Two full weeks in the country, and one more to go! I have had a great time here in Malawi, but I am definitely looking forward to coming home to my wife! We have had another great week of teaching, with all of the classes going up in attendance. In all we had almost 500 students in 5 villages! One village in particular had almost 140 students in one day! The crowd was so big that we had to move outside! It has been truly an uplifting experience. On the days that I do not go with Wayne to teach, I stay at the Crookshank’s house and help print books. We have completed all the books for Wayne's class, in fact he is starting to hand them out today, and we have started on books for Ed's upcoming classes. This was not supposed to take too long, but Ed found out that the locals are expecting close to 500 people at one of the classes, and it happens that the book for this class is the biggest we will have to print this week. So we are busy enough that I probably will not go to the villages this week.
Malawi is also going through fuel crises, so that has added another level of excitement to our lives. All the filling stations ran out of fuel last Wednesday or Thursday, which is apparently rather common here. So when fuel came into a few stations on Friday the lines were crazy! The line for the filling station closest to the Crookshank's went down one block, around the roundabout, and on about two blocks further. When Ed and I tried to go get fuel after dinner, all stations were out again. Saturday morning Ed sent me out to get into a diesel line and wait. I did finally find a station that had a line, and what a line it was! Semi-trucks were going down one direction of the road for the equivalent of two city blocks, the area around the pumps was completely full of small trucks and vans, and going the other way was a line of small trucks that was the equivalent of one city block. This is the line that I got in. After not moving for ten or so minutes I concluded that they were not actually filling anyone, so I called Ed. He confirmed that the workers probably called their friends to come because they were expecting fuel in that day, and everyone else had just followed suit. So I sat in the line for another 30 minutes hoping that they would get some fuel in soon, but to no avail, and Ed instructed me to head on home since they did not have any. When Wayne left after lunch to teach at "area 36," he called and let us know that there seemed to be fuel at some places now. So Ed had his wife go sit in line while I continued to print and bind books. That was around noon, and everyone finally got back home around 5:30. Ed succeeded in getting petrol in one truck, but his wife had spent all that time sitting in line, and the station ran out of diesel before she got to the pump. It turnes out that rather than sit in line, most people would park across the street and run back and forth to the pumps with fuel cans. So the vehicles in line were usurped by people with cans! Ed was not happy, but we at least had enough petrol to go to church in the morning.
The village where we went to worship on Sunday was two hours drive away on pavement. Apparently this was a great example of an African church service, because we got there at 9 am (the scheduled time), and no one showed up until 10:30, and we got started at 11. But by the end of service there were 400 people there, of whom only 125 were from that congregation. The others were from other congregations who had heard that the American missionaries were coming. Sunday I also got my first taste of local food! Their staple food is corn meal which is made into patties. They call it inseema (but I do not know the correct spelling). They also fed us cooked greens (I do not know what kind), and very tasty (but tough) chicken. It was quite good, but I discovered a phobia that I did not know I had. They provided a basin of water for us to wash our hands in, and I was reminded of all the warnings about drinking the water. While we had bottles of water with us for drinking, all of the food had been cooked in local water. Now, the rational side of me knew that if the water had boiled for a while it was probably fine, but I was still a bit put off. However, I manned up and ate the food, because I know that I was being silly. And - sure enough - the food was good and I am still alive and feeling fine!
Well I should get back to printing, but once again I ask that you all pray for the brethren here in Malawi!