Getting Started from Paul & Darlene

The trip to Africa is a long one. New York City to Johannesburg is 17 hours 50 minutes. From Johannesburg to Lilongwe is another 2½ hour flight. Lines for boarding passes, security checks, luggage weighing, baggage claim, and customs all add to the length of the journey. Once on the ground in Malawi, with our cases loaded on the roof of the Land Cruiser, it is a 5 hour ride to Mzuzu, our final destination.

The road is paved, but narrow, with dogs, goats, ox carts, bicycles and pedestrians scattered along the route. We wind through the enchanting African countryside for hours. There is one stop between Lilongwe and Mzuzu where we get Cokes and yogurt. We brought apples along with us so we call it lunch. There are some “fast food” vendors along the side of the road offering “mick-on-a-stick” (mouse kabobs) but we demure.

Augustine (our driver and the Crisis Nursery Administrative Assistant) suddenly pulls over, saying the brakes feel soft. He adds about a quart of brake fluid, and notices on his way back to the trunk that the tire is soft. He says it had been pulling to the left. Paul & I use this opportunity to get out of the vehicle and go into the bush to “kill a lion.” We start out again, black diesel smoke belching out the back. I ask if we will make it. “Oh, we’ll make it”, he says. I hope he is right.

In another hour we are groaning up the hill to our new house, trunks perched on top and luggage stuffed inside. I can smell hot brake fluid as we struggle the last few feet up the driveway and lumber past the gate of our typically walled Malawi compound.

Luggage is unloaded and trunks are handed down. I feel relieved and grateful. We really did make it! Just then, as the last piece is handed down from the roof, the truck starts to roll backwards down a step embankment. Screams go up and everyone stands back. Charles (our boss who accompanied us) vaults off the roof, and lunges onto the front seat, as the vehicle picks up momentum. Before he is able to apply the brakes, the truck crashes into the brick wall at the side of the driveway. It is drama in slow motion as bricks and mortar fall and the wall collapses. The truck’s tailgate is smashed, hot brake fluid leaks out underneath, the soft tire looks more deflated, and a 5 liter water jug lies squashed to death on the driveway. As the dust settles, the wall looks as if it has been hit by a mortar.

We assess for damage. No one is hurt, no luggage is lost, the brick wall is repairable. The truck struggles out of the rubble and will make it into the repair shop where the “beaters” will mend the tailgate and the mechanics will repair the brakes and tire.

Yes, we really did make it. With God’s grace we have safely arrived at our new place of service. This much we can say already—the orphaned and abandoned babies in northern Malawi are being well cared for by a competent and compassionate Malawian Staff.

But they (we) can’t do it alone. There is a great need for volunteers (both local and international) to hold, feed, change, and play with the babies. We need a continuous supply of plastic pants, cloth and disposable diapers, baby wipes, and plastic gloves. What’s more, within the year we must build our own Nursery facility on land we have already purchased. Our landlord will not sell the house we are renting, and Social Services insists that we cannot continue to rent because the possibility of eviction puts the program at risk.

So as you go about God’s business in your daily life, we thank you for remembering us here in Malawi, Africa as we go about God’s business of caring for His most vulnerable ones. We treasure your prayers. We treasure your concern. And we treasure your support.

Grace & Peace,
Darlene & Paul

P.S. Our desired capacity is 15 infants but we are now stretched to the max with 18. We need your prayers on a daily basis for the ministry here.
Every child deserves a family!