When Lena and I finally had our visas for Malawi in hand, we thought it would be relatively smooth sailing after that. We had permission to come and go from Malawi as we please for the time we needed. All we had to do was get there. Once we actually got off the plane, we quickly learned that we were given only the standard 30 day visitors permit meaning we had to either get an extension for up to 90 days and then be forced by law to leave the country, or we could...

The day after we visited Nkhotakota, we awoke early, packed the van, headed to the office for a brief stopover to print a few things and buy a few road trip supplies, and we headed off towards Blantyre and the southern region of Malawi. Our trusty navigational system told us that we would have to actually head west through Salima before heading south toward Blantyre. M1, one of the main highways that runs through Malawi, runs near the border of Mozambique, but do...

For the past two weeks, our internet connection has been very limited in a lot of ways. We do have an internet provider, but while they were updating some of their infrastructure we were forced to wait patiently and use our cellphone data (which is more expensive overall) for the time being. That means we have been taking photos, but not posting them; getting ideas for blogs, but not being able to finalize them. Today seems to be a good day and the internet ...

Sometimes it's difficult for whole families to always make their way to services. The end of the month comes around and choices have to be made financially. It seems it's the same all over the world. I'm used to hearing about people struggling to drive an hour or two to services every week. Here, where the roads aren't always navigable by any vehicle, even getting across town can be a struggle. Especially with the entire family traveling together. The minibuses d...

Getting around town: bicycles with seats on the back, minibuses, walking, jogging, tuk tuk, old car axels turned into a cart, babies strapped to the backs of mothers, cars and pickups, SUVs and semitrucks. Most people walk or run. A few of our neighbors came with us to services last Sabbath. I'm not completely sure what they thought. The little boy, Mohammad really enjoyed the chance to run and play with other children. He had difficulty sitting still during the ...