wash our clothes and we wash theirs, and you should see me balance buckets on my head these days! I am in heaven – we have the orphans in our orphanage and then we have the village kids who come to our house. There is such a difference in the children we are working with and the village children. It is amazing to see what God is doing in these kids lives how He is healing them and they are growing into amazing healthy kids.

The flip side is organizing and leading 13 women in one house as we all cook, clean, and live together. In addition to leading devotions with them, I answer questions all the time, question that I have no idea the answer to! So some of the quick stories are taking girls to the local nurse which I assisted a minor surgery, it was cut from a bike accident! (actually I just got to hold the blade and clean the wound!), tonight I actually duct taped a piece of the porcelain the size of a both my hands back into the toilet bowl (how does a toilet bowl break?), and we get up at 2:36am to fill buckets with water when the pipes turn on, and the electricity goes off at 6pm in the evenings!

When we keep all of these things in order we still find crazy mishaps, like on our outreach to the village our teams bikes broke: pedals fall off, brake failure, chains falls off, you name it, I was riding and both my pedals fell off! Absolutely hilarious! (Sidenote: at that village I witnessed the tribal dancing and initiation of their king! It was awesome!)

So this is a week and a half into it….please keep me in your prayers! I love you guys!
- auntie abanda


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We are biking down sandy roads to the nearby village of Chipiri. The kids in front of have to keep stopping as we the “aunties” can’t seem to keep up with the Malawian pace. When we get to the village there are men running around dressed in tribal wear. It is phenomenal as their faces are covered with brown spotted feathers, as if there entire heads were the bodies of chickens. Their costumes are clothing strips of multiple bright colors that shake to and fro when they dance. They are initiating a king for the village our gracious guide explains to us. We watch in amazement, I sick that I left my camera back at the house. It seems as if some things aren’t meant to be photographed as they might lessen the effect of the experience. We left not long after our presentation and road our bikes home into the sunset. Despite the occasional falling off of our pedals, we made it home safely.

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It must be too soon to be settled as the distant chanting of “Father Abraham” does not lull me into a nap rather spurs me to put aside my book and write. We (14 girls and I) have moved into the small village of Chiwengo, to the neighboring villages this is seen as a private upscale gated community, home of the first President’s family. The electricity is very infrequent and the water comes on for an hour at 2am every morning. Thus last night, me and two other girls found ourselves dripping water down the halls between the bathroom and kitchen – a ritual which the whole house will hopefully learn to enjoy!

The orphans in the homes here are beautiful – between teaching, helping them get ready for school, and playing sports we find ourselves privileged to live among them. My favorite is story time and good night hugs – there is no feeling like being hugged by 50 children before going to bed.