Safe Return Home

We arrived safely home yesterday afternoon (Tuesday). It was one long flight. I think our travel time was about 48 hours. We felt pretty grungy and desperately needed a shower.... but only after hugs and welcomes from family.

Our hearts are full of thankfulness to all our prayer partners. It was one outstanding missions trip. We felt so upheld by all of you. But even more, we had a sense of God's hand upon us.

Some key highlights:
1. About 400 church leaders from more than 5 denominations were trained in the Old Testament by passing the Walk Thru the Bible program.
2. About 200 childrens' workers go an in-depth study in preparing weekly lesson plans for Sunday school and other childrens' programs.
3. About 15 childrens' workers learned how to use puppets for childrens' rallies and camps. There were about 8 puppets that were left with them for their work.
4. About 50 Chichewa Bibles were purchased for a Scripture hungry people.
5. Great relationships were formed with a super missionary family! Kudos again to the Burns - Chet, LeAnne, Elsie, Peter, and Silas

Leaving This Morning

Rich preached at church yesterday and did an outstanding job. He taught from Deuteronomy 6 on the role of parents in the spiritual lives of their children. You can see that the church was simple block construction with no windows!

Tough to leave the Burns children. We have all grown very fond of one another.

We leave in just another hour from our home in Ntcheu for the 2 hour drive to Lilongwe. The Burns are taking us to a few shops and then we will all have lunch together (at a restaurant which is a rare treat in Malawi).

Then we jump on the plane for the return trip home.

We have enjoyed a tremendous trip and really good health. We are so grateful for all our prayer partners and "blog followers" at home.

Marla's Birthday!

Today was Marla's birthday. She had a tremendous time being with the Malawian women. Elsie got to join Marla for the day and attend the WTB seminar.

Here's a picture of Marla and Elsie. Marla is eating with her hands. She asked Rich to take a picture because her family would never believe that she was doing this!



We got home and the Burns surprised us with a birthday bash! You can see the sign and decorations they had for Marla. They served us kettle corn and ground nuts (these are the local variety of peanuts and they are freshly roasted). Then we had a special meal followed by a birthday cake. Did we mention that LeAnne is a fantastic cook. Wow, have we been taken care of.

Oh, and Rich is doing better. Still a few symptoms, but overall he is feeling tons better. He attributes it to all your prayers and our Lord's compassion.

We closed the evening watching a DVD of "St John in Exile" as portrayed by Dean Jones. What a stirring rendition of Christ's death and resurrection.

Another Graduating Class

I'm officially done with my Walk Thru the Bible seminars. The last class "graduated" today. The churches have loved this teaching and feel like they have never had anything like it.

The picture features the class flashing their favorite sign that they learned in the seminar.

You might imagine that they have invited us back so that I can do the New Testament.

The bottom picture is of us eating in a pastor's home.

Rural Village

It was another gorgeous day here. We were at a remote village in a rural area. In fact the pictures show some of their gorgeous crops. In addition, you can see them drying their sema flour. This is flour made from corn maize. This is their staple of their diet as they make it into a starch that they put meat and cabbage over most days for their meal.

This area, called Mlengeni, one of our favorite places because there are so many children - and they are eager children.

Rich and Marla taught today; their last seminar for childrens' workers. I went with them but took some extra time to walk through the village and appreciate some of the people. I especially enjoyed the little children - connecting with them even though I did not know their language. I did it by simply waving and then putting out my hand so that they could touch it. Pretty soon, they were teaching me the words for eyes, mouth, hair, and ears. That was it, we were friends.

Rich and Marla did another great job today.

Speaking of Rich, please pray for him. Looks like he is coming down with a nasty head-cold. To be honest, the Burns family and a good portion of the Malawian workers have had it. And it is a heavy-duty one. Rich felt like he was coming down with a cold last night. But by this afternoon, the congestion was beginning. Pray that he will recover in a speedy fashion. And pray that Marla and I will be spared!

Just a few more days now.

Brian

A Day in the Life of a Missionary

Life in Malawi is never dull for the Burns family as they go through routines of ministry, homeschooling three children and normal family activities.

This morning at 6 am I found Chet already outside trying to remove the turbo from the engine of his 4-Runner, the vehicle he had hoped to use to transport us to the various areas where we are presenting our seminars. He has been trying to get this fixed but the mechanics in this village were not coming to get it so he took it out himself. We have been using their pickup truck that has a back seat, but often won’t start until we pray and try pushing it.

When I came in to take a shower, there was a bit of excitement as I heard that Peter, one of their sons, had discovered a tick in his lower belly and was having it removed and treated by Mamma and Papa in the kitchen.

Yesterday, Pastor Kololo, our translator for the day, called on his cell phone to say he would meet us on the way to the village where Pastor Brian was going to teach, because his bicycle had broken down. We picked him up and put his bike in the back, delivering it to the local bike repair “shop”, some tools and parts under a tree, hoping it would be fixed by the time we returned. Pastor Kololo had no money to pay for bike repairs so Chet worked out the price with the repairman and paid 3,000 Kwatcha down (about $17), with a promise of another kw500 when it was fixed. He did have it ready when we returned.

Later that afternoon, after we returned from Pastor Brian’s part 2 seminar , Chet found out that a local pastor’s elderly mother who had broken a leg was being released from the hospital. He asked me to go with him to help transport her to her village. You don’t even want to know the details of that “ambulance” trip!

Middle of the night calls for emergency trips from a village over an hour away to the hospital in Ntcheu, on rough dirt roads, electricity going off in the middle of baking bread in the electric oven, poisonous snakes in the yard, vehicles breaking down just as they are needed for an important day of ministry… that’s life at the Burns’ house.

-Rich H

First WTB Graduating Class

I did class #2 and watched the first Malawian graduating class for Walk Thru the Bible. Everyone was really focused today, and they "got" the hand motions.

Here's a picture of the pastors from the graduating class. About 6 churches came together for this. Nice church unity!

The pastors are each giving their favorite hand motion from the seminar. Malawians know how to have fun!

There are tons of kids in this village. Once again, Rich acted like the pied-piper. He would play a song on his harmonica, and then they would sing a song to him. This went on for hours! They love HUSBY! Only they say it Huss-bee.