Thursday, June 26, 2008

Getting ready to leave

Today we are leaving back home. It doesn't feel like it's been 3 weeks. I wish I could stay here for a little bit longer. Everything is packed and the flight leaves in 5 hours it leaves at 1:20 Malawian time. We will be back 10:37 a.m. (Canandian time) this Saturday. It's been an amazing experience to be here. We've helped plenty of kids and have given people money for their projects. And our scholarship student Hope, is still in nursing school. We spoke to her by cell phone and due to strict school rules we were unable to visit. I'll write more about my trip when I get back.

From, Jaako

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Getting Prepared

So, some of you guys are going to wonder what it is about from the title, we really are going to sleep in a village hut tonight. Well, that is our time zone here. We bought 5 mats for the team that are made of straw and aren't even a centimeter thick that we will sleep on. Earlier today, we visited the last few pre-schools in the Mangochi area and some of the kids were so terrified, because out where we were they've never seen a white person because it so far away from the central big cities. They were so scared that they were squirming out of their mother's arms like nothing!! Man, I never knew a little child was capable of running that fast!! She just zoomed away from me!!

Yesterday, we visited a group that were HIV positive. There was eight adults and two babies. And it was very hard for the mother's with the babies because they weren't suppose to nurse their child but they had no choice because babies need milk. So we thought about it and we decided that we should give them some money to get milk for the babies and so that everybody can be strong and well nourished. And we are thinking and praying about how much more we should leave them with.

This will be my last blog until I am back in Lilongwe, but if I can I will write to you as soon as possible. Bye for now.

Jaako

Saturday, June 14, 2008

A safari and one church

Ever since the man with the infected finger, I'm just gonna tell you a little bit about what we've done. So we went on a 2 day safari with 3 game rides. We saw lots of animals, including lions, leopards, elephants, giraffes, baboons and many others. Funny story about the baboons, while we were just hanging out one of the baboons tried to steal Lily's chips. Funny how it knew what to go for. And then the went for the pop.

We also went to Dedza today where it is known to make amazing pottery, the best in Malawi. And it's a world wide tourist attraction and we met a woman who was HIV positive and she had a little one year old son and so we quickly talked about it and we gave her money to pay for the medication for at least 2 years. And we are hoping the little boy doesn't have HIV too.

Later on this week, we are going to be heading to a remote village called Mangochi. There we will sleep in a village hut, and get to see what a village life is like.

It's just so amazing to be back and to hear all the same songs but at the same time it is hard to see how poor they are. For example, Hiv, lack of food and nutrition and just the malnourished stomaches.

And that is your Malawi update. I will write to you as soon as I can. There may not be internet in Mangochi.

Jaako

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Poor man with an infected finger

As you can tell by the title, I will be talking about a man we met with a very badly infected finger. Our first set of remote villages we went to, we met him and Clint being a nurse said that if he didn't get medical attention the infection could spread and maybe result in death. Sadly, I don't know how, but we just left the village and we just felt so guilty that we had a team meeting and decided that we would go out there, get that man and pay for his medical attention. So we drove out to the village today and met with his sons and wife and they said he had already left by foot in the morning and he wouldn't have just tooken the main road he would have tooken short cuts and all the paths. So we squeezed in his son and he showed us the way. It was a very big adventure. While we passed the small villages, we would throw candies out the windows for the kids. Finally we had found him and we prayed for him and asked him if we could pour some water that we had prayed over - over his hand. So we squeezed him in and we drove him to the hospital. Finally when we got to the hospital, it turns out we had to wait for an hour -which turned into many. We waited as long as we could but finally we just had to give him some money to cover his expenses, a ride back and to just bless him. And so we were off. We felt so good that we helped this man and hopefully we can figure out how everything went and hopefully it's good. I won't be able to write to you for a few days for where I'm going there will be no internet. I'll write as soon as possible. God Bless you.

Jaako

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Great to be back!!

I'm finally back!! It's my second time and it's just beautiful. We have gone to two villages, and handed out just under 400 Bags of Hope. We've bought 90- 50 Kilogram bags of maize and I've done some catching up with old friends. It's nice to have a bigger team and we have been making Bags of Hope night after night.

The villages were full of poverty, malnourished stomaches, ripped clothes and one man had a very bad infection on his finger and can die from it if he doesn't see a doctor. And he lives far out from Lilongwe, so that can't be good.

It's so nice to come back and hear all the same songs. There's not much more to say, I'll write to you soon. That is your Malawi update.......

Jaako