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January: A Brief Update


Hi all,

It’s been a while since our last post, pepani (sorry) about that.

Christmas and Crossover
Reading back on our concerns that Christmas would be a lonely period for us, I’m very pleased to say it was actually one of the most fun-filled weeks of our time here so far. We were very well looked after, and our time was spent with our friends and family here in Malawi. We enjoyed our first Christmas BBQ, and our first all-night prayer meeting on New Years’ Eve! We’ll treasure the memories we made during our Malawian Christmas for the rest of our lives, I’m sure. And I’ll always fondly remember entering into a new year and decade singing “You are Faith(y)ful Oh Lord” with gusto, surrounded by our church family. It was for sure one of those moments that you catch yourself, remember where you are, and how absolutely blessed you are to be there.

Our church family after the Christmas Day service.

January (the worst of all the months, am I right?!)
January has been pretty quiet for us here. January at our church here is a month of prayer & fasting programmes, so most of the normal weekly events were cancelled to make way for prayer meetings at church, and personal prayer times at home. Scrivin (who leads the church) was also away, taking a well-deserved break in Cape Town for the month, and we missed him lots!
It’s also the height of rainy season here so we’ve actually had some pretty wet, chilly and gloomy days (I even wished I had a scarf once!). The rains are crazy, and you just have to stay (or run) inside once the heavens open, or you’re drenched through in seconds. The thunderstorms have been pretty epic too. Last night we lost power because lightning had hit one of the phases!
Despite all this, we’ve still been able to enjoy going to a kid’s birthday party, hang out at people’s homes, go for walks in the beautiful mountains, attend a friends’ dedication service and bond more with the kids at Sunday School.

Visiting Fatniss & Precious at their home in Mbayani.

2020 Vision
One of the highlights of the last month or so has been being involved in thinking about and beginning to implement the hopes and plans the church has for this year. There are so many exciting things that we’re hoping to do as a church, from evangelistic programmes to church plants to sports socials, and many more. We’re excited to be involved in supporting and helping these things to happen. I’m sure we’ll be posting more about this in future weeks.
A Christmas hang-out at ours; featuring sausage and stuffing sandwiches and 'Man in a Bag'

 Politics (not Brexit!)
This week also saw the conclusion of a long, and tense, court case into whether the Presidential Elections of May 2019 were valid or not. After months of demonstrations (some peaceful, some violent), accounts of bribery, and approximately 10 hours of reading the full judgement report (500 pages of size 14 text in Times New Roman font – Malawian newspapers care about the detail!), the court annulled the results of the election, and a new election will be taking place in the next few months. We’re thankful that Judgement Day (as it’s been coined around here!) was peaceful, and that the peace seems to be continuing for the remainder of the week.

Until next time, thanks for reading!
B&B x

P.S. I also rolled a one-roll Yahtzee of fives, thank you very much.

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Location: Blantyre, Malawi

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