Blog

March, 2009

JOEL - MVP

ABCCA hosted a basketball tournament of a few area schools. They were SOOO fun!  Joel was definitely the MVP of the championship game against Kumuzu Academy.  Kellen (the coach) said so too, not just his mother!

The Kumuzu boys are well disciplined and well coached according to Paul Chinchen.  They were good and big and our guys were a bit afraid of them.  Our boys started out ahead.  Joel was sinking every 3 point shot that he tried (3 right at the beginning - others later).  When I looked at the scoreboard early on, they had about 18 points and most of them were Joel's.  He was just playing like a fiend!  The games before he was jumping like he had springs and rebounding like crazy!  He was aggressive and it was really fun to watch. 

The team was really supporting each other.  As they started coming after Joel on the outside, they started getting it to Cody Moffatt on the inside!  It came down to the last second when the buzzer went off with a Kamuzu player in the air just about ready to get a game tying shot off!
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March 25, 2009 | 0 Comments | View or add comments
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MARRIAGE CLASS at ABC

We are well into our Marriage and Family course that Connie and I have team-taught for 4 years.  Every year we have taught the class we have ended up spending one class discussing wife-beating.  Usually we do not bring it up, but because it is very common here it is a topic to be discussed with fervor!  Commonly the discussion goes like this: Connie and I - Let's say a woman comes to you for advice.  She is being beaten by her husband.  What will you tell her?  At least a large percentage of the class - I will first find out whose fault it is.  If it is hers then I will advise her to stop what she is doing.

It is a different culture with a very different concept of the marital relationship.  This is one area where our new culture, which is neither western or eastern or African, but Christian must challenge people where they are.  We have found that coming into the culture and blasting away only turns people away just as it would us, but that we must trust God to bring our students to His way of thinking.  So, we struggle every year to nurture the class along to understand that it is always the husband's fault if he beats her!  Until they understand that the marital relationship is a making of "one flesh" and abuse is simply tearing apart that flesh, there will be little respect for the beauty of the relationship as God designed it.
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March 19, 2009 | 0 Comments | View or add comments
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Stolen Bikes

The day the bikes (4 of them) got stolen from our porch while we were at church, we quickly took a little drive out on the streets to see if we could see anyone riding them.  However, the likelihood is that the thieves took them over our wall (brick, about 8 feet high with electric wire) and hid in the corn fields that surround the campus.  Right now the corn is high so there are more robberies both because there is a great many hiding places and they are running out of corn from last year's crop and need money and food.

We then took one of our students, a policeman, to the police station.  It is a dirty little house and there is one dirty desk in the front room and a couple constables that are in plain clothes.  He wrote out a statement that described the theft and bikes (no computers of course) and then went with us to the campus to look at the scene.  He recommended we have guards all day long.  We have guards at the gates during the day and student guards (for school tuition) at night. 
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March 19, 2009 | 0 Comments | View or add comments
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Bikes Followup

A friend here in Malawi is from a church in Mississippi.  After our bikes were stolen she offered to ask people in her church to send used bikes over as there were many serious bikers in the church.  Within 24 hours of asking they had arranged bikes for our family!!!  We are thanking the Lord.

In addition, another friend of ours sent out an email to us, after one of our supporting churches prayed for us on Sunday, that he would purchase bikes for us.

The love is overflowing!  Thanks for all the prayers and support folks.
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March 19, 2009 | 0 Comments | View or add comments
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