Letters from Africa

It is early Wednesday morning here in California. I had an email from Mark when the baby woke up and I was too excited to wait until daylight. He has written me a word document and attached that because they do not have a lot of time to type out emails! He's asked me to post his info for him, and I am glad to be able to help. He had included pictures in his word document, but each time I try and copy and past them from the read-only document they show up blank. Hopefully someone can post pictures soon!
Here is what Mark has to say...

Hi Annie,
It is now Wednesday at 5:40 in the morning. Yesterday was so busy I didn’t have time to write. There is so much to tell I don’t know where to begin. Monday and Tuesday we spent a lot of time with the widows and orphans. Our typical day consists of waking up and having breakfast at 7am and then devotions with the whole campus staff at 8am. Around 9am we drive to the orphanage and do some activities there. We come back to our village at 12pm for lunch. We head back to the orphanage after lunch, usually around 2pm. Then we come back at 5pm or so for dinner and then go to bed. I know we are party animals huh?
The activities we have been doing with the widows have been such an experience. They are always dancing and singing praises to Jesus. Even though you can’t understand the language you can see the gratefulness in their faces. They are so thankful for the very little that they have. On Monday we broke into three groups and each group went to a widow’s home to see how they lived. They showed us how they do dishes, how they get water and where they store it, and we even shucked some corn. After lunch that day we went to the market the widows use and we bought some supplies for the widow that opened up her home. I guess it is customary to give gifts when someone opens up their home. The lady’s house Pegi and I went to was Rebecca. She is probably in her forties. She loves to dance and sing the most out the widows. When we gave her the gifts she started dancing and singing praises to God. You could see the joy on her face for the gifts she knew God had provided.

Yesterday we brought beads that Cindy had put together to make little bracelets for the widows. It was like a workshop for the widows. They loved the bracelets. One of the widows said it makes her happy. Last night the director of COTN took all of us to his home for pizza. He gave us a tour of his house. His name is Mr. Lungu and he is very nice. Oh, we picked up Maribeth yesterday too. She was in town so I went with Henry (the guy who coordinates the mission trips for COTN, our main contact person) to pick up Maribeth. It was so good to see her. She went to Mr. Lungu’s house with us and stayed the night last night. In fact the driver just left with her to take her back to the bus station. I almost forgot, we also went to the crisis nursery yesterday after lunch and held all the babies. The babies there were babies where the mother had died during childbirth. The nursery takes care of the babies until they are old enough for the families to take them in. See, we’ve been busy.
So, enough about me, how are you? How are the kids? I miss you guys so much. I can’t wait to give all of you such huge hugs and kisses. We are going to a different village called Chiwengo today for two nights. That is where we are repairing the screens and teaching the older kids how to use the computers. We won’t be back until Friday.
I love it! We are doing so much praying and worshiping that I don’t think anyone could resist the love of Christ. Praise Jesus!!!
I need to go now so I will write again when I have the chance. I love you tons and miss you tons. Hug and kiss the kids for me. All my Love, Mark