Monday, we left Zomba and took a minibus to Monkey Bay on Lake Malawi. It was about a 4 hour drive and the last hour was probably the roughest road I’ve ever been on. Luckily, the area was true to it’s name and we saw around 10 baboons as we approached Chombe, the village where we were going to be staying.
Our bus got stuck in the sand right before we got to the home of our host, Moses. He is a hub leader for the area so he is responsible for training up new preachers and planting churches in the region. He is also a fantastic musician. He played some familiar hymns and I was so happy to hear the tunes again.
The next day was more house visits and in the afternoon we headed over to the next town to have a service for the people there. After speaking and praying for the people there we were about an hour late for our outdoor worship service in Chombe.
After we finished we went to a lodge on the water to eat Thanksgiving lunch with Medson and Mrs. Magatta, who came with us to cook and care for us on our travel. She had lived in Malawi her whole life up until this week and had never seen the lake. I got a cheeseburger, sweet potato fries and a coke and ate them with an amazing view of the lake.
Afterward, Robin and I went SCUBA diving in the lake. It was amazing! We took a small boat to a nearby island and dove in a protected bay area. The locals said there are over 500 kinds of fish there and I would believe it. The fish were small compared to most tropical salt water fish, but they were brilliantly colored and there was a huge variety.
After we finished our dive I found out that Patrick, our guide was the fist Malawian SCUBA instructor. His story is amazing. He started out by taking the job of night watchman at the dive shop and when the owners found out how smart he was and he could speak and write English, they began to teach him how to swim and dive. Over the years he added credentials and two years ago he passed his exams to be a dive instructor.
We got back to the beach and hopped in our bus (after push starting it- like always) and headed back as the sun was setting. As evening faded to night I got to see an amazing night sky. Since we have been in the southern hemisphere there has either been a full moon or clouds, so I hadn’t gotten to see the southern sky yet. Well as we were driving, there was not a cloud in the sky and not a light around except for our headlights. I got to see half a sky full of stars I had never seen before in my life.
We arrived safely around 9 and Medson’s lovely wife, Rose had dinner waiting for us. I was a little sad to miss Thanksgiving with my family back home, but I got to spend it with my family in Malawi. Altogether this Thanksgiving was truly a gift from God.
Here is a video I made about getting the money for bibles and giving some of them away. If you want to save it, right click here and select save as.
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