July 7
We woke up this morning knowing it would be our last morning in the Zowe community. Bittersweet. After filling a few buckets with water at the borehole, I was packing my bags when I was told that I had visitors. I had no idea who they could be. I arrived at Mike Mtika’s house and saw Jesse and Saulos waiting for me and Sherard. They came to say goodbye, thank us for visiting them, and give us gifts. They gave me a small hoe and trowel for my garden and a large bag of peanuts. Absolutely beautiful. They gave Sherard a tool as well and they gave Temwa a wooden spoon and fork. I was so overcome with appreciation that I started to cry. These people have nothing and yet they’re giving us gifts! Unbelievable. We enjoyed a really nice visit during which they promised to pray for us and we promise to pray for them. So sweet. We helped with breakfast and then had a meeting with all of the Pamoza staff and our team. Many of us had the chance to express our thanks and appreciation to the Zowe staff for all they did to host us. We are all overwhelmed by what we have experienced this week. Malawi and the people are lovely… Generous and loving.
We then loaded into the car… Completely full, our bags taking up ¼ of the space! We rode 1 ½ hours on bumpy dirt roads finally reaching paved highway for the last half hour of the ride. We arrived in Mszuzu around 3:30 PM. On the way, Mike drove us through a market. It was unbelievable. The dirt “road” was full of people. Our van parting them as if we were going through the Red Sea! There were vendors on the ground on both sides plus little shops lining the sides as well. Check out the video. It’s crazy. Now we are settled into our hotel. We are
so comfortable and have Internet and we are all very excited!
-Trudy Orthey