Well, here it is Saturday and this is the first opportunity to blog since the California Montessori Project team has been here. We have had a very busy schedule with the project, the team and all of the logistics around such a large group. We also had been missing Grey for 4 days as he had to travel to the far north of Malawi in order give his sister some of his blood for a transfusion. She is fine now and the Lord has sent him back to us as of mid-day on Saturday.

As for the team, everyone seems to be doing extremely well. They were many jet-lagged and fatigued from the arduous journey of 33+ (?) hours journey from California, but they are all doing well adjusting to life in a Malawian orphanage under construction. We have done a good bit of walking the hour jaunt into the town of Blantyre, as well as seeing the people and places in the village of Ndirande just behind the property. This seems to have been everyone's favorite part so far as they got to meet the Malawians that the Lord has knit our souls to. It must have taken us several hours just to walk a small loop around the villagers, their communities, visiting Pastor Maini's house, interacting with the precious people, taking and showing pictures, etc. But it was such a great time allowing them to experience who we fell in love with, and now they can see why. 

They have been great troopers putting up with constant power and water outages, construction people in and out of their rooms making repairs, adding doors, hanging curtain rods, shower curtains, etc. Not to mention they are currently sharing 2 toilets and showers between 10 women, and 3 young men. 

Here is the team for those of who do not know them:
The california montessori school project team in Malawi Africa setting up the school for the orphanage at Acts III Global Miniistries

From left to right, starting in the back: Laura, Lindsay, Rose, Jean, Eileen, Sara, Bryce, Maribeth and Josh. Front Row: Caitlin, Patty, Kim and Josh Y.

Today, Saturday, I am taking Maribeth to meet Nazia, Asif's wife and their children. We will be taking a couple more sisters to help encourage her and love her as well while Asif, the children and I play kickball inside the house ;o)

As for the project, we have almost completed both Gazebos except for the last layer of grass that goes on the roof for appearances. They are complete though. The guard house is completely plastered, it is only lacking the roof and door and some glass windows and a ceiling. We will have the carpenter working on it on Monday to get it ready for the pastors moving in on Tuesday. The same goes for the medical clinic. We are expecting the glass providers to come out on Saturday to measure for the windows. Today we went into town and purchased a bunch of flowers, trees, bushes and such to begin planting all around the project. Josh and Bryce helped with getting some good top soil from the river and Rose and Caitlin helped arrange the plants into new flower beds. We planted maybe 14 bushes, 1 tree and several small flowering plants and ground coverings today. They will work on more tomorrow. The masons have also built steps going from the front walk to the top gazebo, and have started the drain on the boys side. We still do not have any permanent power yet, so we are stretching these temporary wires to their limit. 

gazeebo on the girls side of the malawi orphanage

Sunday morning at around 6:45am we will depart for Motopone (aka. Martha's Vineyard). This is about as rural of a village as you get. The entire team will get their first look at truly rural Malawi. We will be holding a church service there as well. 

Here are some pictures from around the site:

For starters, after 11 months of applying for a permit, we finally got to set our sign out by the road. This sign was envisioned and donated by very dear friends from Savannah (don't want to steal his reward in heaven ;o)  Here it is finally in place:



Here is my favorite Gazebo, the one that faces Ndirande. As you can see, they have completed the steps going to it as well. Only about 1/2 of the roof remains.



Here is the front of the malawian orphanage front view from June 28. Notice the new flower bed
Above is the front of the project that has a new flower bed.

the side view of the orphanage in malawi africa, shows the boys hostel and water drainage and gazebo
Above is the boys side of the building. They have begun bricking the drain, and removing all of the excess dirts and all bricks have been moved to make way for the sidewalk along the building perimeter.
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New shrubs planted along the Ochedwa Drain by the wall. These will bloom pink and white (I think)
These are the shrubs that Abusa Gama and I planted yesterday along the side wall. This area is almost always moist so we planted the shrubs for appearance, as well as function to help soak up the water here.

These are the bricks that my brother Whitney wanted stacked up in one place.
We stacked all of the bricks in place to honor the work of our brother Whitney ;o)

The medical clinic walls inside the Acts III orphanage / children's home in Malawi Africa
Here is one of the walls in one of the 5 rooms of the medical clinic wing. Temporarily, the pastors will be living in here.

the inside of the guard house of the malawi orphanage care centre
This picture is taken of the rear guard house standing on the roof looking down. It is ready to go except for the roof and adding the door and windows.

That's all for now. More by Monday after our trip to the village.

Pray for us as we begin going out in teams for street ministry later today as well.