Sunday, July 24, 2011

Here a little, there a little.

We have had another good week. It's hard to believe that we have almost been here a month. We are still living out of our suitcase. We went over to the customs agent a few days back. He said maybe on Friday. The thing is here they never tell you which Friday. Remember now, this is Africa. They do things a little different then we do. It takes a long time to do everything. I know that you are all just laughing about now. You are all saying " the Lord sure has a sense of humor, he sent old President Padovich all the way down to Africa to teach him patience. A lesson he has never been able to teach him at home." I must confess, he has my attention. If it takes me all three years to learn to BE PATIENT, I will. We took our clothes into the cleaners. Remember the cleaners at home and the cleaners here are very different. They said to come back in two days. Here you must ask, Now, or Now Now. There is a difference. Now, means whenever, and now now means two days or so. We went back in two days. We lost the claim ticket. I left it in my white shirt and it went through the wash, we think. It looked like the receipt. But we will never know. It was just a small ball of blue and some lint. When we went back we greeted them with a smile and tried to explain about the blue ball of paper and lint. It got lost in translation. He said he could not return our items without the receipt. Soooooo, I told him I could see our cleaning on the rack. You know it's ours because you wrote the paperwork when we were here two days ago. He agreed. That indeed, it was our cleaning, but without the receipt. I can not give it to you. I started to ask him just how many Padovich's do you have in Zambia? That boat sailed real fast. He said come back in two days and we will see if my boss will allow me to give it to you. Now or Now Now? We are happy to say we got our things. Now Now. Life is good. With only a few items in our bags, to be down a couple of items really cuts down the fashion choices. We have had a lot of excitement in Malawi. They are in the midst of election campaigning and like everywhere one side does not think the other side is doing a very good job. We had to keep our missionaries off the streets for several days. They were good about the idea. It was not very safe in some parts of the land. Several people were injured in fights and disagreements. We asked the missionaries to use the three days to clean and care for their apartments. I hope they listened. Sister Padovich will be over next week to inspect them I'm sure. We are thankful form the organization of the Church. We never felt like we were alone or needed to worry. Those who watch over those kind of things do a fine job. I reported to them a couple of times a day. They were always on the line when we needed instruction. Our senior couple in Malawi is the best. They watched over the missionaries and did a terrific job. All of our missionaries are all safe and accounted for. I am thankful to this fine couple. You may notice in these blogs that we never mention anyone by name. We have been counseled to do so by those in authority. We hope you all understand the reasons. Today is Sunday, we went out to Chainama Branch this morning for Church. It was wonderful. Sure good people. They have a nice building to meet
in. The children sang. It was a good morning. I was standing near the front door. A family came toward me and we said hello. They walked by and their little girl about three years turned around and walked back toward me. She offered me her little hand and just stood there with me until the meeting started. It have a new friend in Chainama Branch. I think it was just what I needed to feel welcomed and loved. The Lord knows just the right way to calm our hearts. As we stood together I remembered just how much we miss you all. And feeling your hands in ours. We love you all and we are thankful that the Lord here's our prayers and touches our hearts with those who are near us at the moment. We are looking forward to going back to Malawi in a week or so. We have become better at driving on the wrong side of the road. The market had some nice things this week. We even found a good pizza place. It's not Chi Chi's. It more Afro ChiChi's. It was good. That was ok with us. We hope you are all well. And we hope you are as happy as we are. If you know anyone that would like to come down and be with us please let us know. We need several senior couples. We need an office couple as soon as possible. So the first twenty of thirty of you to email us get the job. until next post. We love you all. M

6 comments:

  1. I love to hear your stories, thank you so much for sharing!

    You are getting quite the following reading along!

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  2. You two are wonderful. I can just picture you standing with the little girl holding her hand. Some of the smallest things do us the most good. Love you two. Frankie, and Jim

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  3. Padovich and Patience don't go hand and hand, me too Frankie I could see it. I love Afro Chi Chis

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  4. I don't always comment because I usually read your posts in my reader, but I just wanted you to know how much I love your posts! I love reading the stories about the different culture, and love hearing Bro P talk about how wonderful Sis P--we all know it, of course, but it's always so wonderful to hear people complimenting their spouses when it seems so many people are divorcing... Anyway, random tangent, but thank you for all these wonderful posts!!

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  5. You make me homesick, i cant have enough of your posts. My husband and I are Zambian, we grew up in Lusaka and attended Munali and Libala branches respectively. We are currently in New Mexico for the summer. We hope you will love Zambia and Malawi as you serve the Lord and the people there. Thankyou for posting.

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  6. Oh sorry, my name is Katoba Chishala and my husband is Blessings Mushala. we have two beautiful girls, Olivia(2) and Hope(7months).

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