We finally made it to Malawi on January 8th and have been settling in for the last couple of weeks. We were staying in one of the guest cottages at the Project, but moved into our house about 3 days ago. It feels good to finally have a place to really unpack everything. 
A quick recap of the last 2 weeks: British Airways forgot one of our bags in London, so we had 5 or the 6 we checked in Houston. Luckily, it did show up about 8 days after we landed. Driving on the left side of the road is actually pretty easy, its all the chickens, goats and sad skinny cows you have to watch our for that make driving challenging. As we drive through the villages near the project you can hear little kids yelling “Azungu!” which mean white person and they stand on the edge of the road and wave. Most of the time it is really cute. Our first Sunday at churchwas great. We went to Flood Church in Lilongwe and spent the afternoon with our friends that work at African Bible College.
It is malaria season and the clinic is really busy. The staff saw 462 patients in a day last week and over a thousand patients in the week. We have been observing and learning from the clinical officers until we are registered with the Malawi Medical Counsel, which we hope will happen soon. The Malawi Medical Counsel made a trip out to the clinic to certify the Operating Theatre (Room) and Ward for use. This changes the status of the clinic to a community hospital. This is a huge accomplishment and we are really proud of how hard everyone worked to get it ready for the inspection.
The clinic staff has been very welcoming and encouraging. Our morning staff meetings start with prayer, but the Tuesday staff meeting is my favorite because it is devotional day. Members of the staff take turns giving a devotional message and that person also gives a devotional message to the patients in the waiting area that morning too.
Last Thursday was Jared’s 30th Birthday. Our friend Afshan made him a red velvet cake from scratch. 
Unfortunately she ran out of red food coloring so it was more of a pink velvet chocolate cake. None the less it tasted amazing. She tried to make it look more masculine by adding mint leaves, but it didn’t really work.
