Annie's Work

Annie helps in the Hope Village preschool, and finds time to go there most  mornings from 8:30 until 11:00 because, as she tells me “I just LOVE those little faces”. 

Annie always seems happiest with a child on her lap.

She also has a job working in the Hope Village micro business, where she and Chloe do a variety of dirty ranch jobs, such as feeding pigs, cleaning pig pens and rabbit cages and collecting chicken eggs. This paying job takes about an hour each day.

I still can't fathom how pigs and pig pens can make Annie so happy.

She also spends a lot of time with her dad in the clinic, as she is especially interested in comforting the many children who wander in for treatment of some kind.  She has also just begun her 8^th grade year of school … and as usual, is an exemplary home school student who is more motivated than I am in completing her daily work.  Thank you for Annie, I tell God daily!  

Oh yes, she also finds time to bake amazing desserts as she prepares for the opening of her own cupcake shop…in another decade or so.

Strawberries are in season now, so Annie made a strawberry puree as the main ingredient in these rich strawberry cupcakes with strawberry cream frosting.

We had some village girls over as a special treat, and Annie tested her recipe on them. 

Mada's sister Marale - happy to be spoiled by Annie's treat.

Magret's face says it's good enough to tear at it! 

Cecilia liked it so much, she went back for seconds and ate mine before I could get to it! (I'm not bitter) 

Mada's cousin Gracie - can she shove it all in at one time?

Mada's cousin Chitkumbutso - she's not sure how to hold this "cup" thing!

In the end, the future owner of Annie's Awesome Cupcakes puckers her lips and confidently states with a smirk "Yes, I know they are to die for." 

 (I just thought of that bakery name ... any other ideas?) 

Don's Work

In the 17 years I’ve known Don, working in Malawi is the happiest I’ve seen him at work.

Spending hours, days, weeks and now months to get Madalitso (a severely malnourished toddler) back to health may be "work", but Don treats it like a gift.

Well, maybe “happy” is an inaccurate adjective. After all, he’s been brought to tears many a day here already. And brought to anger … and disappointment … and despair in what he sees in this third-world country, rated in the Top 10 poorest countries in the world.  So, let me say that Malawi is where he seems to be most comfortable. He is in is element. His light is on high beam! His hands are getting dirty. I watch his God-given wisdom grow daily and am amazed how God is molding him, using him, directing him.  I will encourage Don to share his thoughts at some point in this blog or elsewhere, because his Malawi experience each day is … “raw”, “unfiltered”, “urgent,” “life-changing”, “real”…if that makes any sense. I actually "interview" him while we sit around the dinner table, just to hear the amazing human survival stories that drop into his lap every day.

Don in the village with Steven whose right leg is 6 inches shorter than his left.  Don grimaced when he saw him try to walk because he was so bent over to compensate for the stunted leg. After a few visits to Blantyre's Beit Cure Hospital, Don's mission was accomplished when Steven was fitted with a brace to extend the reach of his leg. Now he is walking with a near-straight body and has finally learned to run too! 

Don and the Hope Village Medical Clinic

It’s obvious that God has been quietly preparing Don for this journey. His poverty-stricken childhood in the Hispanic ghettos of San Diego's South Bay with a single mom on welfare, and a father who deserted him at 4 years old was the first step in preparing him for compassion in working with the poor, the fatherless.  And his 30 years of experience as a firefighter/medic has climaxed in daily use here in Malawi.

He may have retired from a busy San Diego fire department just last year, 

but Don seems to be back in the saddle as he serves in the "emergency medical provider" 

role here in the remote villages of Chikwawa quite often.  

(Apologies to Don for posting this picture ... but I just love it).

Don treats a boy's leg out in a remote village with the translation help from Godwins. 

The villagers are lined up for help with a variety of ailments - back pain, skin wounds, fever, ring worm, headaches, stomach aches, malaria, bilharzia, etc.

Don now works at the Hope Village clinic, leaving the house at 8:25 a.m. to diligently open the clinic doors every day at 8:30. He has a Malawian assistant (and friend) named Godwins Mayere who works closely with him throughout the day, to help with translation as needed, and many other projects that I’ll write about later.

Don and Godwins standing outside the clinic.

Hope Village has a very sophisticated clinic: a waiting room, an exam room, a storeroom that is well-stocked with medicines, antibiotics, test kits for Malaria, HIV and other diseases; and a 3^rd room housing baby furniture, wheelchairs and other equipment to be used as needed.  Don sees anywhere from 10 to 15 patients daily – Malaria being the most common ailment he tests and treats. He also regularly treats wounds, skin conditions, infections, malnutrition and infirmities due to HIV.

Don in the Hope Village clinic.  He has been treating 15-year old Horace's deep leg wound 

for a few months. As I write this, we're waiting for a biopsy result to find out if there's a bigger problem at work in his shin. Pray for good news.

Many stories to tell from this clinic work … coming in later blogs!

Hope Village and New Friends/Neighbors

When Don and I heard about Hope Village and saw its mission statement printed AND at work, we knew God had planted us in the right garden. It reads:

Our vision is to see vulnerable children and families released from poverty so they are self reliant, spiritually mature and impacting their local communities.

The Hope Village website explains the project in detail, and more of its operations will come out in my forthcoming blogs (i.e., orphan care, vulnerable family support, medical clinic, job skills training center, micro businesses, day care and preschool program, at-risk infant care, secondary school, etc.)  

The heart of Hope Village, however, lies in the management team that keeps it beating. Let me introduce you to our new friends and the two families that make this all work:

The Gill family from left: Chloe, Paul, Tracy, Joel, Benji

Our new Malawi friends and next-door neighbors, Elim missionaries from England named Paul and Tracy Gill, are the directors of Hope Village. They have invited us to stay here, and as long as we continue to work here, we have been provided a beautiful home to enjoy. They have been a blessing to our family beyond our wildest dreams.  They have 4 children, with 3 of them living here: Joel is 17, Chloe is 14 and Benji is 10.  Annie and Chloe are the best of friends, although she enjoys time with all 3 of the Gill kids. You can read about their family and missionary work here:  http://www.gillsinmalawi.com/

Annie enjoying a day at a local pool with the Gill kids and her visiting brother Matthew.

Our other new friends and neighbors are Paul and Esther Rombout, missionaries from The Netherlands who have been living and working here for 7 years.  Their huggable, squeezable children are Ezra, 2 years old and Anna 8 months old.  This young couple is an inspiration to me because they’ve learned to communicate in Chechewa and have sweet relationships with so many Malawians. Paul manages the Hope Village micro businesses (more on that later, too!). Esther is a full-time mom and a full-time servant who spends quality time with Hope Village employees and local villagers on a daily basis.

 The Rombout Family: Paul and Esther with their children, Ezra and Anna

A more recent picture of baby Anna.

Here, Annie enjoys a little bonding time while she babysits the Rombout children.

Living and Working in Chikwawa

My last blog post was 4 months ago. Really?  My apologies.  I must face the facts that  I am a poor communicator. I rarely email. I struggle to get on FaceBook. I am always months behind in responding to my emails.

I accept this is me. I thank God for his grace in my shortcomings, and that my friends and family accept this as well! And oh, how I love my friends and family. Especially anyone who is taking the time to read this blog. (:

Now, I will try to redeem myself with some Green family updates.

Chikwawa

Since my last post in May, we have been living and working on the property of Hope Village, an amazing ministry under the umbrella of a UK organization called Hope for the Nations.  You can read about the Hope Village project here:      www.hopevillagemalawi    I will also write more about this organization as my blog updates continue.

Our village borders a dry, brittle, dusty dirt road in oh-so-hot Chikwawa

So … our new home since May is in Hope Village, in the village of Ntondeza 2, in the district of Chikwawa, in the country of Malawi … in the continent of Africa, of course! We are an hour’s drive south of the city of Blantyre, down a winding mountain road into a drought-ridden, dusty, desertous and VERY hot terrain. The average temperature from October through March is about 40c, or 104F. It can get as high as 50c (122F)!  And it’s humid, not dry. That means sweat. All day. And all night!

Entrance into the Hope Village project where we work and live.

Although we live on the Hope Village property, it is unfenced and we are living within the borders of a small village called Ntondeza 2.  Our village, like all of those in Chikwawa, is among the poorest and most depressed in Malawi, due mostly to the lack of rainfall, lack of good water for agriculture (the water down here is very salty), and lack of employment opportunities.

Rhoda's house is your typical village home in Chikwawa -- just a few mud bricks and some dried grass on the roof. It is just a few hundred feet from our very comfortable Western home. 

Hard to reconcile this dichotomy.

This is Dyratu, the closest "bigger town" for shopping. 
This is a picture of the market on an off-market day.

Despite the harsh living conditions, the people in Chikwawa are cheerful, hardworking, and, most impressive – they are hopeful. They always have faith that tomorrow will be better than today.  They always pray a thankfulness for God’s daily provisions. Their perseverance is remarkable, sometimes unfathomable.

One of my favorite families in our village - this mom has spent the last 2 years making 3,500+ mud bricks in her "spare time" in order to move her family out of this crumbling home. She had to sell off 1,000 of them last year to pay for her son's school uniform.  She's still at it...

We are so happy to be living and working so close to and with Malawian people. We can leave our front door and within minutes be in the middle of your typical village with homes made from mud bricks dried grass roofs, dirty children with big smiles, strong women with pails of water on their heads, shepherds with their cattle, sheep and goats, bicycle taxis as the main transportation source and carts pulled by donkeys.  And best of all, amazing people who are teaching us amazing lessons. (These lessons would make a great book called, "So you think YOU'VE got it bad?.....")

Shepherds bring their herds onto Hope Village property for special meals. Annie, of course, feels right at home with the animals (prepping for her cows in Washington).

The adorable but oh-so-dirty little children tug at our hearts...every day.