my happenings.........

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a blessed Easter time.  We had lots of Easter celebrations in the church the whole of Holy Week!  The service on Easter Sunday was a real celebration of the risen Christ.

Before the Easter break we had a Board Meeting for Early Childhood Development.  Our Board Chair, Rev. John J Gondwe was appointed Moderator Elect last year and so cannot hold two positions in the Synod.  Because of this the Synod appointed a new Board Chair in the name of Rev Stephen Bota.  Here you can see Rev J J Gondwe on the right congratulating the new Board Chair, Rev S Bota!

The Board members went to visit two ECD centres in the morning - one which is running well and the other which is not!  It was an eye opener for all of them!

An organisation called 'Vision 4 kids' sent me some money to buy Bibles in the local language to distribute to some children who did not have Bibles.  I bought 70 Bibles in Chichewa (they are not available in Chitumbuka), and took them to one of the local primary schools where they have a Bible club every Wednesday!

The kids were so excited and immediately sat down and began reading them!  They sang a couple of songs (which I could have done with ear plugs for they were so loud) and had a great time!

I am grateful to Vision4kids for thinking of Malawi!

Easter as I said is a great celebration here.  The Anglican and Catholic churches have the 'way of the cross' on Good Friday where they carry a cross between two strategic points and have Bibles readings at each station of the cross.  It is a very moving experience.

On Palm Sunday the children take part in the service by bringing palm branches and singing as they parade into the church to do a short drama!

Work continues to be busy as the ECD Presbytery Trainers (EPT's) begin their monitoring in May and they are preparing for that.  Presbytery meetings also begin in May and I have to present a report at each Presbytery, so I have been working on that!  We are also struggling financially as a Department and I spent the last few days trying to draft a project proposal to send to a few prospective donors!!

Usually on Sunday afternoon I go for a walk with three friends - last week we had quite a strenuous walk but at least the rain stayed off!

Its a bit worrying in the country at present as some places in the south had tremendous flooding earlier in the year, and yet some areas have a drought.  The harvest will not be a good one overall and already maize prices are high!  Please pray that the Government will take steps to ensure that there is food security in the country this year!

I continue to have a lot of wildlife in the garden and sometimes in the house too!  

During the Easter break I went to the lake for a day and found some wildlife there too!!

There had been really heavy rains just before I arrived at  the lake but it cleared up and was a beautiful day!

Even at night it was beautiful - there was a full moon and this is the reflection over the lake around 7pm (it gets dark here at 6pm).

Wishing you all a wonderful week!  Thank you for all the good wishes I received over Easter - much appreciated!!

Blessings,

Diane